The Austin Innovator by LASA Ezine

Table of Contents The Giant Magellan Telescope: Star of Astronomy

Magellan vs. Hubble

Communites Face the Brute Force of Gentrification in Austin

Gentrification in Austin

Unlocking Austinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gridlock

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Traffic and Transportation Features of Austin

Black and White Choices Plague AISD

Housing Segregation and Schools in Austin

How To Fix Public Schools in Austin

Undertaking Affirmative Action

Letter From the Editors Fall 2019/ The Austin Innovator/ 5

GIANT MAGELLAN: Star of Astronomy By Tyler Brannon

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t’s no secret that The University of Texas is one of the main funders for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), but what exactly will this project entail? How will this telescope affect astronomy as a whole? Astronomers can answer some of the questions about its future, but predicting everything is impossible.

The GMT will be located in Vallenar, Chile. It will be in the newest class of telescopes, called the Extremely Large Telescopes (ELT). These telescopes have the largest diameter of any telescopes before them, with the three in this class having diameters of 25 to 35 meters. The previous telescopes’ diameters were only 8 meters. The GMT will have 10 times the resolution as the Hubble Telescope, which has been crucial for astronomers. The GMT is expected to be completed in 2025 to 2026 and will revolutionize astronomy as a whole. “As the GMT begins operation we will see questions we never thought to ask be addressed with this telescope,” the telescope’s project scientist, Rebecca Bernstein, Ph.D. said. The GMT will allow astronomers across the globe access to a new part of the sky

that we havve never been able to see before. While some questions about the universe are answerable, they only bring up more.

would be very very faint so you need a telescope like the GMT to do that,” Shetrone said.

“Is our galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, is it unique? How about other galaxies did they evolve differently in their chemistry?” Matthew Shetrone, Ph.D., who runs the

While the GMT will cover a broad range of topics, the first topic astronomers will use it for is studying planets around nearby stars. “Our ability to image planets separately from their stars is limited by the fundamental physics of light and optics,” Bernstein said.

“Is our galaxy

the Milky Way galaxy, is it unique? How about other galaxies? Did they evolve differently in their chemistry?” — Matthew Shetrone

night-to-night operations at the HobbyElderly Telescope, asked. “And so when we look at another galaxy that’s very distant, those individual stars

The GMT will have an angular resolution three times more powerful than current telescopes, allowing astronomers to image many more planetary systems than previously available. “We will also use our powerful instruments to analyze the atmospheres of these planets to look for the chemical signatures of life,” Bernstein said. The most controversial question among people — is there life somewhere out there — could be answered from this telescope. “The story we tell ourselves is that there is a Goldilocks Zone,” Shetrone said. “If you’re inside the Goldilocks Zone, then you’re too hot, you’re too close to the star — like Venus. And so that that boils off all the water. And you don’t have any water. And if you’re too far out like Mars or Jupiter, then

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The Hobby Eberly Telescope, which was completed and put into use in 1996, has a collecting area of about 24 meters squared. For comparison, the Giant Magellan will have a collecting area of 368 meters squared. (Photo by Ethan Tweedle.)

you’re too cold and all the water turns into a solid,” Shetrone said. This Goldilocks Zone is what astronomers are looking for because as far as they know, life needs water to survive, so it’s the only

Matthew Shetrone is a former head of night-tonight operations at the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. He was responsible for taking proposals from other astronommers and conducting research on their behalf, specializing in fusion within stars. (Photo courtesy of Matthew Shetrone.)

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place you can potentially find liquid water. For example, if astronomers were looking at a planet orbiting around a star other than the sun that happens to be in the Goldilocks Zone, then the first thing they’d look for is water. The astronomers would look at the atmosphere for signs of water. If they find that there is water, then they can look for other elements such as oxygen, nitrogen or methane.

stars, there are other fields that it will benefit from it as well. Anita Cochran, Ph.D. and researcher at the McDonald Observatory, talked about the potential second interstellar comet that astronomers have discovered. “This is only the second object ever found and we’re pretty sure it’s interstellar,” Cochran said.

On Earth, living organisms are the only things that produce oxygen. Methane in our planet is only produced by living organisms. “So if we saw a planet that was in the Goldilocks Zone and had oxygen and methane then we say oh my goodness that’s very exciting. There might be life on that planet,” Shetrone said. While the GMT might be able to tell us a lot about planets that orbit around other

Dr. Anita Cochran is a researcher at the McDonald Observatory, specializing in the research of primitive bodies in the solar system and the chemical composition of comets. (Photo courtesy of Anita Cochran.)

