INSIGHTS

FOR THE LAST two years, Dallas School Board President Kathlyn Gilliam has presided over perhaps the most socially arrogant, administratively ignorant elected body in our city’s history. The damage Miss Gilliam and the eight other board members who sit with her have done to the city of Dallas is incalculable, but suffice it to say that they have put personal hatred for each other and political gain for themselves above the education of our children.

The price of the board’s civic larceny, regardless of how it’s measured, has been enormous:

– In dollar terms, this school board voted for, and presides over, a $350 million annual budget, more money than it costs the City of Dallas to provide what we consider to be “essential services” such as fire and police protection, sanitation services, street repairs, etc., combined.

-In taxation terms, with the exception of the 1981-’82 budget, it has been the DISD, not the City of Dallas, that has raised your property taxes with abandon and without proper accountability or concern. The school board committed the fiscal crime; the city council took the fiscal rap.

– And most important, in educational terms, the DISD spends more money with less results to educate each student than any other large school district in the state. Traditionally and continually the Dallas Independent School District is promoting and graduating the most ignorant students in Texas.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that on Nov. 3 (barring a successful lawsuit to delay it), all nine seats on the Dallas Independent School District Board of Trustees will be up for election, and never has the opportunity been so enticing to exercise our constitutional prerogative to go to the polls and, in the best American tradition, throw the bums out.

It is fair to say that the upcoming local elections are by far the most important that Dallas voters have faced in a decade. It is also fair to say that the 12 hours the polls are open on Nov. 3 (7 a.m.-7 p.m.) will determine not only the future of public education here but also, in large measure, the quality of life in the City of Dallas as well.

Close observers of the DISD, including this writer, concur that unless we elect a competent, results-oriented school board Nov. 3, we will never get another opportunity to turn our school system around. The next election won’t take place until 1983, and the DISD is deteriorating so quickly that there will be nothing left to save by then.

In the last 10 years, more than 55,000 students have fled the DISD in favor of suburban or private schools. During the same period, the ethnic composition of the DISD has shifted from nearly 60 per cent Anglo to less than 30 per cent. Increasingly, public education in Dallas is becoming the equivalent of public housing: a municipal service of last resort, utilized mainly by the poor, the black and the disenfranchised.

Nine out of 10 teachers who now resign are Anglo, and the DISD itself estimates that one out of every three teachers hired in the last three years would fail a high school achievement test.

All of this educational carnage has gone on under the direction of the current school board with its propensity for social and educational experimentation in our classrooms. Seven out of the nine current school board members served under the ignominious reign of Superintendent Nolan Estes, and Estes’ presence, like Banquo’s ghost at Macbeth’s table, is still in evidence at board meetings and in school board policy.

Therefore, nothing short of a complete changing of the guard will do. While D Magazine does not endorse candidates for office, we would recommend that our readers vote against any of the four incumbents seeking re-election. Beyond that, we would offer the following advice in deciding whom to vote for on Nov. 3.

First, understand the electoral process. If you are a registered voter and live within the DISD, you are eligible to vote for one candidate who will represent your sub-district. The DISD Action Center (214-824-1620) can tell you what subdistrict you live in and who your candidates are.

Because school board elections tend to bring out the crazies as well as the serious candidates, it is imperative that you learn something about those running in your subdistrict before casting your vote.

Second, vote. An infinitesimally small number of voters participate in school board elections. Fewer than 1,000 votes may decide many, if not most, of these contests. Never have so few decided issues of such importance for so many. An example? Kathlyn Gilliam, whom some argue has more influence on the city than Mayor Jack Evans, was elected in 1979 with a total of 314 votes. She had no opposition.

Third, vote only for candidates who place the education of our children at the top of their priorities. The main purpose of our public schools is to educate, not to integrate, not to teach children how to dribble a basketball, not to correct an inadequate home environment, and certainly not to provide jobs as a last resort to the otherwise unemployable. Support candidates who support an educational program that emphasizes fundamental education and spurns social experimentation.

Fourth, and finally, familiarize yourself with the major issues and the candidates’ positions on them. A primer would include teacher pay (much too low), administrator pay (much too high), teacher competence (much too low; incompetent teachers must be identified through periodic testing and fired), “social promotion” (it should be eliminated immediately), bilingual education (non-English-speaking students should be mainstreamed into English as quickly as possible), affirmative action (it has no place in our public school system if it means bypassing a more-qualified applicant in favor of a less-qualified applicant, regardless of the race or color of either), discipline in the classroom and higher expectations of students (more of both).

Above all, we must elect a businesslike school board that will demand accountability at all levels of the school district. We must elect a school board that understands the difference between setting policy (the board’s rightful role) and carrying out that policy (the school superintendent’s rightful role). The current board sees itself not as a policy-making body but as a “super-superintendent.”

We can change all that by simply votingon Nov. 3.