This Dallas School Proves Diversity Works. Why Aren’t Others Copying Its Success?

Robyn Williams landed her first teaching job a few years ago at a public school in southeast Dallas, in a neighborhood where incomes were low and crime rates were high. It was rough, with car break-ins in the teachers’ parking lot and occasional sounds of gunfire from the apartments across the street. Williams taught third grade, and she loved her students, but they brought challenges into the classroom. Almost all of them met the requirements of what the Texas Education Agency calls economic disadvantage, meaning their families’ incomes were low enough to qualify the kids for a federally subsidized lunch. Most of them had behavioral issues or had been diagnosed with learning disabilities or both, and Williams’s days were consumed with trying to catch them up academically while helping the