The GMT would be able to observe a lot about this comet, but the building phase might not be completed before the comet is gone. “There’s a small enough window to observe it, and depending on the comet and what its orbit is, all that can be anywhere from a few weeks to many months,” Cochran said. “This planetesimal from another planetary

“There’s a small

enough window to observe it and depending on the comet, and what its orbit is all that can be anywhere from you know a few weeks to many months” — Anita Cochran

system comes into our Solar System. The problem is it’s pretty faint, and even the biggest telescopes can only get a very limited amount of information on it right now,” Cochran said. This is where the GMT would benefit astronomy because its 25-meter diameter is much bigger than currently existing telescopes. “So, if we had access to a bigger telescope, they could look at it and probably get much more information to be able to tell if it was chemically the same or different from the

comets in our Solar System,” Cochran said. However, with the estimated time of the GMT being put into use set at 2025 to 2026, this tool will likely not be able to be used for this rare occurrence. The GMT might see another chance later. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope in Chile scans the sky, and astronomers are discovering lots of objects they hadn’t been able to see before. “We’ve got a lot of big telescope surveys going on right now, so we’re discovering more weird objects just because we’re finding more new objects in general,” Cochran said. “I suspect we’re going to learn about a lot of new things, and we don’t know about whether they’ll be comets or asteroids or things far away from our Solar System,” Cochran said. Whether the Giant Magellan is discovering life on planets, finding the chemical makeup of interstellar comets or researching in a completely new direction, it will be a key component for the future of astronomy. But what comes after the GMT? What will astronomers find that they can’t do with it? Will they keep getting bigger? As Bernstein said, “Every generation of astronomers is sure that their telescope will be the largest ever possible. However, history shows that telescope diameters double every 40 years. We anticipate that once the GMT comes online in 2029, astronomers will start thinking about the next big thing!”

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MAGELLAN

OR HUBBLE?

Can the new telescope out do the old favorite?

By Tyler Brannon

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The Hubble Telescope has been one of the most well known telescopes since its initial launch into Earth’s orbit in 1990. It was revolutionary at the time because its images were not affected by Earth’s atmosphere. The Hubble Telescope has made many of modern astromomy’s most important discoveries including: • • • • •

Pinning down the age of the universe Seeing galaxies in the early universe Discovering the new moons of Pluto Understanding seasons on other planets Exoplanet science

But can this telescope compete with current technology? Well, not really. Hubble is expected to last through the mid 2020s, putting it at a maximum of 10 more years in use. At the same time, a new class of telescopes are going into use. The smallest of these telescopes, The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), will be able to produce images 10 times greater than the Hubble. There are two more in this class: The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) and the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). These will be even stronger. We have found ways to counter the effect of the Earth’s atmosphere, meaning there is no need for telescopes to be in orbit anymore. The Hubble telescope only had a collecting area of 47 square feet while the GMT’s collecting area is 3,961 square feet. This means the GMT will be able to collect 81 times more light than the Hubble. The ELT has a collection area of 10,530 square feet which is 216 times more. With these new telescopes leading us into the future, the Hubble telescope will no longer be the go-to telescope, and it’s anyone’s guess at what we will be able to discover. Sources: gmto.org wikipedia.org nasa.gov

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Communities Face the Brute Force of Gentrification in Austin

Austinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s downtown is constantly growing, expanding high prices into historic communities. (Photo By Jeremy Banks, courtesy of unsplash.com)

By Bryan Cedillos 12/ The Austin Innovator/ Fall 2019

ver the years Austin has experienced dramatic real estate growth. In the past few decades, Austin went from the cheapest big city in Texas to the most expensive big city in Texas. This is the result of people moving into the city and increasing demand for new

homes that are worth more than any in the area. These communities dramatic spikes in housing prices and property takes. Many residents are no longer able to afford their homes, forcing them to move out. Gentrification has affected people of

color the most. These largely lower and middle class communities are devastated because their earnings do not keep up with housing costs. homes. Longtime residents are pushed out of their homes because they cannot afford rising prices. Gentrification has been difficult for many Austin residents. Many people have been pushed out of their communities or have seen their communities destroyed because of increased housing prices. These increased housing prices are caused by more affluent people moving into these communities and buying new

Juan Rojas is an Austin student who has experienced housing insecurity as a result of gentrification. Rojas almost had to move out of his home because of rising property taxes. “Last year my dad was stressing out because he realized they were going to bring our property tax up since this neighborhood I live in is more expensive to live in. Luckily the price was affordable,” Rojas said.

