His name was Mr. DeVore. When I was in ninth grade, he was my world geography teacher. Somehow, he recognized the 14-year-old punk me had some talent for social studies. Once when I was through with my work early (a usual occurrence), he sent me with an older student from one of his upper-level courses to the roof of the school, where I helped him stretch a metal line to serve as an antenna to pick up Radio Moscow’s shortwave signals. I have no idea if it worked, but just the fact that Mr. Devore let me out of class to get on the roof of the school made me feel super-special.
Over the years, I had him a couple more times. He always expected the best from me and would continually pass me books he knew I’d be interested in. To me, Mr. DeVore was what a teacher should be. He cared about his students and tried to inspire them. Ask most teachers, and they will tell you a similar story about that one educator who most inspired them to become teachers.
So, now that the state has taken over my former district, Fort Worth ISD, promising scripted lessons and rigid curricula that tilt way to the right — an essay by the saint of College Republicans, Ayn Rand, is now required reading — will there be any teachers who inspire their students? I am positive there will be. Regardless of who is in charge, I am always on the side of teachers and students. I believe there will be many teachers, even this school year, even at FWISD, who will do extra to reach and teach their students — though I am afraid there won’t be nearly as many as there should be.
Thousands of teachers, especially experienced ones, have left the district, and that was totally predictable. After the state’s takeover in Houston in 2021, a huge educator exodus followed, so déjà vu, the state’s tone-deaf, ham-handed management totally “succeeded” in doing it again, running off the best teachers. By Fort Worth ISD’s June resignation deadline, more than 1,000 teachers had gotten the hell out, a 58% increase over the previous year.
Here’s a little clue to the state. If your plan is to use scripted lessons, you’re basically telling your employees, the teachers, that they are the problem with education. So, of course, the ones who can are going to leave.
Who will be left to teach our children? The Board of Managers, appointed by the state’s pick for superintendent, have voted to get a waiver from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to hire more uncertified, random people. I refuse to call them “uncertified teachers” until they last a few months, at least. As a high school teacher for more than two decades, I worked with a few colleagues who started with emergency certifications who ended up becoming good teachers but only a few.
My guess is a significant number of those who are not certified will be gone by November. Regardless of what some chuckleheads think, teaching is not easy and not everybody can do it. During my first year teaching high school, a newbie teacher like myself lasted all of one month. The students saw him, figured rightly they could run him off, and did. So, long-term substitute teachers and more uncertified hires are going to be the backup this year.
While the stated reason for the state takeover is to improve educational outcomes, everything the state and Fort Worth ISD are doing guarantees the opposite. Common sense and any number of studies prove that experienced and certified teachers are better than random people. Politicizing education by singling out a highly touted Muslim principal and investigating so-called left-wing teachers is not going to help student achievement. Forcing a poorly written Christian-based curriculum on students doesn’t help either.
But what should we expect from our far-right Christian nationalist overlords, who purport to believe that a framed piece of paper of poorly translated Hebrew will somehow magically change the behavior of students, who even if they are supposed to be walking in total silence during passing periods (good luck with that!) will not stop to read what Moses toted off Mount Sinai? If anybody needs to read the Ten Commandments, it’s the Republican politicians who seem to be in a contest to see who can break the most.
Retired Fort Worth ISD teacher Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue is in total awe of today’s public-school teachers dealing with a state government that’s actively anti-public school.
This column reflects the opinions and fact-gathering of the author(s) and only the author(s) 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.
