This blog on Texas education contains posts on higher education, as well as preK-12 policy accountability, testing, bilingual education, immigration, school finance, race, class, and gender issues at both the state and national level. It also represents my digital footprint, of life and career, as a community-engaged scholar in Texas.
This is so shameful and unacceptable what's happening in Slaton and Lubbock-Cooper independent school districts in West Texas. I can only imagine how frustrating it is for students' and parents' complaints to go unheeded and even worsened by district responses.
All students are deserving of a healthy, positive school climate free from racial bullying, discrimination, and harassment.
Glad to see the NAACP, the Intercultural Development Research Association, and the Texas American Civil Liberties Union working together toward a federal complaint with the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights on behalf of these Black students experiencing discrimination.
Reports of racist bullying at Slaton High School are part of a pattern of discrimination in and around Lubbock, Texas, civil rights groups say. They’re filing complaints and calling on the federal government to investigate.
SLATON, Texas — The Black girl’s hands were shaking as she approached a white classmate in gym class.
“I told you,” Autumn Roberson-Manahan said, her voice quivering, “to stop using that word.”
Autumn, a 17-year-old senior at Slaton High School, said she’d asked the boy four days in a row to stop saying the N-word in class. And for four consecutive days, according to Autumn and a half-dozen other students later interviewed by the school principal, the boy had disregarded her pleas.
He’d said the slur while talking trash on the basketball court, Autumn recalled: “Oh! I’m ballin’ on y’all n----s.” And while cleaning up at the end of class: “These dumb n----s left the balls out again.” That day, Oct. 27, he’d said it again, smirking after having dribbled past a student and hitting a jump shot, Autumn said.
By then, Autumn, a straight-A student and one of only two dozen Black students at her small-town high school outside Lubbock, had been complaining about racial harassment involving three other classmates since the second week of school, according to interviews with Autumn and her family, messages they sent to administrators and a civil rights complaint filed Monday with the U.S. Department of Education. In September, she’d secretly recorded two boys in class calling her the N-word. When the alleged harassment continued, Autumn told administrators she was struggling to focus on her schoolwork. Her parents tried to intervene, demanding to speak with the principal and writing to the superintendent.
But the racist comments didn’t stop, according to the federal complaint.
That’s why, Autumn said, when the boy in gym class said the slur yet again, she snapped. “My mindset was: ‘This is the only way it’s gonna stop. This is the only way he’s gonna learn.’”
A classmate noticed what was about to happen and hit record on a cellphone. The grainy video appears to show Autumn — who had no major disciplinary history — grabbing the boy by the hood of his sweatshirt and yelling at him between each openhanded slap to the top of his head: “You’re gonna learn! … To stop! … That f------! … N----- shit!”
As the student wriggled out of Autumn’s grasp and darted away, she continued to shout at him, tears forming in her eyes as a substitute teacher stepped between them: “It’s not OK!” Autumn screamed. “It’s racist!”
The violent outburst, which had been building for months, lasted barely 30 seconds — but it was long enough to derail Autumn’s life.
Slaton administrators sentenced her to 45 days in an alternative school for students with severe disciplinary problems, according to the complaint and records reviewed by NBC News. Distraught and convinced that her future was ruined, Autumn’s family said she ran away from home last month and made a plan to kill herself. Now out of the hospital and recovering, the girl who’d entered this school year hoping to be named valedictorian is no longer sure she’s going to graduate on time.
“They took my beautiful baby girl — who my husband and I worked so hard to mold and love and support — and they broke her,” Autumn’s mother, JaQuatta Manahan, said in an interview. “They didn’t protect her. They cast her aside like she was trash.”
Autumn's parents, Broderick and JaQuatta Manahan, said they repeatedly asked Slaton administrators to address racist harassment.Mike Hixenbaugh / NBC News
Book banning totally needs to become the bad policy that it is. Most parents—and teachers and administrators—oppose schools becoming battlegrounds in our current culture war against books—a war characterized by shrill, exaggerated expressions of the books children are exposed to in schools.
I agree with author E. J. Dionne, Jr., that it should not at all be the case that the most upset parent can determine either a school's library holdings or what kids read in school, suggesting the need for parents and communities to step up to the plate and challenge this nonsense. Here are the most concerning observations Dionne offers:
A report by the freedom of expression group PEN America found 1,586 instances of individual books being banned between July 1, 2021, and March 31, 2022, affecting 1,145 unique book titles. In September, the American Library Association reported that there would be more challenges to books in 2022 than there were in 2021, which was a record year.
