Time to focus on students, not politics
The community is counting on HISD trustees, including two new conservative members.
You’ve seen the videos: Parents frothing over how race or sexuality or history are taught in their kids’ schools, often spurred on by pundits and politicians determined to make education a wedge issue.
Hanging in the balance as the adults scream at each other? The successful education of our children.
This dynamic came home to Houston earlier this month when two candidates who had rallied supporters by hammering away at the phantom threat of critical race theory and the so-called tyranny of mask mandates won seats on the Houston ISD board of trustees in lowturnout, high-stakes runoffs. Pastor Kendall Baker won by less than 100 votes in District 6, and Bridget Wade ousted Trustee Anne Sung in District 7.
Elsewhere in the region and state this election cycle, conservatives won on similar platforms, including in Cy-Fair ISD.
“Knocking on doors in District 7, it was pretty clear to me that the impression that voters have of public schools, if they don’t themselves have children in public schools, is informed by Fox News and national news coverage that has nothing to do with what our kids are being taught,” Sung told the Chronicle recently.
An election that ought to have been about teacher pay and student progress turned into a microcosm of the national battle over racism and mask use. Every school board candidate said they wanted to put students first, but actually doing so means listening to education and health experts over enraged partisans.
After a partisan, bitter campaign, how do we move forward and put the actual issues facing HISD first? Approximately 50 HISD schools have “D” or “F” state accountability ratings, and north of 95 percent of students at those schools are children of color. The district must continue navigating the possibility of a state takeover, and the pandemic has exacerbated learning gaps and other inequities in education that must be addressed.
And there’s still the lingering aftermath of the 2018 debacle in which state officials contend multiple trustees violated the Texas Open Meetings Act by meeting with a former superintendent — and subsequently voting with no public debate to install him as superintendent and oust the interim leader.
The new board — which will again include victorious incumbents Elizabeth Santos and Sue Deigaard, who won in HISD District I and District V, respectively — still has much work to do to regain the public trust after years of racial division, corruption and other forms of dysfunction. Federal authorities announced recently the indictments of several former HISD officials, including past board president Rhonda Skillern-Jones, in connection with an alleged bribery scheme.
Millard House II, the first permanent superintendent since 2018, is prepping the release of his anticipated full strategic action plan early next year.
The Republican Party of Texas announced earlier this month the formation of the Local Government Committee, which will work with county GOP organizations to support candidates in nonpartisan local elections. Increasingly, “nonpartisan” is a misnomer in local races. Gov. Greg Abbott, Rep. Dan Crenshaw and other high-profile Texas Republicans tweeted out their joy at the conservatives’ runoff victories.
Democrats, too, are mobilizing to bolster their preferred candidates’ chances in school board races. “Our democracy’s on the line, and it starts at our most local level,” Odus Evbagharu, chair of the Harris County Democratic Party, told the Texas Tribune recently.
Partisanship isn’t inherently a bad thing, and reasonable people with a wide range of political perspectives can and do help students get a great education. And two new members does not a majority make on the nineperson board; it takes three members to get an item onto the board’s formal agenda, unless the board president agrees.
It’s critical that the two new conservatives and the seven returning trustees see each other as colleagues, and not as adversaries, in order to face down the recent history of corruption and help the district’s struggling schools. Wade said some of the current members have reached out to her to offer their support as she adjusts.
“Give me some time to show what I am about. People have jumped to conclusions about me, and that’s fine, but at least give me time to see what I’m capable of — and hold me accountable, too,” Wade told the editorial board recently.
We didn’t endorse Wade or Baker in either the general election or the runoff, and we’ve disagreed with them on masks. We support the superintendent’s call this week to require face coverings into 2022 as we navigate this omicron variant wave. But we’ll take Wade up on her ask for a wait-and-see approach. As the trustees work to find solutions to HISD’s entrenched problems, it’s key that they be willing to look beyond traditional partisan fault lines to do so.
“People who continue to watch the school board will come to the realization that these partisan battles don’t really come up very often,” Jasmine Jenkins, executive director of Houstonians for Great Public Schools, told us earlier this month. Jenkins said she’s “cautiously optimistic” the board can refocus on the key issues as the political parties shift their focus to next March’s primaries.
As the new board prepares to get started early next month, members have struck tones suggesting they want to work with their new colleagues. Students, parents, teachers and the entire community are counting on House and the HISD board members to lead with a spirit of collaboration, and put the students first.