“Last year my dad was stressing out because he realized they were going to bring our property tax up. Luckily the price was affordable because if we weren’t able to afford it I probably wouldn’t even be here in Austin and probably living somewhere outside of Austin.” —Juan Rojas

“It has affected my family members because we were renting an apartment and a new neighborhood of good looking houses was on construction, causing the apartments to charge more,” Riquelme Pimentel, another victim of gentrification, said. Gentrification keeps on happening at an increasingly rapid rate forcing more and more people out of their homes.

Riquelme Pimentel - A student in Austin who is being affected by gentrification because his rent price is increasing.(Photo by Bryan Cedillos.)

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Communities are becoming more affluent and traditional residents are losing many vital anchors for their neighborhoods.

Greg Casar, the Austin city councilmember for District 4, has worked hard to improve the lives of many low-income residents suffering from gentrification. He has fought

Even though gentrification has effected all of Austin, East Austin has been the effected the most. African Americans are spread throughout all of East Austin and has built up vital communities that are now being devastated by gentrification. Houses and buildings in East Austin are cheaper than houses in other parts of Austin, but if people have the money to buy these homes and demolish

“We see a lot of gentrification really rapidly, especially since the housing bust in 2008, but we also see a lot of it near downtown Austin and as inequality has grown you see a lot more folks with money trying to live closer downtown because of increased transportation costs.” —Greg Casar officia sed cold-pressed” “blebrag pug dolore. Fin-

against housing injustice, helping communities stay together in the face of gentrification. The North Austin area he represents has managed to keep housing costs lower. “We see a lot of gentrification really rapidly, especially since the housing bust in 2008, but we also see a lot of it near downtown Austin and as inequality has grown you see a lot more folks with money trying to live closer downtown because of increased transportation costs,” Casar said.

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them to build bigger and better houses they will. This is what is driving gentrification in East Austin as new expensive developments are built. Middle class Austinites are not able to afford these rising prices, forcing them out of their neighborhoods. “We have a real housing shortage,” Casar said of lower-income housing in East Austin. Gentrification is a real problem in Austin and in many other places around the country. Austin residents are seeing new buildings built everyday. It may

Greg Casar is an Austin city councilmember who fights against gentrification and advocates for affordable housing. (Photo by Neesha Dave.)

make the city look nice, but leaders need to recognize how it is affecting lower income and middle class people. Pricey new homes are driving up housing costs, making historic neighborhoods affordable only for the wealthy. “We have not built enough housing for the number of people that there are,”Casar said.can make more people fit by building more housing and by making sure some of it is actually affordable-that requires usually city investment,” Casar said.

more, but the people of Austin also advocate for solutions to these issues. With many people being pushed out of their homes and not being able to afford their rent and property taxes, gentrification is a big problem in Austin. It needs to be fixed in order to keep communities together.

Austin residents see buildings being built all around, helping the economy but forcing housing costs to spike. (Photo by Bryan Cedillos.)

“I think this community has come together and can make amazing change. And so, no, I don’t think we should just declare defeat, but it’s definitely a problem that is much bigger than any one of us and it’s going to take a lot of people to change it,” Casar said.

Simply building more houses will not solve the issue of gentrification in Austin because the population has increased and is still increasing. This will only bring more wealthy people into lower income neighborhoods. The rising cost of homes will require the city to do more work then it has already done. Of course, the city needs to do

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The Impact of Gentrification on Historic Communities By Bryan Cedillos

Gentrification in East Austin - East Austin has been defined by black culture. Gentrification is weakening these vital cultural bonds. - New businesses and bigger houses are being built in historic communites, All these new expensive buildings are raising property taxes and cost of living. -When property taxes spike in these communites, residents are not able to afford to their own homes. They have no choice but to move out. -Gentrification is occuring rapidly. If it continues unchecked, the historic black and Latino culture of East Austin will be decimated.

In many areas in Austin, property taxes are increasing dramatically. This is great for the economy but terrible for communities.

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As property taxes increase in different areas of Austin, certain neighborhoods are greatly affected, East Austin in particular. People who cannot afford rising prices and taxes have to move out, reducing Austinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s already declining black population.

1990: Housing costs in Austin

A Timeline of Gentrification in Austin

spiked. What was once the cheapest city in Texas is becomes increasingly unaffordable. 2000-2010: East Austin saw an influx of white residents and a 66 percent decrease in its black population. 2018: Gentrification had taken a huge toll on East Austin communites as expensive new buildings and homes were built.