Clearly, bans against books and the teaching of controversial topics—under the auspices of the disingenuous "anti-CRT" instruction agenda, are "red meat" issues that don't square with most parents and youth who are in the majority of those seeking a truthful and fair rendering of society and our nation's history.
If you need Texas data on this, check out the Butt Foundation report titled, Connected Through Our Schools). If these folks decrying alleged indoctrination via "porn" that's getting taught in our schools really cared about public education, they'd be pushing for funding it and stemming the teacher turnover crisis. Instead, they opt for engaging in a contrived culture war that is cynical and damaging of the the trust that should emanate from the hard work and good faith efforts of our teachers, administrators, and librarians.
by E. J. Dionne, Jr., Washington Post, December 18, 2022
Amanda Darrow, director of youth, family and education programs at the Utah Pride Center, poses in Salt Lake City on Dec. 16, 2021, with books that have been the subject of complaints from parents. (Rick Bowmer/AP)
There was a time when the term “Banned in Boston” was one of the best things that could happen to a book, a play or a movie. From roughly the 1880s to the mid-20th century, a censoriousness rooted in the city’s Puritan past supported especially aggressive laws aimed at suppressing material seen as salacious or dangerous. For many, the label was a guarantee that whatever was banned must have been, well, interesting.
I just learned from this piece that "[o]f the state’s nearly 132,000 candidates in teacher prep programs in 2021, more than half were enrolled through Texas Teachers of Tomorrow." The program's enrollment moreover, "neared 70,000 last year. Fewer than 6,000 people completed the program and fewer than 5,500 gained their full teaching certification, according to self-reported data."
Problems like these can most definitely adversely impact our state's teacher shortage.
Texas Teachers of Tomorrow’s future is in jeopardy after failing to show improvements
Any state action taken against Texas Teachers of Tomorrow could trigger huge reverberations across schools when the educator workforce is already stretched thin(iStock / Getty Images)
Texas’ largest teacher preparation program failed to show enough improvements on probation, so the state is moving toward revoking its accreditation, according to documents obtained by The Dallas Morning News.
Now the fate of Texas Teachers of Tomorrow is in limbo as it likely faces a lengthy trial to determine whether it can continue to certify would-be educators.
Any action taken against the company could trigger huge reverberations across Texas schools when the educator workforce is already stretched thin.
State officials gave the company several months to show it improved long-standing issues with how it prepares teachers for the classroom. But despite additional scrutiny over the past year, Texas Teachers of Tomorrow continued to deal with customer complaints, and the monitor tasked with overseeing its work determined the company failed to correct all problems.
Associate commissioner Emily Garcia informed company leaders on Nov. 18 that the Texas Education Agency found they didn’t meet the terms of their agreement to improve, according to a letter obtained by The News. The agency is issuing a recommendation to revoke its accreditation, she wrote.
The State Board for Educator Certification is set to hear an update on the company during their Friday meeting. The board members will have the ultimate say on what happens to the program.
Before that happens, the Texas Education Agency and Texas Teachers of Tomorrow are expected to present arguments before a judge in the State Office of Administrative Hearings. Such cases can stretch for months or years.
Teachers of Tomorrow CEO Trent Beekman said in a statement that the company believes it is in compliance with the law and its agreement with the Texas Education Agency. New leadership has dedicated additional resources to improving its operations, company officials said.
“Teachers of Tomorrow has worked diligently to completely update our process and procedures to demonstrate compliance with both the letter and the spirit of TEA’s standards,” Beekman said. “We will demonstrate that there were fundamental errors in the analysis of the compliance review data.”
Because of the process for contesting the agency’s findings, he declined to comment further.
“While discussions with SBEC progress, we remain committed to doing our part to alleviate the teaching shortage by training, preparing, and certifying future educators in Texas,” he said.
Should the company’s accreditation eventually be revoked, the program wouldn’t be able to produce state-certified teachers. Business can continue as usual in the meantime.
Of the state’s nearly 132,000 candidates in teacher prep programs in 2021, more than half were enrolled through Texas Teachers of Tomorrow.
