THE PRE-K PANACEA

Statistics don’t lie, and when it comes to the importance of educating children before they ever reach kindergarten, the truth is disheartening. All data shows that if students are behind by the time they reach kindergarten, it will be more difficult, more expensive and less effective to remediate them later on.

So if pre-K is a crucial answer to myriad education problems, why is Dallas ISD struggling to implement it?

85-90

Percentage of brain development that happens by the time a child is 5 islation driven by people dissatisfied with public school options. Choice schools add more options to the mix, and the response such as the more than 400 applications for IDEA High School’s 100 spots in its inaugural year — seem to confirm that options are what we want.

6,900

Number of eligible children enrolled in pre-K for the 2014-15 school year, up from 3,300 in 2013-14

5

Percentage of the State’s education funding devoted to those first five years

4 of 10 Dallas ISD kindergarteners who begin the year “kindergarten ready”

3 Months of catch-up required for every month children are behind by age 5

Never mind that Miles has skipped town. Principals have latched on and parents, too, are jumping on the choice school bandwagon. Interim Superintendent Michael Hinojosa, who held the job for six years before Miles assumed it, has vowed to continue the effort.

As if he had a choice.

27,000

Number of Dallas ISD 3- and 4-yearolds who qualify for state-funded half-day pre-kindergarten (the district offers full-day pre-K by tapping into other funding sources)

9,500

Number of eligible children already registered for Dallas ISD pre-K for the 2015-16 school year

96

Percentage of Texas parents who send their children to kindergarten, funded but not required by the state

350

Percentage increase in the likelihood that students will be “kindergarten ready” if they attend a Dallas ISD pre-K program

Source: Dallas ISD executive director ofearly childhood Alan Cohen and national data

Choice: Robert E. Lee and William Lipscomb elementary schools

Going global with International Baccalaureate and dual language

On a sticky summer evening, with parking already scarce on Lowest Greenville, mothers with babies strapped to their chests and fathers with preschoolers in tow made their way to Blind Butcher’s patio.

The Vickery Place Neighborhood Association had organized the social hour, designed to introduce families to Robert E. Lee Elementary. It wasn’t their first introduction; Vickery Place is zoned to Lee, so any parents living in the neighborhood already knew of the school.

Lee has been plagued by a negative reputation among neighborhood families for years, dating back at least as far as 2004 when families zoned to Stonewall Jackson Elementary, some of whom lived closer to Lee, fought to keep their boundaries untouched and remain at the Blue Ribbon school. Efforts since then to re-engage the middle-class homeowners who live on Lee’s surrounding streets have come up short.

Now, however, Lee is among the East Dallas schools undergoing a renaissance of sorts, and both the Vickery Place association and enthusiastic Lee parents are working to evangelize their neighbors. The informal setting of a happy hour at a hip Greenville restaurant made proselytizing a bit easier, as did Lee’s