In an in-depth article that appears in the journal “In These Times,” journalist George Joseph describes a campaign by business leaders to take advantage of an obscure provision in state law and use it to turn Dallas into a “home rule” district. This would be a prelude to turning Dallas into an all-charter district.
The business community already controls the school board. The campaign for “home rule” has the support of mostly unnamed funders, except for billionaire John Arnold, who lives in Houston, not Dallas. Arnold has causes about which he is passionate: public sector pensions (he is against them), charter schools (he is for them) and Teach for America (Joseph says he has given TFA more than $20 million). Arnold supports the leading advocacy group for “home rule,” which is ironically called SOPS–Support Our Public Schools.
Why the heavy-duty campaign for charter schools in Dallas? Joseph speculates that at bottom the campaign is about gentrification and real estate. The home-rule plan is not supported by Dallas’s black and Hispanic population. In a recent school board race, an opponent of home rule won overwhelmingly.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It is interesting to note that in the 1960’s the very best and brightest of teachers in the nation made the voyage to Dallas to get that ISD on their resume
Once a teacher had experience with the then well regarded Dallas Independent School District, they could get the job of their choice at any system in the nation.
Subsequently, several corrupt and inept ( these two characteristics are not mutually exclusive ) individuals who gain seats of power as either superintendent or as Board of Trustee members have virtually disabled this once exceptional organization.
Unfortunately, it only takes one person gaining a position of power to demolish the results of many to develop a very effective organization.
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One can only wonder if Dallas will be but a prelude to an eventual takeover of the entire public school system in years to come. If so not only the media will propagandize our nation but the charter school will indoctrinate – not educate out children. The end of any semblance of a democratic form of government.
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Indoctrinate is such a heavy, filled word. I worry about what the Gulen charter schools (of Turkish control), and other religious charters would be teaching. The for-profit charters I worry that they will be teaching nothing much at all…how to sit still even while bored to tears…how to walk in a straight line without talking and your arms in a pretzel twist…maybe useful stuff like that.
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So I guess we’ll follow the money.
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Todd Williams, formerly of Goldman Sachs, is now the “education advisor” to a buffoon of a mayor.
Need we say more?
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