Economically disadvantaged students are improving faster; Budget cuts Thanksgiving Square

Good morning and happy Friday. It's August 14th, and we are so glad you're here with us on North Texas Now. I'm Miranda Suarez. And I'm Ron Corning. I like that tone. Happy Friday. What are you hinting at? I'm hinting that I don't have to work tomorrow. As is the case with so many people and so many students coming back after their first, kind of partial first full week of school. Yes. Any tales from the front line in your household? Oh, so as listeners may know, my husband is a teacher. Nothing crazy yet will learn more about the teen social dynamics. As the year wears on, though, I assure you. And he's doing okay adjusting to being back at it? Yes. It's obviously really, really, really exhausting. Of course. But, you know, if it's what you love, then it's nice to be back in the classroom. So my friend Tammy, whose son got his driver's license at 16. Uh-huh. And started his soft year for the very first time drove off in his new car. Oh! His used but new to him car. Yes. For the first day of school. And she posted a photo from 11 years ago when he was five and going to kindergarten. And she said, I'm almost going to tear up talking about it. She said, this is the kid I saw this morning driving off. Oh. We're getting Misty in this studio today. No, you just think about that, right? Well, I mean, the older I get, the more I understand all the older people that annoyed me when I was a kid who said, oh my God, you've grown up so fast. I know. And as a kid, you're like, shut up. I can't help but grow up. And then as an adult, I look at, you know, babies who are now adults. I'm like, oh, my God. And you look at me and you think, this is the older guy who annoys me now. See, so sometimes things never change. Sometimes. It just takes on different forms. My new young spry co-host will look at me the same way, Rob. Get ready. Don't start counting the days yet. My goodness. I want, I promise. As we talk about getting back to school, we want to turn our attention here this morning to Fort Worth because students there are making measurable gains in the classroom. We're talking about new star test results. It shows 39% of the city's public school students met grade level this spring. Now, the highest citywide performance on record, the third straight year of improvement. There's still work to be done, though. That's not an incredibly high number. No, the Fort Worth Education Partnership is the nonprofit that came out with this report. They're a nonprofit that tracks the performance of Fort Worth area schools and students. And like you said, they acknowledge there is a lot of work to do. But their 2026 report uncovered an encouraging story inside these start. test numbers. Economically disadvantaged students are improving faster than their more affluent counterparts. And this latest data also reflects progress made before the state takeover of Fort Worth ISD in March. So we caught up with Brent Beasley. He's the president and CEO of the Fort Worth Education Partnership.

Brent, thank you so much for joining us again. Yeah, thanks for having me. Start off just by telling us what is the headline of this report. The headline of the report is that the kids in Fort Worth improved a little bit this past year in the percentage of kids who are meeting grade level. And that's the second year in a row that Fort Worth kids have shown improvement. So that's encouraging for us. For people who may not understand what it is to make grade level, can you explain that? Yeah, it's based on the state assessment, which is the star test. And the kids take the test. There are different categories based on how they do. There's a below grade level. There's approaching grade level. There's meeting grade level and there's masters. So they have these different categories. So what we look at is the kids who are meeting grade level and above. So meeting and mastering. So 39%. of Fort Worth's 165,000 plus public school students, they met grade level on the start test. That's across 12 districts, 10 charter networks, where there's specific areas of the district that did better than others. Yeah, and I appreciate you mentioning that it's across all the different school districts. We really wanted this to be about all the kids in the city of Fort Worth and not just about one particular school district. One of the things that we saw as far as a particular group, that did better was, well, first of all, more than half of the campuses across the city did do better. So 65% of campuses saw improvement. So that's a good thing. And what we saw is that the campuses that serve the most economically disadvantaged students, Of those, those are the ones that actually improve the most. So 78% of campuses that serve high, economically disadvantaged students improved, and they're actually growing at a faster rate than the other campuses. So that's really important and really encouraging because when you think about students who are behind, They not only have to, you know, get a year's worth of growth in a year, they actually have to do better than that if they're ever going to catch up. So that's the most encouraging part of the report, I think. Yeah, you mentioned in the report, I believe it was kind of a 2% bump in meeting grade level. In the past year, it was a 2% bump the year before that. How significant is that? 2% doesn't sound like a huge improvement, but what does that say to you? Right. Well, one, it's encouraging because it's the first time since we started doing this, which was six or seven years, besides the year after COVID, it's the first time that we saw any improvement at all. So we were really happy last year to see even a little bit of improvement. But, you know, two consecutive years at 2% a year. So now that's 4%. There's 165,000 students in all these schools. So, you know, that means there's thousands of kids. You know, 4% is thousands more kids who are where they need to be. academically. And for what we know about what it means if you're at grade level versus not being at grade level, even when you're in third grade for your future.