The educator preparation company came under fire for misleading potential teachers with its advertising, not supporting candidates with required mentors and failing to demonstrate that its training was based in research, according to a 2021 state audit.
It was also the subject of an excessive number of complaints from teacher candidates, some of whom left the profession in frustration after receiving poor advice from company officials.
The News reported last spring on Texas Teachers of Tomorrow’s long standing issues that disrupted many would-be educators’ journey to the classroom.
Documents obtained through public records requests revealed that the Texas Education Agency in 2021 found the company — also known as A+ Texas Teachers — out of compliance in key state standards including admission, curriculum and governance.
And it wasn’t the company’s first troubling audit. In a 2016 review, TEA regulators found Texas Teachers of Tomorrow out of compliance in five of eight broad categories. The agency released a compliance plan at the time, and the company continued operating.
But this time, the State Board for Educator Certification decided to place Texas Teachers of Tomorrow on probation in July. They appointed a monitor to analyze operations and ensure the company hit certain benchmarks by the fall.
Teachers of Tomorrow operates across several states. The for-profit program recruits many people in search of a second career and trains them on how to be an educator through primarily online coursework.
Texas Teachers of Tomorrow enrollment neared 70,000 last year. Fewer than 6,000 people completed the program and fewer than 5,500 gained their full teaching certification, according to self-reported data.
Texas Teachers of Tomorrow has hired new leadership, and officials pledged to tackle the problems head-on. When the educator certification board voted to place the company on probation over the summer, its former interim CEO Ignacio “Nacho” Giraldo told members: “We’ve been working very diligently since we found out about the audit.”
But the monitor found Texas Teachers of Tomorrow fell short in several categories, according to documents obtained by The News.
For example, TEA staff identified 350 candidates going through the program and sought evidence that they had sufficient field-based experience. But the company only “provided sufficient evidence” for 79% of the sampled candidates. It needed to hit a 90% threshold, according to the agreement between the state and company.
TEA staff also noted that the company did not prove that all candidates spent enough hours observing classroom settings as part of their training.
And while TEA determined that the company provided evidence that the vast majority of sampled candidates were assigned a mentor, Texas Teachers of Tomorrow could not prove that enough of those mentors were trained or qualified for that role.
“TEA staff determined that [the company] provided evidence that the mentor reported the candidates’ progress to the field supervisor for only 15% of the sampled candidates,” according to the report.
Depending on the outcome of the expected administrative court hearing, the State Board for Educator Certification could eventually vote to revoke the company’s accreditation or give them another chance to correct their problems.
Until such a vote, the company will remain on probation and teacher candidates can continue working toward the classroom.
If a program’s accreditation is revoked, it means that it can not continue producing certified teachers.
Lingering problems
The company had 19 formal complaints with TEA last school year, more than all other educator prep programs, according to documents posted ahead of Friday’s meeting. The complaints were related to processing issues, non-responsiveness and lack of support.
Over the summer, SBEC members also learned that 18 candidates weren’t able to earn full teaching certifications because they completed their “internship year” entirely online last school year.
Teacher candidates are not allowed to do virtual internships or virtual observations.
“That was a confusion on our part and our interns’ part,” Giraldo said at the time, adding the company was working with impacted candidates.
Jodie Zeyer was one of them.
She started working with Texas Teachers of Tomorrow in 2020, plodding through coursework and tests — without a mentor, she said. She was eventually hired for a virtual position in Leander, teaching social studies to middle schoolers.
Zeyer expected to earn her full certification in the summer of 2022, the culmination of a grueling year-and-a-half of work that she juggled alongside caring for her own children.
Instead, she was stunned to learn that she would not become a certified teacher after all.
“For Texas Teachers to apologize and say oops with a mild reprimand seems more than unfair,” she wrote in a letter to state education officials, explaining her situation.
She now substitute teaches occasionally but plans to move on from the profession. She is still waiting for accountability, she said.
“I lost 18 months of my life,” Zeyer said.
The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.
The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from The Beck Group, Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks,Todd A. Williams Family Foundation and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.
Talia Richman, Staff writer. Talia is a reporter for The Dallas Morning News Education Lab. A Dallas native, she attended Richardson High School and graduated from the University of Maryland. She previously covered schools and City Hall for The Baltimore Sun.
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