Most Fort Worth kids are behind in reading. Is that a civil rights issue?

Seventy years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that separating students on the basis of race was unconstitutional, overturning the “separate but equal” doctrine that served as the underpinning for state-enforced school segregation in many states, including Texas.

Although the court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark moment in American history, the decision only touched one part of the question of students’ educational rights — the right of equal access to public schools. More than a half-century later, there’s little guarantee, at least at the federal level, that students will actually get a quality education at school.

“There are some states that provide a pretty robust right to education, particularly guaranteeing a high-quality education, and others merely guarantee the right to get into a school building,” said Kimberly Jenkins Robinson, director of the Education Rights Institute at the University of Virginia School of Law. “It doesn’t matter if the school building is crumbling and who’s teaching in the classroom or other things.”

Robinson will be the keynote speaker Oct. 8 at a panel discussion on reading as a civil right, organized by the Star-Telegram’s Crossroads Lab and a number of other community sponsors.

Education as a civil rights issue gains traction with parents

The notion that access to education should be protected as a civil right has been gaining traction among parents since the beginning of the pandemic, Robinson said. When schools shut down and parents became more heavily involved in their children’s education, many became more aware of where their school districts fell short, she said.

But although the conversation around education as a civil right has grown in the public at large, it largely hasn’t translated into policy changes, Robinson said. Over the past few years, a number of states, including Texas, have passed laws dealing with how reading is taught in public school classrooms. But Robinson said there’s been little momentum toward laws either at the state or federal level that would enshrine access to a high-quality education among other protected rights like voting or access to public facilities.

Robinson argues that there should be federal protections requiring states to ensure that all students get an education that prepares them to be active participants in society after high school. School districts report the number of students who graduate from high school ready for college, careers or the military, but that preparedness also needs to include civic engagement and participation in the political process, she said.

The question of educational rights is particularly important when it comes to literacy, Robinson said. A student who can’t read well by the end of high school is essentially cut off from the rest of the world, she said. They often won’t be able to find gainful employment, support themselves or participate in the political process.

“When a child is not literate, they’re really cut off from society,” she said. “They might leave school, but they can’t contribute.”

Most Fort Worth students are behind in reading

In Fort Worth’s public schools, the majority of students are behind in reading. Just 43% of students across all public school campuses in the city limits scored on grade level in reading on this year’s STAAR exam, according to an analysis of state test data released in August by the Fort Worth Education Partnership.

The picture is even bleaker in the city’s largest school district. In the Fort Worth Independent School District, just 31% of students scored on grade level in reading this year, a figure that has barely budged in a decade. In late August, Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker spoke at a Fort Worth ISD school board meeting , calling on board members to do more to improve student performance. Fort Worth is one of the fastest-growing large cities in the country, and Parker said the district isn’t keeping pace with the city’s growth.

Although Parker, who is also scheduled to speak at the panel, stopped short of calling for then-Superintendent Angélica Ramsey to be replaced , she said there had been a lack of leadership in the district for years. A month later, Ramsey resigned after two years as the district’s top administrator. The school board is expected to appoint an interim superintendent on Oct. 8.

Detroit lawsuit sought to establish right to read

In 2016, seven students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District sued the state of Michigan, arguing that their constitutional rights were being violated because conditions at their schools were so bad that they made it nearly impossible for them to learn. The lawsuit sought to create a constitutional right to adequate literacy instruction.

In the 136-page lawsuit, students described “slum-like conditions” at school, including class sizes of 50 or more, sewage leaking from bathrooms into hallways and school playgrounds strewn with condoms. In one case, the plaintiffs alleged that an eighth-grader was put in charge of teaching seventh- and eighth-grade math classes because no math teacher was available.

The plaintiffs argued that decades of disinvestment in Michigan’s public school system had created a situation where schools failed to provide even the most basic instruction. They argued that inadequate education amounted to a civil rights violation because literacy is fundamental to students’ ability to participate in public life after high school.

