An urgent call for change in Texas education

2011 was a challenging year for Texas education. With lingering effects from the 2008 recession and an unbalanced budget, the Texas Legislature faced the difficult choice to cut $5.3 billion from public education, with over $500 million of this cut being felt in Dallas County.
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This reduction couldn’t have come at a worse time for Dallas County and its 14 public school districts. Only 35% of its third graders were reading on grade level and just 15% of its high school graduates were completing postsecondary degrees within six years. This lack of educational attainment was severely impairing economic opportunity in one of the nation’s most robust economies. Employers were being forced to recruit talent that had been educated elsewhere to fill our jobs, with the under-skilling of our own young adults ages 25-34 resulting in less than a quarter of all adults earning a living wage.

It was clear that something had to change.