Home > Comments

Comments from the Blueprint Dialogue Series

“We’re dealing with schools; with kids who really have no voice…We are the voice. [We must ask] the question, how is this going to affect students in this school compared to students in that school, and is it equal, is it excellent everywhere, or do we have the window dressing here and excellence there?”
– Mr. Michael McFarland, Principal, John Tyler High School, Tyler Independent School District, Tyler Participant

“Valuing and engaging communities is essential for our success, because community is where we are going to find great reservoirs of strength and resources of the human spirit. Our schools need to take active steps, just as this school is taking, to ensure that linguistically, culturally, and racially diverse families are meaningful partners in planning. Each of us in our local communities can do something, where we work, where we act, and where we live. When we work together, it can be so powerful.” – Dr. Rosana Rodríguez, Intercultural Development Research Association

“Blacks and Browns have to work on differences and come together to form a permanent and history-making coalition. We have to talk about it, write about it, dream about it, and make it happen, because, if we don’t, the powers that be are going to keep us divided and prevent us from realizing our common destinies of justice and fairness.”
– Dr. Tatcho Mindiola, Director, Center for Mexican American Studies, University of Houston

“Human capital is our greatest resource…Students, parents, and community [must have] multiple ways of participating…so they can get their voices heard. We believe that they tell their story best and that if they are given the opportunity to tell their story, then people are more willing to listen.”
– Ms. Cynthia Wilson, Superintendent, Northeast District, Houston Independent School District, Houston Participant

“At some point in time we have to think about the power we have, the control we have, the influence we can exert, if not in the entire world, in the space where we find ourselves and really raise the simple question: What can I do about this space today that will make it better than it was yesterday, particularly where children are concerned?”
– Dr. Bradley Scott, Intercultural Development Research Association

“’We are,’ as Dr. Martin Luther King has said, ‘caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality.’ All of our long-term success depends precisely on our capacity to acknowledge and build on our diversity and our mutuality.”
– Dr. María “Cuca” Robledo Montecel, Intercultural Development Research Association

“Another challenge is what we call the stratification of education. You have the elementary school, the middle school, high schools, but what we need is more of a process. We need to look at education as a process rather than all these different steps. There is a disconnect between the different levels of schools. And that tends to be a hindrance to our children. We need to have a seamless process, and it needs to be a 16-year process so that the children are focused on graduating college.”
– Ms. Luz Villegas, Director of Community Programs, Richland College, Dallas Blueprint Dialogue participant

“[We need to] view parents as a resource rather than something that needs to be fixed, and to find ways to leverage parents into the very valuable resources they can be in terms of the skills that they have.”
– Ms. Sandi Smith, Senior Vice President of Operations, Junior Achievement of Dallas, Inc., Dallas Blueprint Dialogue participant

“Businesses have a tendency to say what the schools have not done. So now, we’ve gotten together and businesses are saying, let’s work together to prepare the students so that they will be prepared for the workforce when they do complete their high school education.”
– Ms. Orenthia Mason, Director of Teacher Education, Jarvis Christian College, Tyler Blueprint Dialogue participant