Sources:

Old and decrepit homes are demolished and new houses are built.

domainrealtyaustin.com medium.com huffpost.com

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Unlocking Austin’s Gridlock By Calvin Auby

Austin’s downtown skyline stands out against a gray sky (Photo by Carlos Delgado, courtesty of uusplash.com).

t has been hours and the traffic is not moving. Once again, cars and trucks are stuck on the road, sitting idle, or moving slower than a snail. Austin traffic is terrible, and as one of the most congested cities in the United States, it is getting worse every year.

Many Austinites have not tolerate proposals to build large developments close to their homes. Therefore, making the city more compact has been difficult.

density. One example is CodeNext. This plan would have updated the old zoning codes of Austin, but according to KUT, the city council voted unanimously to scrap the plan.

Austinites have refused to ratify plans that would have helped increase

Traffic is bad for Austinites because trips take longer, and the problem

There are solutions out there, imperfect though they may be. The Capital Metro Rail line is fast and brings people straight to downtown, but it does not serve everyone. The bus system has 84 routes, but they do not go everywhere. Adding lanes to roads, a solution that has often been used, is expensive. It takes a long time and sometimes does more harm than good. Size is one of Austin’s biggest problems with an area of 270 square miles. “A lot of people don’t like the idea of adding density, but it is the solution.” Greg Clay, a real estate developer in the Austin area, said.

Rush hour traffic plagues frequenty used roads in Austin, bringing traffic to a standstill for hours. (Photo by Todd Morris, courtesy of creativecommons.org).

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“A lot of people don’t like the idea of adding density, but it is the solution.” —Greg Clay will only get worse as more and more people move to Austin. Buses are another viable solution that has been proposed. According to Mark Telschow, a former member of the Army Corps of Engineers and

an expert on urban infrastructure, 50 passengers on a bus is about 50 times as efficient as a car.

buses and are never bogged down by traffic. However, rail lines cannot be moved.

Buses may not be as convenient as a car, but they are nevertheless a great way to get people where they need to go. Unlike train lines and roads, which are impossible to move, bus lines are flexible. Bus routes can easily be moved a few streets over if necessary.

“Rail lines would be much harder if you find out that you need to move the rail a few streets over. It is not as easy as a bus where you can just tell the bus driver, well, why not

Rail lines are also a possibility, though they are an unlikely solution. Trains are much faster than cars and

“It could reduce the number of vehicles on the road, as it might inspire people to share rides.” —Jen Kolrich take Guadalupe instead of Lamar?” Telschow said. Trains can only serve a few people in a certain area. Commuters must live close to a stop and work close to a downtown stop for a train to be a viable solution for them.

Several cities and countries use buses, like this city bus in Russia, as a means of mass transit. (Photo by Kaspar C., courtesy of creativecommons.org).

This explains why Austin’s existing rail line, Metro Rail only serves a few thousand people every day. A Metro Rail journey costs $3.50 per trip according to the Cap Metro website, but it makes no sense for someone to take a train when the station is 20 minutes from their house.

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“If I could get from the station downtown to the office in less than 10 minutes, I would probably do it, but if it took longer than 10 minutes, I would not do it,” Telschow said.

been shown to have unintended consequences, providing some people with a faster trip while leaving those not in the lane with less space and slower moving traffic. These cars will stay on the road longer, releasing more harmful pollution. More roads are also a viable solution. The addition of more lanes that are neither express lanes or carpool lanes increases the speed of traffic.

Trains, such as this one in South Korea, are a commonly used transit option in many cities; however, they are very expensive. (Photo by Visionsttyler Press, courtesy of Creative Commons)

The addition of another line or more stops might help, but there will likely still not be enough people using the rail service. In addition, adding on to the rail network would be a very expensive project the value of which is legitimately questionable. City planners cannot easily build new lines into downtown or add on to old lines. They are stuck with the lines that have already been built and the limited range provided by them. Perhaps the most popular solution to traffic in Austin is building more roads and adding additional lanes to highways. Carpool lanes are one of the solutions that has been closely examined. “It could reduce the number of vehicles on the road as it might inspire people to share rides,” Jen Kolrich, a frequent user of Austin roads, said about carpool lanes. Carpool lanes, however, have

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This sounds like a good solution, even if it is hard to implement, but more roads do not always mean less traffic. More roads push buildings outside of the city, turning a walkable journey into one that commuters need a car to complete. Roads cannot be placed randomly, and Austin needs the expertise of city planners and engineers to see this process through to completetion.

While there those who try to ignore Austin’s traffic problem, the overwhelming majority believes in the importance of finding solutions to such a crippling issue for the city.

“When you are designing a roadway like a highway, there will come a breaking point where the roads can no longer handle all the cars. I think that all our highways are at full capacity in Austin,” Telschow said. The longer Austin waits, the harder it will become to solve the traffic issues that already plague the city. With the city’s rapidly increasing population and roads that are already at full capacity, there is greater and greater need for innovative solutions to Austin’s traffic woes.

Austinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s growing skyline is dynamic and always expanding, straining transportation infrastructure as it grows (Photo by Jermey Banks, courtesy of unsplash.com).

Jen Kolrich is a frequent user of Austin roads, forced to deal with the effects of growth (Photo courtesy of Cal Auby).

Greg Clay is the president of JMI Realty, a company that works on many construction projects in downtown Austin and San Diego (Photo courtesy of Cal Auby).

Mark Telschow is a former member of the army corp of engineers and an expert on growth and infrastructure planning (Photo courtesy of Mark Telschow).

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Transportation Infrastructure in a Growing City By Calvin Auby Mopac and I - 35 MoPac and I - 35 have toll lanes which change their rate according to traffic patterns. The times when these two toll roads are usually the most expensive is between 6:45 and 9:15 am and between 3:15 and 6:50 pm. The toll is 25 cents when there is no traffic and can be as expensive as $9.00.

Capital Metro Systems: The Austin Metro Line The Austin Metro Rail has one line and eight stops. As of 2014, 2,900 passangers rode the train daily. There are about 5,000 jobs and 5,000 people located a quarter mile or less away from where the train stops. Cost: $3.50 for one ride, $7.00 for a day pass.

The Austin Bus Systems

Metro Bus: Metro Bus is a bus system with about 80 routes. It stops frequently and has routes all over Austin. Cost: $1.25 for one ride, $ 2.50 with a day pass Metro Rapid: The Metro Rapid contains two routes: 801 and 803. At stops along these lines, busses arrive around every 15 minutes. The two routes are labeled on the map with blue lines Cost: $ 1.25 for one ride, $2.50 for a day pass MetroExpress: This system provides transportation to and from downtown.Its seven routes were created to bring citizens far from the city center into downtown. Cost: $3.50 for one ride, $7.00 for a day pass 22/ The Austin Innovator/ Fall 2019

Key:

Metro Rail - Red 801 - Blue Route 1- Orange Route 7 - Magenta

803: Green Route 3: Light Blue

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I - 35 Sources: - capmetro.org - Remix interactive transport map - cbsaustin.com

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Black and White Choices Plague AISD Leadership

The entrance to the shared LASA-LBJ band hall in Northeast Austin stands deserted during the lunch hour. (Photo by Zachary Suri.)

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By Zachary Suri

Lingering Presence of Jim Crow “The Stark Reality” Patrick Patterson, former principal of LASA/LBJ High School poses under a photo of himself from his days as principal that now hangs in the LASA/LBJ library. (Photo by Zachary Suri.)

ichard Reddick grew up on the Eastside of Austin in the mid-1980s. This era marked the peak of desegregation in Austin and around the country. Schools across the district, including Reddick’s Johnston High School, were more integrated than they had ever been. Reddick, who is black, befriended a white student from the Westside who would eventually help him navigate the college application process. Today, Reddick, Ph.D. and professor at the University of Texas at Austin, is doing some of the most important work on educational equity, and Johnston High School, now Eastside Memorial, is one of the least integrated and lowest-performing high schools in the district.

Segregation in Austin is an old story. Like many districts in the South, AISD was deeply segregated for most of its history with black and Latino students attending separate and unequal schools for decades. AISD only reached near full integration levels in 1986 when AISD was finally declared compliant with the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas Supreme Court ruling of 1954 thanks to the very court-ordered integration efforts that Reddick benefited from. Soon after, Austin returned to a system of neighborhood schools which drew only from nearby neighborhoods in a still heavily segregated city. To this day, AISD is one of the most segregated school districts in the country. Countless efforts for educational equity and awareness of educational segregation have tapered since Reddick attended high school. The story of educational segregation in Austin begins after the conclusion of the Civil War. At the time, communities of freed slaves lived all across the city, but in 1928, the City Council instituted a systematic segregation of housing in Austin which is known as red-lining.

