End Systemic Racism in Texas Public Schools
End Systemic Racism in Texas Public Schools
The Issue
STATE public schools should be EQUALLY funded by the STATE, not the surrounding city that they are located in.
Because school districts are mostly funded by property taxes (collected from the surrounding city a school is located in), schools in poorer communities are overcrowded, teachers are underpaid, and there is little access to high quality tutors or extracurricular activities. It is the opposite for schools in wealthy communities, even if those wealthy communities are just a few streets over from poor communities.
This happens because of America’s history of systemic racism. Around the 1930’s, many government agencies started to draw maps, dividing sections of cities that were desirable or undesirable for investment. This practice is called “Redlining” and usually blocked off entire African American and/or “foreign born family” neighborhoods from access to public and private investment. Banks and insurance companies used these maps for decades to deny minorities loans and other services based purely on race.
Historically speaking, owning a home and getting a college education is the easiest way for an American family to build wealth. But when minorities wanted to buy a home in the past (this actually went on from around 1930 through the mid 1990’s, although there is evidence that the practice still occurs), the banks refused because they lived in a neighborhood that was redlined, so they were unable to buy a home. Also, because colleges could prevent minorities from attending through legal segregation (which happened legally until 1954), options for higher education were extremely limited. Studies as recent as 2017 confirm that redlining is still affecting home values in major cities.
Since school districts are funded by the property taxes collected within that particular neighborhood district, school districts in wealthy neighborhoods are better off, giving their students a smaller teacher to student ratio, better equipment, more opportunities for tutors and extracurricular activities. School districts in poor neighborhoods have larger teacher to student ratios, hand-me-down equipment or none at all, and few opportunities for tutors and extracurricular activities.
In the Austin 1940 redlining map, west Austin sections were deemed as “Grade A, Best; or Grade B, Still Desirable; these graded A and B sections are now the neighborhoods which are included in Eanes ISD. There is a large red area labelled “Hazardous” on the south side of Austin, starting from Barton Springs, south to Live Oak St. Today, that section of Austin includes Austin Public Schools currently facing challenges regarding academics, college readiness, and extracurricular activities.
In the Dallas 1940 redlining map, the Highland Park area was deemed as “First Grade, green; and Second Grade, blue” Today, Highland Park ISD has one of the top school districts in Texas. The D3 section labeled Oak Cliff was labeled “Fourth Grade, red”. As of today, even a quick Google search of the schools in the Oak Cliff area in Dallas reveal that they are experiencing challenges regarding college readiness, test scores, and achievement gaps.
Redlining is still affecting people today in Texas. It starts with home values and then spreads to the schools located around those homes. If we want racist and antiquated redlining practices from the 1930’s to stop affecting so many people today, we need to make some major changes. Getting ALL of the Texas public schools to be funded equally by one account that taxpayer money goes into for the entire state, (instead of just receiving the neighborhood district tax money that surrounds the schools) could bring about some much needed equality for a lot of public school children that are struggling.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-redlining-still-hurts-home-values-2018-04-26
https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=12/30.276/-97.808&city=austin-tx the green “trend of best section” labelled on the left of the map contains Eanes ISD.
https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=12/32.827/-96.802&city=dallas-tx&area=A7 Areas A7 and B12 are current parts of Highland Park.
I am aware of the Recapture Program or "Robin Hood" Program in the State of Texas, used to help equalize funding between public schools. However, it still is not making things exactly equal. It is reported that the Texas State Supreme Court found that wealthier Texas school districts still have 1.26 times more funding than "property-poor districts" with the Recapture Program.
Let’s urge our state legislators to work together and figure out a way for ALL Texas public schools to be funded EQUALLY by the entire state’s property tax money and other funds collected and allocated toward Texas public schools each year. (Instead of the way it is now, which leaves Texas public schools in poorer district areas with very scarce funding/resources due to less property taxes being collected from those areas.)
The basic idea would be that all of the property tax money and other funds allocated for Texas public schools would be collected and put into a “One Texas Schools Fund”, which would be dispersed equally to all of the public schools in the State of Texas. A declared set amount of money per student would have to be established each year to allocate towards the public schools and must be adjusted for inflation, etc. All of these funds should be visibly tracked through a dashboard (Like the Arcgis dashboard that is tracking COVID-19 data for Texas) so that everyone in the state of Texas can see where the public school money goes. Transparency is important! All donations, fundraisers, and/or other events held to raise money for Texas public schools would go into the “One Texas School Fund” so all of the public schools in Texas can benefit from any donated money.
I hope this can create a good platform to bring about change. ☮️
https://www.kut.org/post/schools-travis-county-are-not-just-segregated-theyre-most-segregated-state
The Issue
STATE public schools should be EQUALLY funded by the STATE, not the surrounding city that they are located in.
