The Dallas Independent School District has gone to hell in a hand basket...with affirmative action being fought over between hispanics and blacks. 62% of the students are hispanic, the school superintendent is hispanic, 30% of the students are black, and 2/3 of the school administrators (principals, etc.) are black. Of the hispanics, the majority are illegals. No person of any other race or ethnicity in their right mind would put their child in a DISD school...and one suspects that there are many blacks and legal hispanics who wish their kids could escape DISD too. If the illegals weren't there, the remainder might have a fighting chance as a decent education despite the teachers' unions. No chance under the status quo.
I can only imagine how bad it is today. We were part of the white flight back in the early 70's. My junior high school was one of the best in Oak Cliff until the day they decided to bus in ONLY black kids from waaay across the city into predominately white schools. That year, we were literally locked into our classrooms (um, fire codes!), and chained and padlocked metal gates were pulled down from the ceilings in the hallways to block anyone from wandering around. There were fights and thefts. I had a knife pulled on me in the stairwell for no other reason than I was there. Then DISD decided that wasn't enough and informed us the white kids would be bussed the following years to a different disadvantaged campus for each of my high school years, never mind I lived half a block from my neighborhood high school.
Everytime I drive through Oak Cliff I'm just appalled at the changes. What was once upper middle class neighborhoods are now so run down and depressed. This all thanks to DISD.
BTW, not all public schools are created equal. We're sending our kids to public school in a rural community and are quite pleased with it. That said, I work closely with the school just to keep a watchful eye on things.