According to Peniel Joseph, Ph.D. and director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin, the plan segregated the city of Austin and created an all-black district or ‘negro district’ on the Eastside. It made sure that if blacks did not move to the Eastside, they would not have access to facilities, social services, and everything that makes a neighborhood a neighborhood. The Brown decision officially declared school segregation unconstitutional, but there was a gap of over 30 years between the ruling and its application. “Implementation starts to happen in the late 60s, throughout the 1970s in school districts like Atlanta, in Charlotte, North Carolina, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and throughout the 1980s,” Joseph said. A perfect case study of these efforts is the Liberal Arts and Science Academy (LASA) High School in Northeast Austin, one of the highest performing magnet schools in the country. It draws from middle schools across a district that is,

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Academy and later LASA were a part of LBJ. However, according to Patterson, pressure from an outside educational institute that was offering LBJ a grant to create so called Smaller Learning Communities forced the schools to separate, though they continue to share a building. Even before the two schools separated, lingering inequalities and animosity defined their relationship, particularly in regards to investment and social capital. According to Patterson, there was always a comparison between the two schools that undercut any difficult progress that the administration could make with nonmagnet students.

Cindy Anderson is vice president of the AISD Board of Trustees. She’s working to make our district more equitable. (Photo Courtesy of Cindy Anderson.)

according to The Texas Tribune, over 60 percent black and Latino, yet its black and Latino population represents, according to the district, less than 25 percent of its overall student body. LASA is located in the same building as LBJ High School which serves a largely underprivileged and minority population. Patrick Patterson, assistant vice president of the Longhorn Center for School Partnerships at the University of Texas Austin, was the principal of LBJ High School when the two schools were under the same leadership. The Science Academy at LBJ and the Liberal Arts Academy at Johnston High School had recently been combined to form LASA with an ambitious goal for the new school. “They were set up to desegregate and to attract the best and brightest in the district to the east side of I-35,” Patterson said. For more than a decade, the Science

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“The reality is no matter what you’re going to do it’s never going to be enough when you’re in the same building with the cream of the crop,” Patterson said.

LASA and other programs has not solved the issue of inequality when it comes to students’ backgrounds. “It’s used as a predictor of who succeeds and who doesn’t based on descriptors like race, like poverty,” Anderson said. The issues of inequality, along with a desire for LASA to expand, have pressured administrators enough that LASA is expected to move to a separate campus of its own in 2021. Patterson approves of the move. He sees it as the only way for both communities to get the resources and attention that they deserve. “What I hope does not happen is what happened at Johnston High School. They had the Liberal Arts Academy. It moved out, and Johnston died. Hopefully, we’ve learned from that history and it does not happen at LBJ,” Patterson added. The solutions to these issues of segregation and inequality within AISD are fairly clear. One option is to create more magnet schools to provide greater access to higher-

“The reality is no matter what you’re going to do it’s never going to be enough when you’re in the same building with the cream of the crop.” — Patrick Patterson Historically, LASA is not unique among magnet schools when it comes to these issues. According to Joseph, magnet schools were created across the country to attract both white and minority parents and bring investment to economically struggling and racially divided communities. However, according to Cindy Anderson, vice president of the board of trustees of AISD, these programs have failed to meet their goals of intended diversity and equitable education. The creation of

level curriculum for students near where they live. “The problem with the way it’s been implemented in Austin, in my opinion, is that we’ve created too few of them,” Patterson said of magnet schools in AISD. In fact, the district is already working to try and address this problem. According to Anderson, the district has revamped the curriculum to be more inclusive and topical for its diverse student population. AISD has worked over the last couple

of years to take a hard look at the reality that the magnet school population is not reflective of the demographics of the district. Nevertheless, it is impossible to change the makeup of schools in the district without changing the makeup of Austin’s neighborhoods. According to Reddick and Joseph, educational segregation in Austin is really a function of where people choose to live. The emphasis on neighborhood schools since 1986 has essentially resegregated the district. Though some of the inequities in AISD might be swayed through efforts such as changing school boundaries, until neighborhoods are desegregated and the inequalities that have been embedded in

housing in Austin since long before 1928 can be countered, it is hard to see how these issues can adequately be addressed. Austinites who think of Austin as a progressive Mecca need to be aware of the deeper inequalities that remain under the surface. These inequalities are the living and breathing remnants of slavery and Jim Crow. As Anderson said, “You have two choices: you can either be racist and/or adopt policies that result in ongoing systemic racism, or you can choose the converse which is anti-racist, disrupting those practices. And it’s one or the other.”

“You have two choices: you can either be racist and/or adopt policies that result in ongoing systemic racism, or you can choose the converse which is anti-racist, disrupting those practices. And it’s one or the other.” — Cindy Anderson

Dr. Rich Reddick, professor of education at the University of Texas Austin, speaks about his experience with integration efforts in Austin.(Photo by Zachary Suri.)