then that means there's thousands more kids in Fort Worth who are on the right track for future opportunities. Brent, let's look at both ends of the scale. What is the best performing school at what percentage to grade level? And what's the worst performing school percentage to grade level? The top performing school in the city of Fort Worth, I'm pretty sure is Overton Park Elementary. And at Overton Park, 87% of the kids are meeting grade level. That's a newer school, but they're usually up in that range. And then the lowest performing school this year in the city of Fort Worth is William James Middle School, and that's at 12% meeting grade level. So yeah, think about the difference between a school with 87% and 12%. Huge disparity. What accounts for the disparity do you think? I mean, there's a lot of things. I mean, one is certainly poverty. Schools that have mostly low-income kids versus schools that have more affluent kids, you know, for more affluent families. Generally, the trends show that the higher the income of the families, the higher the performance. But within that trend, there's a lot of variation. So there can be schools with very similar demographics. that are very different. And so William James has a lot of low-income kids, and it's performing really poorly. But there are other schools in Fort Worth that have the same number of low-income kids that are performing a lot better. So the general trend is one thing, but inside that trend, there's actually a lot of variation. This report drops just as the state takeover of Fort Worth ISD is taking hold. Is this perhaps a lagging indicator, this increase in the percentage of students to grade level, a lagging indicator of Dr. Karen Molinar's work as superintendent, who, by the way, was switched out with the state takeover? Yeah, I think it is. I think that because when we look just at Fort Worth ISD, Fortyth ISD grew pretty well last year. And so we have to give credit to Dr. Molinar's leadership and, of course, all the school principals and teachers who made that happen. But, yeah, I think we need to give a lot of credit to Dr. Molinar for the improvement that we saw in Fort Worth ISD last year. And she did a lot of things. One of the things she did was different than any other superintendent that I've seen in Fort Worth. She really was very open and transparent about how our kids are doing and the great need for improvement that we have. And she welcomed community groups and community leaders and nonprofits to support her in that. And then she started to implement some things that we're going to see even more of now with the state takeover. But she implemented new curriculum and, you know, more standardized lessons that all the teachers were expected to follow. So she started to implement some of the things that we're seeing now. That was my next question for you, where if we're already seeing progress in a lot of these Fort Worth ISD schools. Were you concerned that the takeover would kind of come in and switch up and get rid of that progress? But it sounds like what you're saying is you see it as an extension of some of the successes. That's what I'm hopeful for. Yeah. Because we have, you know, a decade of low performance for fourth ISD schools prior to this. And so we did see improvement last year. But fourth ISD is, you know, it's still.

below its peer districts around the state. What is the solution moving forward to lift these percentages higher for schools like William James at only 12%. You know, Ron, there's not one solution, but I'll give you an example. A couple of years ago, two years ago, the lowest performing school in Fort Worth was Clifford Davis Elementary, and I believe it was only 6% of their kids were meeting grade level. And we talked about that publicly. That got a lot of attention. And a lot of different things happen at Clifford Davis over the last two years. And they've actually increased quite a bit. And, you know, things happened like the mayor of Fort Worth got involved and rallied the community around to see what the community could do to help. They addressed some issues with apartments that were near the campus of Clifford Davis. And then within the school district, they replaced the principal. They hired a new principal. They started doing different things, you know, in the school and in the classroom. And so in two years, Clifford Davis has actually seen a lot of growth. So I think that's a good example of... You know, when you sort of rally the whole community around alongside the school and the school district, you can actually see some improvement. Brent Beasley with the Fort Worth Education Partnership. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks for having me on.

The city of Dallas is making some tough decisions about where it spends its money as it deals with a budget crisis. One line item that got cut earlier this year was a lease for the tunnels under Thanksgiving Square. The downtown park and chapel relied on that $500,000 it got every year from the city. Here to explain how the park will move forward is Kyle Ogden. He's the CEO of the Thanksgiving Foundation. Kyle, good morning. Thank you for being here. Great. Thank you. I've heard, I've seen you in print call this an existential crisis. Do you believe that you'll survive this? Oh, Ron, of course, we're going to do everything we can to. We're in the community. We've got lots of friends and supporters in the community that want to help us. And we're certainly optimistic that we'll. navigate through this and we're still in conversation with the city about you know trying to come to some compromise we don't think that this outcome that we're facing right now is really what we what we need to be facing in the future as well yeah I know the city has talked about cutting its spending for Thanksgiving Square for some time. They were spending that 500 grand to lease access to the underground tunnels under the square, but they were earning less than 50 grand in revenue for the city. That's from KERA's reporting as of 2024. I guess I'm wondering, you know, I'm sure some people kind of see that cut as a no-brainer for the city, but do you think that the city should still play some role in maintaining and funding the park? Oh, for sure. Again, I think that we're an important civic asset. You know, we're a sacred space, a shared sacred space and a civic movement where people who all backgrounds and beliefs come together to experience values like respect, civility, kindness, gratitude. You know, and when these... values are carried into everyday life. They shape a more connected and thriving city. And that's what we all want is. And that's what the city should want as well. So, you know, I feel like. You know, we have a role to play in the culture of this city, and we should, the city should care about it as well as the citizens as well. Do you think the city, though, is showing its hand that it may not care as much about architectural institutions, and this goes beyond that in terms of how it serves the community, but this is a Philip Johnson designed. structure we've got the i m pay designed city hall we don't seem to be entirely on track and mark lamster from the dallas morning news might might agree with this on track to really rally around some of some of these buildings that are are otherwise you know renowned well i think uh you know i think that's certainly what what the uh

current situation shows, you know, I wouldn't say that the people on the city council are necessarily blind to that. They're expecting us to find another way to keep these places flourishing and all. So I'm, you know, I don't know. Again, I think it's about money, frankly. It's, you know, I have some empathy for that. They have a tough job. They're good people trying to do the right thing for the city. It's just, you know, this isn't the right approach, frankly, and we need to work through something that works for both of us. Kyle Longton, Kyle, thank you. We're up against the clock here. We appreciate your time this morning. And we're going to track your progress as you do more outreach to rally people around this cause. Thank you for being here. Great, great. Thanks for inviting me. You're listening to North Texas Now.