A Few Questions from Tracy Rowlett

Dallas School Superintendent Michael Hinojosa has come full circle. The son of Mexican immigrants, he was forced to learn English after his family moved to Dallas when he was 2 years old. He studied hard, graduated from Sunset High School, and built a career as a respected educator and administrator. In May, Dr. Hinojosa took the reins of the DISD–complete with a $300,000 base salary. I talked to him about the district’s problems, his goals, and the politics of being a superintendent.
 
Rowlett: How far are we from having a first-rate public school system in Dallas?
Hinojosa: Well, obviously we are not there. But it is the expectation that we will deliver a world-class education. And I will settle for nothing less.  
 
Rowlett: How do you describe yourself? Are you a disciplinarian, a tough leader?
Hinojosa: No. My skill is in building teams. I’ve worked with more than 100 school board members in my tenure working across the state, and there are probably two out of that hundred that I wasn’t able to get along with. I’ve been all over the state, and I have never taken anybody with me. I have built teams from the existing people. I have been able, in every job I’ve had, to build high-performing teams. Now I do hold people accountable, and I have pushed them. We haven’t always agreed on everything, but that is part of building a shared vision. It’s not my way or the highway, because I think we can come up with a better way. But one thing I will not tolerate is for adults to bad-mouth children.
 
Rowlett: When you were interviewing for your position, did the subject of your doing outside consulting work ever come up?
Hinojosa: I don’t think it ever came up in an interview, but when I proposed my contract, I made sure there was nothing in there about consulting. When I came into this job, I stopped all my other outside activities, so I could truly focus. I need to put all of my efforts, my time and energy, into this job. It’s that important.  
 

CLASS ACTION: “If we don’t engage our students, somebody else will,” Hinojosa says.

Rowlett: What’s the biggest problem facing DISD?
Hinojosa: Well, there are a lot of problems, but the biggest challenge is making sure our students are academically successful. There are demands for student accountability, and we all welcome accountability, but we need the resources to deal with their academic needs. We know being involved in a lot of activities will keep students in school. But academic achievement is what they need to be successful when they get out of school.

Rowlett: Hispanics make up the fastest growing ethnic group in DISD, and Hispanics have the highest drop-out rate. How do you keep those youngsters in school?
Hinojosa: Unfortunately, 60 percent of the immigrant children who come here come at the secondary level, the level where we don’t have bilingual education. We know adults have a hard time learning a second language, and the same thing happens with students when they come here at the secondary level. We have to keep them interested, and there has to be engagement in the schools. And if we don’t engage them, somebody else will. Keeping students in school will require a multifaceted, long-term solution, and we are just in the infancy with that, and it is extremely important. I’ve been gone for several years, but you can see the regeneration of Dallas. A lot of people want to move back to the city. But for us to have true economic development, we need a work force that has skills. Communication skills are critical. So this can work to our advantage, and it might be a good thing if all of our students, regardless of cultural background, could speak two languages. It’s going to take a long time to solve this problem, and I hope I have the opportunity to be here to see a project like this through.

Rowlett: It will take money for the staff and resources you’re talking about. How do you get that money without significant restructuring of school finance?
Hinojosa: That is a significant challenge. During the school finance trial, we heard that to get 70 percent of the students passing the TAKS test, we would need another $1,100 per student. I appreciate the Legislature looking at the matter, but the plans coming through are not giving us additional resources. Most of the talk is about property tax relief, not about putting more resources into education. The young people are this state’s most important resource, and it is going to take more effort and money to educate these students.
 
Rowlett: We saw some major cutbacks in staff just before you got here.  Will we see more cutbacks if something isn’t done in the Legislature?
Hinojosa: Absolutely. We’re a labor-intensive organization. You can only cut so much in travel and supplies and materials until you have to start cutting into the staff and then you have to start cutting into the schools. Unfortunately, in the Spring School District, where I came from, we had to add students to the secondary classes to overcome a $13 million deficit in one year. And that is not the thing to do. We don’t have to make the classes larger. We need to give our teachers support. It is really important that we be fiscally sound and that we are good stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars. But just walking through the schools, I can see that there are needs that must be met.
 
Rowlett: So what is the financial solution? Do we need a higher business tax, for example?
Hinojosa: In this state we only have two legs to the stool: there’s a sales tax and there’s a property tax. There is no other tax. If you had a more balanced tax, it would give more people the opportunity to share. But everyone is for a tax that doesn’t affect him.

Rowlett: So we need some politicians with the guts to say this has got to be done and we have to get a new tax passed?
Hinojosa: Looking at the future, we need some statesmen leadership. And there are many business leaders, and many in the Legislature who feel that way. But action needs to follow the rhetoric.

Rowlett: Are our children becoming political footballs?
Hinojosa: I don’t think anyone would characterize it that way. It’s just that our children are so precious that there has to be a focus on what they need to be successful. You know, the problems are very big. We have many nationalities represented in this district who can’t speak English, not just kids from Mexico. And we have children from Somalia, for instance, who have never worn shoes. Our teachers have to teach them how to tie shoes. This district has a lot of needs.