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Housing Segregation A comparative map of historic housing segregation and its relationship with school segregation and court-ordered desegregation

1980 Anderson High School

Lanier High School (Navarro)

McCallum High School

Reagan High School (Northeast)

LBJ High School

Austin High School

Johnston High School (Eastside Memorial)

Crockett High School

Black

White

Latino

Other

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and Schools in Austin By Zachary Suri

2010 Anderson High School

Lanier High School (Navarro)

McCallum High School

Reagan High School (Northeast)

LBJ High School

Austin High School

Johnston High School (Eastside Memorial)

Crockett High School

Austin has one of America’s most segregated cities. — Chao Xiong

Sources: • projects.statesman.com • AISD, 1986 Demographic Study • medium.com

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Disease to Disabillities According to the Condition of Education, 15 percent of the student population has a disability that affects their ability to learn, yet they are not able to receive the treatment that they need in public schools. Rebecca Ryan, the owner of Sandbox ABA, a behavioral treatment center for young individuals with autism, has noticed a lot of issues with how public schools deal with children with disabilities. She has made it her goal to help fix these issues. Ryan directly treats young children with autism to try and prepare them for the school world and teach them social skills that they will use for the rest of their life. She assesses the skills of each child to develop a specific treatment plan that is customized for the specific child. She also trains people to be able

“There is a lack of consistency in teaching strategies, a lack of training on the part of the school staff, a lack of follow-through, a ‘philosophical’ resistance to ABA principles, poor communication with each other and the parents, the child being unprepared for a school setting, poor structural supports provided in a novel setting and an adversarial relationship when parents don’t agree with schools.”

supports provided in a novel setting and an adversarial relationship when parents don’t agree with schools,” Ryan said. With so many different causes of the problem, one would think that there would have to be many different solutions which would cost a lot of time and money. However, Ryan argues that the only thing needed in order to fix this issue is to better train the teachers and staff to treat children with autism accordingly. This is where the next issue comes into play. Public schools rarely, if ever, allow professionals like Ryan to come in and help train teachers and staff. “Public schools rarely allow for professionals to train the teachers and staff, and when they do, it is always under duress. That is, only if a parent has already sued the school system,” Ryan said,. While public schools rarely allow teachers to be trained by professionals,

— Rebecca Ryan

to treat these children and help them develop as a person. One thing that Ryan has noticed in schools is a regression in behavioral development that they received from ABA. Their behavior would dramatically decline, and teachers do not know how to deal with it. This

child with autism is unable to receive the assistance that they need in a public school environment, instead facing punishment and severe reprecussions. “There is a lack of consistency in teaching strategies, a lack of training on the part of the school staff, a lack of follow-through, a ‘philosophical’ resistance to ABA principles, poor communication with each other and the parents, the child being unprepared for a school setting, poor structural Rebecca Ryan owns a behavioral treatment center that seeks to adapt children with autism to be prepared to enter school environments. (Photo by Rebecca Ryan.)

32/ The Austin Innovator/ Fall 2019

it is a different story in private schools. “Private schools sometimes allow professionals to come in and train the teachers and staff, and when they do, it is always voluntary” Ryan said.

While only seven percent of the Austin population is Asian, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a fifth of the total student population at LASA High School is Asian.

It is nearly impossible for teachers in public schools to receive the training that they need. When the schools do allow for professionals to come in and help, according to Ryan, it is nearly impossible to get the school staff to change their culture, habits and approach to problem-solving.

“There is an inequity in discipline rates and academic rates, while many of our schools are economically and racially segregated,” Arati Singh, an AISD board member, said, “For example, gaps between black, hispanic, and white students— as measured by test scores, enrollment in advanced coursework, and college enrollment— are huge.”

Manic Magnet Program Magnet schools were created to desegregate schools and allow for everybody, regardless of their ethnicity or race, to be able to receive top tier education. One would think that this would make it so the population of the magnet schools would be more representative of the population of the area In Austin, however, that is simply not the case. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 35 percent of the population in Austin is Hispanic. According to School Digger, the Hispanic population of LASA High School, Austin’s premier magnet high school, is only 20 percent of the total student population.

Arati Singh is a member of the AISD board of trustees who is trying to address problems in public schools in Austin. (Photo by Arati Singh.)

year is by giving the magnet schools campuses that are more toward the center of Austin. Some also think that the majority of the funding for the magnet program should be cut, but this is much more controversial. There may be many issues with schooling in Austin, but there are many people that are trying to reform the school district as well. In the future, these people may just be able to fix the school system, and every student may be able to receive the education that they need.

