The places that need to offer reading access are having their libraries turned into computer centers…..
This as the state takes over elected school boards and turn to the Governor and State Lawmakers eductaion policy….
Governor Aboutt is a supporter of charter and private schools that most minorities cannot afford or gain access to for their children…
State eduactional takeovers happen around the country, all the time……
But in Texas and even Florida ……
Minorities seem to get short changed on the regular…..
The state of Texas this spring took over the Houston Independent School District, one of the nation’s largest school systems, and replaced its elected school board and the superintendent. The move had been years in the making, following chronic poor performance at some schools, past allegations of misconduct by school trustees and changes in state law — backed by a moderate Black Democrat from Houston — that made it easier for the state to take over school districts.
Since then, the new superintendent — a former Army Ranger, State Department diplomat and founder of a charter school network who has no official certification for the Houston job — has moved swiftly to adopt a new plan for educating the district’s children, focusing on rapidly improving reading and math scores in dozens of elementary and middle schools.
“The future is here, and we’re behind,” the superintendent, Mike Miles, said at a community meeting this month, describing persistent achievement gaps between Houston students and others around the state, and between the district’s Black and Hispanic students and their white classmates. “It means we have to do bold things now.”….
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As the takeover began this year, many parents and teachers in Houston, a strongly Democratic city, complained about the loss of input into their schools, and worried that the ultimate goal of state Republican leaders was to undermine support for public education and drive Houston parents to charter or private schools….
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With the first day of school approaching on Aug. 28, critics of the takeover have grown louder. This month, more than 200 people gathered in protest outside the district’s headquarters. “Houston Occupied School District,” read one sign. “Even prisons have libraries,” read another….
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Mr. Miles has said that given limited space and resources, the decision was a trade-off and that students in schools where libraries have been converted into team rooms would still be able to borrow books before or after school.
Still, Sylvester Turner, Houston’s mayor, said the effort risked creating two systems.
“He’s gone too far, and he’s dismantling the largest educational district in the state of Texas,” Mr. Turner said of Mr. Miles during a City Council hearing last month. “You cannot have a situation where you are closing libraries for some schools in certain neighborhoods, and there are other neighborhoods where there are libraries, fully equipped. What the hell are you doing?”….
image….Parents and teachers listened to Mr. Miles’s plan to focus on rapidly improving reading and math scores in dozens of elementary and middle schools.Credit…Meridith Kohut for The New York Times