It was almost two years ago exactly that we announced the arrival of Dr. Angelica Ramsey, who was the lone finalist in Fort Worth ISD’s search for a new superintendent. In what feels like the blink of an eye, the board and Ramsey have agreed to part ways. Ramsey’s buyout is just shy of $1 million as she was signed for a five-year contract the board is paying her not to fulfill.
Academic data paints our local district as lagging behind other comparably large urban districts like Dallas’ and Houston’s, though any seasoned educator knows you can interpret data to paint any tale that you’d like it to. Ramsey’s departure is not a surprise.
In late August, Mayor Mattie Parker posted an open letter challenging the district and school board to improve. Through a bulleted list that included audits, goal-setting, the “strategic allocation” of existing bond funds, and other partially actionable jargon that teachers themselves are familiar with because it’s garden-variety b.s., Parker cc’d a list of local and civic leaders who pledged their resources and support to make Fort Worth the best urban district in the nation.
We all want to believe Parker has good intentions, and while she didn’t directly call for Ramsey’s dismissal, the public disappointment of the district caused the board to kick the scapegoating of the then-current super into overdrive to prove they were doing something. Congratulations. Y’all spent a million bucks to stop someone from working. The board just named an interim, former Deputy Superintendent Karen Molinar, by unanimous vote, so now the formal search process has begun, and there’ll be a new official boss by the next school year to blame for failures of our state and community.
Parker telling the district to make improvements is a bit like someone who owns a Tesla calling Elon Musk and demanding the product and stock prices improve. Oh, in this scenario, the superior to whom the awkward man-child EV enthusiast answers is the governor of Texas, who won’t help build any infrastructure for electric cars or give you any tax breaks, but you can’t threaten to quit because you wouldn’t be able to pay for your own house and keep your livelihood. It would seem a little disingenuous, right?
Gov. Greg Abbott, who endorsed Parker, hasn’t been shy about holding increases in educational funding at gunpoint. (See what we did there?) Because Republican legislators will sue to let you carry a firearm at the State Fair but won’t allocate a massive budget surplus to public education, Texas public schools have been hamstrung. Abbott continually fails to pass his educational voucher agenda while prostituting himself to out-of-state donors to funnel public funds to Texas’ private and religious sectors. Parker, if acting in good faith, should be pressuring the governor to release those funds to districts for better teacher pay, materials, and facilities, as well as requisite security enhancements to campuses, but we understand why she doesn’t, because if the mayor publicly called out the governor for continuing the well-documented Republican agenda of dismantling public education, she’d be Ramsey’d and looking for a new job herself.
Many rural GOP lawmakers who held the line with Democrats against Abbott’s vouchers were subject to fierce attacks by the governor in their midterms as retribution for thinking about their constituents instead of his theocratic priorities of lining his personal campaign checkbook for Jay-zus. Forgive us if the mayor’s ultimatum to the district feels hollow, but it’s akin to walking into your house at the end of the day to find a ransacked living room and your spouse crying on the floor. It would probably just be best to hug them and start picking things up rather than explaining in cold legalese the state of the house and posting on Facebook the problem you’re going to help with rather than just doing it.
In a recent interview, Parker said she’d talked with master teachers in the district who were frustrated with the administration and bureaucracy surrounding their instruction. Guess what? Administrators jump through the traps and red tape set by the politicians, who pay millions to evaluate our public educators based on testing and performance data. Parker also pointed to schools that are under-enrolled and may require consolidation, and that it is on the board, as well as city leaders, to figure out how to utilize facilities to the greatest benefit of specific neighborhoods. This is all politician-talk, but truthfully, if Fort Worth ISD is failing, it’s symptomatic of a failing city whose residents have spent too long judging from afar, insulating themselves from certain neighborhoods, and blaming those who are actually doing the hard and thankless but most important work.
Almost any school district could improve with fewer restrictions on teachers, better funding, and more community support. Parker and those who challenged the district to improve can help with all of those but primarily by exercising their political influence with those they share rooms with that others are not privy to. It’s only marginally important who the next superintendent of Fort Worth is, because they’ll inherit all of the same problems that Ramsey — and everyone else — cannot solve. Parker, as well as our state representatives, will have a chance to really support the students, families, and communities they represent in Austin starting in January. Will they? Probably not, but there’s a distinct chance they’ll vote next legislative session for wealthy parents patronizing our local private schools to receive a tax-break handout they don’t really need.
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.
