Gina Hinojosa shares vision for Texas public schools at Fort Worth town hall
Democratic Texas gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa made a stop in Fort Worth on Tuesday evening to share her vision for Texas schools as part of her Team Texas Public Schools tour across the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.
Hinojosa, who opposes Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for the governorship in November’s general election, stopped in McKinney, Richardson, Grapevine and Arlington on Tuesday for town hall events before finishing the day at Azle Hall in north Fort Worth. Attendees filled the ballroom, and it was standing-room only in the back due to crowd overflow.
Hinojosa vehemently opposed the Texas Education Agency’s current takeover of the Fort Worth school district as well as the state’s takeover of several other districts across the state.
“Let me be clear,” Hinojosa said to the hundreds in attendance. “Yes, our schools need the improvement. But it can never, ever be the answer that we take our public schools away from parents and the community. And that is why when I am governor, on day one I will fire [TEA Commissioner] Mike Morath and end school takeovers.”
Hinojosa also criticized the TEA’s current A-F accountability grade system, which gives each district and campus in the state a letter grade at the end of each school year to rate its academic performance across a number of categories. A school is taken over by the state if a campus receives five straight F ratings. Fort Worth school district, and nearby Lake Worth ISD, are both currently under state control.
“On day one I will end the rigged A-F accountability system,” Hinojosa said to a crowd that grew increasingly excited and even more loud after every promise she shared. “That system depends on a deeply flawed and rigged STAAR test. And we will finally end the dreaded STAAR tests. And that will fall on the legislature to deliver a bill to my desk to bring true accountability to public schools.”
The state appointed former Florida educator Peter Licata as the new superintendent of Fort Worth ISD in March, along with a new nine-member Board of Managers to replace the formerly elected school board. Hinojosa told the Star-Telegram after the town hall that she isn’t super aware of what Licata and the board have done since their appointment, but she believes no one other than locally elected leaders should be making decisions for public school districts.
Licata’s tenure has included a number of sweeping changes, including closing the district’s only immigrant academy, dozens of staff cuts following a reduction in force, and a major overhaul of how the district operates its most struggling campuses. Licata previously told the Star-Telegram it was time to stop “rearranging the furniture in the same room” and start making tangible changes across the district. Those changes have been met with extreme mixed reviews from Fort Worth ISD teachers and parents so far.
“There is nothing more important that we can do for a child’s education than to put good teachers in their classrooms,” Hinojosa said. “My education agenda is not a Democratic agenda. It is not a Republican agenda. It is an agenda that the people of Texas support because the people of Texas love our public schools.”
Hinojosa, who assured attendees several times Tuesday evening that she would soon be their next governor, still has a long way to go in order for that to become a reality. She trails Abbott by several points in most recent polls, with some projecting Abbott to keep his post by a double-digit percentage margin. Still, there was overwhelming optimism in Azle Hall on Tuesday.
Dozens of attendees lined up to ask Hinojosa questions about her agenda following an opening speech that lasted about 15 minutes. Ale Checka, a longtime Fort Worth ISD teacher and regular speaker at board meeting public comment sessions, pressed Hinojosa on the lack of oversight and awareness regarding the takeover of Fort Worth ISD from state lawmakers in Austin.
“Is there going to be any kind of meeting or oversight of what is happening right here in Fort Worth?” Checka asked Hinojosa. “You all have broke us. We don’t have anybody doing oversight on us. We don’t have an elected board and there’s no pushback at all to come to our defense.”
“The only thing I know that we can do to change that is win in November,” Hinojosa said in response.
Roxanne Martinez, Fort Worth ISD’s former elected school board president who lost her position following the state takeover, asked Hinojosa how she would be able to rally a state legislature that is firmly Republican to support her education agenda.
“What is accountability to you?” Martinez asked. “And how do you plan to help us protect our district when we have a mayor and even the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce who are in favor of the TEA takeover?”
Hinojosa is confident in her ability to make her education visions a reality because she still believes most people in the state want what’s best for public schools. She thinks she can gain the support of Texas House and Senate Republicans if she’s elected in November.
“What you just said is uncomfortable to say,” Hinojosa said in response to Martinez. “A lot of people are afraid to say it. But we have to say it. We just have to. Our courage will inspire others to be courageous. This is how we hold people accountable.”
A number of attendees also voiced their displeasure with decisions from Fort Worth ISD leadership to close campuses due to overall enrollment decline across the district. The one that has sparked the most debate, International Newcomer Academy, was brought up several times Tuesday.
Licata, teachers and community members have gone back and forth for months on whether closing INA was the right choice. The district says it was. A Star-Telegram review of national newcomer academy data showed a more complicated reality. When a speaker asked Hinojosa what they could do between now and November, she told her supporters to “resist in every way you know how.”
“The state-appointed board does not have your best interests at heart,” Hinojosa said. “They are serving the governor and the governor’s interests, so all you can do is resist. They are going to keep taking over our districts if we are not as loud and as forceful and as honest as we can be. There is no working with them. There is just making the accountable for every single action that they take.”
