I don’t know Harold Dutton well. We used to say hi to each other and talk a bit about the Houston Independent School District at our favorite breakfast hangout. I was a region superintendent at the time. Dutton was, and still is, a Democratic member of the Texas House of Representatives, representing District 142 in Houston. Dutton was first elected in 1984 and is one of the longest-serving members of the Texas House.
Recently, The 74 online interviewed Dutton given the recent takeover of the Houston Independent School District by the State of Texas. It was Dutton, back in 2015, who authored the legislation (House Bill 1842) that requires the Commissioner of Education to intervene when a district repeatedly fails to address chronically underperforming schools. Here’s some excerpts from that interview:
“The 74: What prompted you to author Houston Bill 1842?
Dutton: When I got to the legislature, one of the things I wanted to do was be on the public education committee. I had always thought of Houston as a sort of education bastion, particularly in terms of Wheatley High School, which I attended and graduated from. I just wanted to make sure they were all right.
Along about the year 2000, I sponsored an event for my high school for its 75th anniversary called the Purple and White Gala to recognize and honor all of the Miss Wheatleys that had come through at that time. I got all their pictures and their bios. I went around trying to find them and then communicate with them.
What I noticed was that the early Miss Wheatlleys had great accomplishments. The first Miss Wheatley was also the first Miss Prairie View A&M University. We had one who was an actress. There were all kinds of all kinds of professions. We even had Miss Wheatley who had been part of the moonshot at NASA.
But as I put all their bios and pictures on the wall, and as I got to the late 80’s, I could see a total decline in the education accomplishments of the Miss Wheatleys. I found one who was working at McDonald’s. That shocked me.
[Killeen Republican Jimmie] Don Aycock was chair of [the Texas House of Representatives Public Education Committee] at the time. He had a bill about reconstituting schools that were failing.
I went to him and said, ‘I got to figure out some way for the school board members to have skin in the game about all the schools. I need to put an amendment on your bill that says that if you have a campus in your school district that is failing, your whole school district is failing and the state could come in and take over.’
This wasn’t my first attempt at trying to change the situation. The first thing I did was sponsor a bill requiring HISD to be divided into four parts. Each part was going to have its own superintendent because I thought having the superintendent closest to us would get us to where we needed to be. Well, that bill didn’t pass.
I started researching again and came up with another bill that said we were going to create what was called an opportunity school district in Texas. It would be a school district that would take all of the low-performing schools, all the failing schools, put them in this district and the state would run it. We would fix the schools up and give them back to the district they came from. That didn’t pass.
From my perspective, this (H.B. 1842) is offering a better outcomes for students and families, particularly in north Houston. HISD could have done a number of things to eliminate failing schools.”
“The 74: Do you think that Wheatley should stay open?
Dutton: Absolutely. I don’t think we ever want to look at closing schools.
Wheatley has a distinction that probably no other school in the state has. It was one of the schools that at one time in the not-too-distant past had three alumni serving in the Texas House of Representatives at the same time. It was a school where at one time we had a sitting congressman. We had a sitting county commissioner. We had a sitting state school board member. We had a sitting local school board member and we had a state representative.
All from that school alumni.
The challenges we face now in terms of getting it back? I don’t think we meet those by closing the school. I think we meet those by giving these children what they need.”
“The 74: Are you troubled by the current conversation about the takeover?
Dutton: No. I anticipated there will be some people who didn’t understand that while I might be inclined to agree with them insofar as not wanting the state to take over, I’m more upset at failing schools. I’m more upset at denying students a future if they don’t get an education.”
Dutton still is a nostalgic opportunist with limited knowledge and creativity when it comes to improving learning for kids, especially black, brown, and poor ones.
He seems to know only one way to fix schools – let the state take them over.
Sorry. We’ve been there and tried that, with underwhelming results.
The idea Dutton has that we shouldn’t close schools like Wheatley, a school by the way that has under-performed my entire educational career (nearly 40 years), is ludicrous.
I’m afraid Harold Dutton represents what is currently wrong with our public school system – the final decision-maker is a state legislature clueless about how to fix learning for young Texans.
Dutton would be wise to swallow a pill of humility and begin asking others for new and creative ways to meeting the needs of black, brown, and poor learners. But my experience tells me that’s not Dutton’s style.
He would rather be the one who solves the problem, even though his solution is short-sighted and limited.
Til tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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