“This abject failure makes it nearly impossible for young people to attain the level of literacy necessary to function — much less thrive — in higher education, the workforce, and the activities of democratic citizenship,” plaintiffs wrote in the complaint.

In 2020, those students reached a settlement with the state, with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer promising $94.4 million to the Detroit school district. While the settlement meant the case never went to court and therefore didn’t create a constitutional right to literacy, it came as welcome news for community members and school officials.

“More than $94.4 million is needed to get things back where they belong, but it is a monumental victory for a struggle that certainly did not start with this lawsuit,” Mark Rosenbaum, lead attorney for the students, told the education publication Chalkbeat Detroit.

Jamarria Hall, one of the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit, told the Star-Telegram that attorneys in the case encouraged plaintiffs to settle the lawsuit as a way of getting something, rather than taking the case to the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court and risk coming away empty-handed.

Hall, who is now CEO of the education rights group The Gary B Initiative, said he had mixed feelings about the outcome. The amount of money the district received was nothing compared to the amount of damage that was done to Detroit, he said. But he’s happy to see the recommendations put forth by a task force that was convened to decide what to do with the settlement money. The task force decided earlier this year that about 60% of the money should go toward programs for first-graders , with the rest going toward tutoring and other programs for older kids.

Another outcome Hall was pleased to see was that young people became more involved in education, not just as students to be taught but also as stakeholders with agency. The lawsuit only happened because students saw something was wrong and decided to do something about it, he said.

“Young people aren’t just the future, they’re also the present,” he said.

Literacy equips kids for education, life

Trenace Dorsey-Hollins, director of the advocacy group Parent Shield Fort Worth, said equal access to literacy education needs to be treated as a civil right in the same vein as equal access to public facilities and legal protection because it’s so closely entwined with students’ chances of success later on. If students can’t read well, they won’t do well in any other subjects, which limits their opportunities after high school, she said. Reading opens the door to the rest of the educational experience, she said.

“It equips our kids with the skills they need to succeed in the classroom and beyond the classroom,” she said.

Dorsey-Hollins, who is scheduled to speak during a panel discussion at the reading event, has frequently pointed out a lack of progress among Black students in Fort Worth ISD. Just one in five Black third-graders scored on grade level in reading on this year’s state test. Hispanic students, who make up about 65% of Fort Worth ISD’s enrollment, also lagged slightly behind the rest of the district, with 31% of third-graders reading on grade level. Education researchers say students who can’t read on grade level by third grade are unlikely to catch up and are more likely to struggle later on and drop out of school before graduation.

Dorsey-Hollins, who is Black and has a daughter enrolled in Fort Worth ISD, points to progress the district has made with emergent bilingual students as a sign that improvement is possible if school leaders make it a priority. She wants to see the district devote the same kind of energy and resources to helping Black students grow academically.

Brent Beasley, CEO of the Fort Worth Education Partnership and another scheduled speaker at the panel discussion, said access to education is a critical issue both at the individual and civic levels. For individual students, a substandard education could have dire consequences for the rest of their lives, limiting their ability to find work or participate in society. For the city as a whole, having large numbers of students struggling to read is a worrisome sign for the future workforce, as well as for the city’s ability to govern itself effectively, he said.

Literacy belongs alongside other civil rights because it’s the key that unlocks all the rest of those rights, Beasley said. Once they’re adults, students will enjoy a long list of fundamental rights, including voting, due process and the right to petition the government. But they can’t access any of those rights if they can’t read, he said.

The Star-Telegram’s panel discussion on education as a civil right will be held at 7 p.m. Oct. 8 in the lecture hall at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, 3220 Botanic Garden Blvd. Tickets for lecture hall seating have sold out, but tickets are available at star-telegram.com/readingisaright to watch a live stream in an overflow room at the Botanic Garden. A live stream of the event will also be broadcast on the Star-Telegram’s pages on Facebook , YouTube and X, the platform formerly known as Twitter .