Because school districts are mostly funded by property taxes (collected from the surrounding city a school is located in), schools in poorer communities are overcrowded, teachers are underpaid, and there is little access to high quality tutors or extracurricular activities. It is the opposite for schools in wealthy communities, even if those wealthy communities are just a few streets over from poor communities.
This happens because of America’s history of systemic racism. Around the 1930’s, many government agencies started to draw maps, dividing sections of cities that were desirable or undesirable for investment. This practice is called “Redlining” and usually blocked off entire African American and/or “foreign born family” neighborhoods from access to public and private investment. Banks and insurance companies used these maps for decades to deny minorities loans and other services based purely on race.
Historically speaking, owning a home and getting a college education is the easiest way for an American family to build wealth. But when minorities wanted to buy a home in the past (this actually went on from around 1930 through the mid 1990’s, although there is evidence that the practice still occurs), the banks refused because they lived in a neighborhood that was redlined, so they were unable to buy a home. Also, because colleges could prevent minorities from attending through legal segregation (which happened legally until 1954), options for higher education were extremely limited. Studies as recent as 2017 confirm that redlining is still affecting home values in major cities.
Since school districts are funded by the property taxes collected within that particular neighborhood district, school districts in wealthy neighborhoods are better off, giving their students a smaller teacher to student ratio, better equipment, more opportunities for tutors and extracurricular activities. School districts in poor neighborhoods have larger teacher to student ratios, hand-me-down equipment or none at all, and few opportunities for tutors and extracurricular activities.
In the Austin 1940 redlining map, west Austin sections were deemed as “Grade A, Best; or Grade B, Still Desirable; these graded A and B sections are now the neighborhoods which are included in Eanes ISD. There is a large red area labelled “Hazardous” on the south side of Austin, starting from Barton Springs, south to Live Oak St. Today, that section of Austin includes Austin Public Schools currently facing challenges regarding academics, college readiness, and extracurricular activities.
In the Dallas 1940 redlining map, the Highland Park area was deemed as “First Grade, green; and Second Grade, blue” Today, Highland Park ISD has one of the top school districts in Texas. The D3 section labeled Oak Cliff was labeled “Fourth Grade, red”. As of today, even a quick Google search of the schools in the Oak Cliff area in Dallas reveal that they are experiencing challenges regarding college readiness, test scores, and achievement gaps.
Redlining is still affecting people today in Texas. It starts with home values and then spreads to the schools located around those homes. If we want racist and antiquated redlining practices from the 1930’s to stop affecting so many people today, we need to make some major changes. Getting ALL of the Texas public schools to be funded equally by one account that taxpayer money goes into for the entire state, (instead of just receiving the neighborhood district tax money that surrounds the schools) could bring about some much needed equality for a lot of public school children that are struggling.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-redlining-still-hurts-home-values-2018-04-26
https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=12/30.276/-97.808&city=austin-tx the green “trend of best section” labelled on the left of the map contains Eanes ISD.
https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=12/32.827/-96.802&city=dallas-tx&area=A7 Areas A7 and B12 are current parts of Highland Park.
I am aware of the Recapture Program or "Robin Hood" Program in the State of Texas, used to help equalize funding between public schools. However, it still is not making things exactly equal. It is reported that the Texas State Supreme Court found that wealthier Texas school districts still have 1.26 times more funding than "property-poor districts" with the Recapture Program.
Let’s urge our state legislators to work together and figure out a way for ALL Texas public schools to be funded EQUALLY by the entire state’s property tax money and other funds collected and allocated toward Texas public schools each year. (Instead of the way it is now, which leaves Texas public schools in poorer district areas with very scarce funding/resources due to less property taxes being collected from those areas.)
The basic idea would be that all of the property tax money and other funds allocated for Texas public schools would be collected and put into a “One Texas Schools Fund”, which would be dispersed equally to all of the public schools in the State of Texas. A declared set amount of money per student would have to be established each year to allocate towards the public schools and must be adjusted for inflation, etc. All of these funds should be visibly tracked through a dashboard (Like the Arcgis dashboard that is tracking COVID-19 data for Texas) so that everyone in the state of Texas can see where the public school money goes. Transparency is important! All donations, fundraisers, and/or other events held to raise money for Texas public schools would go into the “One Texas School Fund” so all of the public schools in Texas can benefit from any donated money.
I hope this can create a good platform to bring about change. ☮️
https://www.kut.org/post/schools-travis-county-are-not-just-segregated-theyre-most-segregated-state
Petition Closed
Share this petition
The Decision Makers
Petition Updates
Share this petition
Petition created on June 4, 2020