Nearly 1,300 Sign Students’ Petition to Fix Fort Worth ISD
Many Fort Worth ISD students are unhappy with the new, state-appointed leadership. Their biggest issue is how classes are taught now under the direction of the Texas Education Agency (TEA). Instead of encouraging learning, teachers must show slides and instruct from prepared scripts, deadening the classrooms.
Fort Worth ISD students recently posted a petition on Change.org calling for more actual teaching and less memorization and reciting. Nearly 1,300 people have signed the document as of Tuesday evening.
“Education should be about exploration,” the students’ petition reads. “We want to go to school to connect with people, discover things, and learn. We want to feel inspired when we walk into a classroom. We can’t now, because the rigidity of the new lesson plans and rules makes it almost impossible to explore new ideas, and the dullness of slides and pointless tasks just pushes students farther away from actually learning. It is when we are young that our love of learning begins. If students who are eager to learn are struggling to stay interested, what happens to students who already have a hard time connecting with school? We want to go to school and remember why we love it. We know something has to change. We are ready for change, and we are not the only ones.”
The TEA’s takeover of Fort Worth ISD is one of several across Texas. It is all part of an enormous coordinated effort on behalf of Republican leadership at state levels across the country and in federal government to destroy public education because it serves mostly minority students.
Voters Sue to Reinstate Cut Polling Sites
Fort Worth councilmember Deborah Peoples (as a private citizen), Maryellen Hicks, Kathleen Hicks, and Camille Rodriguez are suing Tarrant County, the elections administrator, and the three Republican members of the county commissioners court for eliminating 92 voting sites for the Nov. 3 midterm elections, alleging the court’s recent decision to make voting more difficult disenfranchises voters, violates election code, and “intentionally treats Black and Hispanic voters unequally.”
In the lawsuit filed Friday morning in Tarrant County District Court, the plaintiffs request an expedited hearing, a temporary restraining order, and a temporary injunction, plus the restoration of the 92 voting sites.
Early voting goes from Oct 19 thru Oct 30.
Crystal Mason Says Vote
In a 5-4 decision in late September, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected state prosecutors’ appeal of Crystal Mason’s acquittal. Now, the mother, grandmother, and Fort Worth woman who cast a provisional ballot in Tarrant County a decade ago while ineligible to vote is banging the drum for change. Mason has created Crystal Mason: The Fight Against Voter Suppression, an outreach campaign to educate voters about their eligibility and get more of them to the polls.
Pamela Young, executive director of the grassroots group United Fort Worth, told the Star-Telegram, “Today we celebrate victory, but next we’re coming for accountability. We’re coming for accountability, and that starts October 19 through 30 with early voting. We can be a part of that accountability by kicking [DA] Phil Sorrells right out the door.”
It was Sorrells who in 2024 asked the appellate court to convict Mason of voting illegally to scare all “would-be illegal voters.” Mason was found guilty in 2018 for her 2016 vote that did not count while on supervised release for a 2012 tax fraud conviction. She was looking at five years inside.
“The facts are undisputed that Crystal Mason was on federal felony probation when she cast her illegal ballot,” Sorrells said in a statement. “That’s against the law. Elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, and anyone who attacks them with an illegal vote will be prosecuted.”
This column reflects the opinions of the editorial board and not the Fort Worth Weekly. To submit a column, please email Editor Anthony Mariani at Anthony@FWWeekly.com. He will gently edit it for clarity and concision.
