You can support your local public schools without supporting MISD’s proposed $1.4 billion bond. For the sake of our current public school children and those in the future, our priority has to be improving their educational outcomes. We need to place our children’s futures ahead of the best interests of the architecture firms and construction companies that would benefit from this behemoth of a bond. A popular narrative is that we need to unite behind our public schools. Here’s what I think our community needs to band together behind instead: improving education. To quote a popular talking point by those in favor of this bond, we cannot continue to kick the can down the road – regarding the quality of education Midland’s children receive from their public schools.
Did you know – that only 36% of all MISD students across all subjects are meeting grade levels over the last nine years? Additionally, MISD’s total spending has increased by over 100% in the past decade, while student enrollment has only grown roughly 20%. Those who support this bond say if we spend more money, our schools will improve. But we’ve spent the money, and they haven’t improved. I believe more money for MISD means they will take less responsibility for continued poor performance. MISD has a recent history of no accountability or transparency and poor fiscal management. If we as a collective community want the best for Midland’s children, then we must hold MISD accountable for their legal obligation to properly educate our children.
Proponents of this bond say that the bond is only about improving facilities and not academics. If improving academics isn’t the top concern of MISD, then we as a community need to call their priorities into question. If MISD refocused on doing what is necessary to improve our academics, then I fully believe the community would support facility improvements afterward.
I have heard that we will “hold our kids hostage” if we don’t pass this bond. However, we are holding our kids hostage by not providing them with a quality education. What kind of life are we setting our children up for when so many of them don’t have basic reading comprehension and math skills? We need to demand better for our children today.
Money isn’t the issue. MISD has the money. MISD’s spending per student has increased by over 40% in the last ten years. But we are failing our children regardless. It’s time to hold MISD’s feet to the fire today rather than hoping that better building years from now will improve future outcomes. Visit movemidland.org for more information on how we can move forward to address facility concerns in a more fiscally responsible and accountable way.