AISD’s Equity Initiative By Charly Chatelain
I
t took 26 years. More than two decades after the 1954 Supreme Court ruling on Brown versus Board of Education, Austin complied with its integration requirement. That’s more than two spells of a 12 year curriculum. From historic redlining to its enforcement of Jim Crow, racism is baked into Austin’s history; its education system is not an exception to this. In Austin there are perceived to be rich schools and poor schools, “good” schools and “bad” schools. The difference is that the “good” schools are majority white, and the “bad” schools are not. Often, the white schools get better resources, campuses and opportunities, while the
minority ones are forgotten and shut down. Students of Austin Independent School District (AISD) are affected by the legacy of segregation today. AISD has been putting a lot of effort into creating equitable learning opportunities for all students. The fight for equity in schools is not one that could be solved overnight. It could take decades. Two people at the forefront of the push for these opportunities are John Allen and Lupe Molina. Allen is a director for AISD’s equity team. He received his Ph.D. in Urban Education at The University of North Carolina, Charlotte where he wrote his dissertation on cultural sustainability
in education. Molina is the principal of Allison Elementary School, a small school in southeast Austin that is 96% Hispanic. Allen said he and the equity team have been pushing hard to create a framework of equity in AISD. Molina said she is working to implicate engaging learning programs at her school to pull the mostly minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged students into an academic atmosphere and enable them to excel. Molina and Allen said working to achieve these goals has not been easy, particularly in the last two years, which were marred by a school closing plan that targeted minority schools and global pandemic.
Graphic by Charly Chatelain
8 Austin Divided