According to the Austin ISD Budget Task Force, the magnet schools spend over $3 million each year on transportation and a lot of money is being spent on curriculum as well. The way the Austin ISD Budget Task Force thinks that we can decrease the amount spent on transportation each

“There is an inequity in discipline rates and academic rates, while many of our schools are economically and racially segregated. For example, gaps between black, hispanic, and white students — as measured by test scores, enrollment in advanced coursework, and college enrollment — are huge.” —Arati Singh

Fall 2019/ The Austin Innovator/ 33

Works Cited â&#x20AC;&#x153;Arguments For and Against Affirmative Action .â&#x20AC;? Pros and Cons, www.mtholyoke.edu/~jesan20l/classweb/arguments.html.

First school building in Austin was built

1876

1886

LIVELY

First Magnet school in Austin was founded

The student population in Austin reached 15,000

1942

1955

Austin Independent School District was formed

LASA was created

2006

This timeline talks about the foundations of schools in Austin and the foundation of the Austin Independent School District

By River Creech

Historical School Events in Austin that you Need to Know

Meet the Authors Tyler Brannon - Photo and Graphics Editor

Tyler Brannon is a high schooler at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy. He is passionate about science and technological issues. He is fascinated by astronomy and the limitless possibilities of outer space. Writing has always been a passion of his and he continues to expand his writing skills and learn more about the world around him. Our group chose our topic because we were interested in local events that Austinites would be interested in. We wanted to explore how our history affects us today, the struggles people face in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s society, and what the future might hold for us. We wanted to pick a topic that would inform the people of Austin and help them to understand some of the problems others in the community are affected by. I chose my topic because I was interested in science, especially astronomy. I wanted to explore the effects that this massive telescope will have on the community of astronomers and on the students and researchers at the University of Texas.

Bryan Cedillos - Copy and Content Editor

Bryan Cedillos is a freshman at Liberal Arts and Science Academy in Austin, Texas. Bryan is what he is. He is a young Hispanic adult looking for a better world. Bryan is passionate about local problems having to do with income inequality and technology. He spends most of his free time playing soccer and video games. We chose to write about issues and innovations in Austin because Austin is a great city but it still has its many problems and we wanted to address a few of them. I chose to write about gentrification and house injustices because I have researched it before and wished to expand more on it. I chose gentrification because I am interested in income inequality and that has a great impact on house affordability. I feel like people donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think gentrification is a problem here in Austin but is affecting many civilians by pushing them out of their homes or even Austin.

Calvin Auby - Fact Check Editor

Calvin Auby is a freshman at Liberal Arts and Science Academy in Austin, Texas. He is fifteen years old and is interested in geography, history and origami. Calvin spends most of his free time folding origami, learning about geography and history via youtube, and making maps on google earth. I chose to write about Issues and Innovation in Austin because even though we live in a great city, there are many things that should be fixed such as traffic, gentrification, and school segregation. In Austin, there are also some things that will soon change, such as the possibilities of new roads and bus routes being added, and the launch of the Magellan space telescope. I chose traffic and

solutions for traffic, so a little of each. More importantly, however, there is virtually no one in Austin who is unaffected by the traffic and congestion plaguing the city.

Zachary Suri - Features Editor

Zachary Suri is a freshman at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy High School in Austin, Texas. Zachary is passionate about local issues of inequality and using history to understand our society. Zachary is a budding poet, finding beauty in the mundane and every day. He brings his love of language and writing to everything that he does. I chose to write about school segregation in Austin, particularly how it pertains to LASA, because of a conversation that I had a few months ago with former Councilmember Ora Houston. She told me about some of the racial inequity at play in the LASA-LBJ relationship as I would be attending LASA in the fall. I realized that I should not feel guilty for having been given such a privilege, but that I had a responsibility to educate my peers about such inequities. On the overall theme of the magazine, as a group, we felt connected to the historical and current dynamics influencing this rapidly changing city. We wanted to explore our city and the issues that it faces on a deeper level.

River Creech - Layout Editor

River Creech is a freshman at LASA High School who is mostly interested in technology and politics. River spends most of his free time programming, playing video games and writing papers. Some issues that he is interested in fixing include the education system, online predators, and the copyright system. Right off the bat, we thought that having a very broad magazine topic, such as “issues and innovations in Austin,” would be very inclusive and many different ideas would be able to fit in this topic. I decided to write about schools in Austin because it is something that I have talked to my step-mom about on many different occasions because she is a teacher. We’ve discussed many different issues and ways that we felt they could be solved, and I thought that it would be easier to write about because I had already thought about this topic before.

Photos by River Creech

Fall 2019/ The Austin Innovator/ 37

The Austin Innovator.

The Austin Innovator. The Austin Innovator. The Austin Innovator. The Austin Innovator. The Austin Innovator. The Austin Innovator. The Austin Innovator. The Austin Innovator.