A Dallas School Field Trip

Yesterday, I visited the campus of David W. Carter High School.  Carter is located on Wheatland Road in Southern Dallas, just north of Interstate 20.  I've been on the campus a number of times, but I had never ventured towards the back of the school, where the gyms and practice fields are located.  I felt like I had stepped into a scene of the movie Wildcats as I watch the band in summer practices.  The feeling was similar to my experience walking the halls of Carter, seeming as if I was a character in the Morgan Freeman hit Lean on Me. Comparing Carter to Wildcats or Lean on Me is cliché, and borderline offensive, but this has nothing to do with activity or behavior.  My comparisons are based on facilities.  The predominantly black schools portrayed in the aforementioned movies were plagued by sub par facilities, along with a plethora of other problems.  Walking towards the steep steps of the gymnasium at Carter, the sidewalk -well I can't really call it a sidewalk- I'll say the concrete path, was barely passable. On the way back to my car, I chose to walk in the dirt. My mind then went back to the last day of the 2005-2006 school year, when I visited one of my friends who teaches at Kimball High School.  Passing through the halls of Kimball, I couldn't believe how much of the ceiling was exposed, with students walking to and fro awaiting the final bell.  I imagined scores Kimball Knights, attending the high school of their parents, with little change over the time that has passed.  Despite challenges in the area of facilities both of these schools attained an ACCEPTABLE rating from the most recent TEA Schools Report. Funds from the billion-dollar DISD bond proposal recently passed, will be coming to Carter and Kimball in the next few months.  I even saw a tractor at Carter on yesterday. Reports show that the segregation of schools in America is reaching pre-Brown v. Board of Education levels.  After Brown, the country focused on addressing the issue of separate, however still today, the issue of unequal still exists.  Cynics, which this blog has many, would immediately point to the recent DISD credit card scandal and mismanagement as the schools major problems.  In the end, it's the students who suffer, and they know.  They know that a society who cares for them, would find a way to ensure that they have more modern facilities in which they are to learn.  And still these students strive, and still they achieve.