Michael Sorrell, president of Paul Quinn College in Dallas, could not contain his excitement.
The Crowley ISD school board had just unanimously approved a partnership in which Paul Quinn College will run day-to-day operations of the district’s four middle schools starting in the 2025-26 academic year. Administrators see the innovative partnership as a way to slingshot academic performance to new heights.
Sorrell had to tell an audience gathered inside the board room Aug. 8 his secret, one that almost certainly will affect the future of hundreds of students.
“I don’t really know if this is the time to announce this, but I’m horrible at secrets anyway,” Sorrell said, with a smile. “Our intention is to create a program that admits Crowley middle school students to college when they enter into sixth grade.”
Automatic admission changes the perception of higher education, Sorrell said. Too often, college is seen as a luxury item, particularly in communities of color. Instead, he wants Crowley ISD students to know from their first day of sixth grade that they will achieve great things and attend college.
Sorrell, who has led the historically Black college since 2007, compared the plight of low-income students beating generational poverty to the superhero team the Avengers.
“Spider-Man is part of the Avengers. No one expected Spider-Man to beat Thanos by himself,” Sorrell said. “So why did we expect first-generation college students to Pell Grant students to defeat generational poverty by themselves? It doesn’t make sense.”
More than 3 in 4 Crowley ISD students are from low-income families.
First partnership for Crowley ISD, Paul Quinn
Crowley ISD is using a 2017 law called Senate Bill 1882 to forge its partnership with Paul Quinn College. The law provides financial incentives for school districts to create partnerships with third-party entities, such as colleges and charter school operators. The partnerships can focus on either innovation or turnaround.
Neighboring Fort Worth ISD has a partnership with Texas Wesleyan University that focuses on turning around underperforming campuses. The Leadership Academy Network covers four elementary schools and one middle school.
The Leadership Academy Network schools are among the highest funded in Fort Worth ISD.
Superintendent Michael McFarland described the Paul Quinn partnership, the first for both the district and college, as squarely in the innovation category.
The district started examining SB 1882 in 2017, when McFarland started his superintendency.
Since then, the district focused investments more at the elementary level — and it paid off, McFarland said. The district’s 13 elementary schools received either A’s or B’s from the state in 2022, the most recent year accountability ratings were issued.
Now, it’s time for a similar push for middle school, McFarland said.
“What we saw is that the middle school level was an area that we had invested the least amount in. We needed to really look at, ‘How do we invest at the middle school level?’” the superintendent said. “This 1882 partnership provided an opportunity for that.”
In 2022, Crowley ISD middle schools received C grades from the state.
In February, six colleges and one nonprofit expressed interest as a possible partner, according to Crowley ISD.
Paul Quinn College rose to the top because Crowley ISD leaders thought it had the greatest opportunity to ensure students reached their full potential, school board President Daryl Davis said.
McFarland thought it was important for all four of his district’s middle schools to be in the partnership. The decision, he said, is based on a single question: “Whose education are we concerned about?”
“We are concerned about the education of all of our middle school students,” McFarland said, elongating the word “all” for emphasis. “So we believe that all of these students should participate and be beneficiaries of innovation.”
‘Truly thriving’
Crowley ISD and Paul Quinn College will spend the next year working out the details of the new program, McFarland said.
One detail is already certain: sixth graders will be immersed in a college-going culture, the superintendent said. Students likely will take field trips to Paul Quinn College. They also will be taught college-level lessons by actual professors.
The school board president hopes the partnership will result in “monumental gains” in middle school performance.
“We envision a partnership that is not just surviving, not just meeting the mark, but that is truly thriving,” Daryl Davis said.
Trustee June Davis has been on the Crowley ISD school board for nearly 20 years. She has seen her fair share of initiatives.
“But this initiative ranks among the top because of the possibilities it offers our students,” the school board member said. “I truly believe, with this partnership, our students will be able to achieve endless possibilities, and the sky will be the limit for them.”
Jacob Sanchez is a senior education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or @_jacob_sanchez. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
