Two Things Dallas Wants By 2020: College-, Work-Ready DISD Grads and the Olympics

On April 1 the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation announced the five finalists for the $2 million 2010 Broad Prize, which goes to urban schools that have made the "greatest progress in America in raising student achievement," and the Dallas Independent School District was not among them. This, despite the fact the district, and especially superintendent Michael Hinojosa, spent the last five years pushing the DISD down the so-called Road to Broad, destination 2010. Hinojosa would eventually claim: Wait, wait, wait -- I meant by 2011.

He also began setting a new deadline: 2020. As in: "2020 Dallas." (Which is not to be confused with Dallas 2020, the latest effort to bring the Olympics here.)

Yesterday at the house, we received our latest copy of DallasISD Parent, the 16-page bilingual quarterly in which Hinojosa writes that now that Dallas Achieves! is over and done with -- you know, since it "revolutionized teaching and learning at the Dallas ISD," mission accomplished! -- it's time to move on to 2020 Dallas. Which is what, exactly? Well, he says, we'll learn more about that during the 2010-'11 school year, but in short it's a "new plan to graduate students college and workforce ready." I scanned his message; it's after the jump.

I did find this sketch proposal from Hinojosa's chief of staff, Arnold Viramontes, in which he writes that "the new 2020 Dallas Plan is rooted in the accomplishments of both ongoing improvements within the district and the Dallas Achieves plan." But until the consultants get in there, well, nothing's firmed up. By the way, Dallas Achieves! was so successful it no longer even needs its separate Web site -- its domain registration expired last month. All that's left are these fond, fading memories.

Hinojosa and Dallas 2020