By Emily Davila-Flore and other members of Parents Protecting Schools
Somewhere along the way, El Paso lost its outrage. Somewhere along the way, El Paso’s leaders lost their courage.
We stopped asking hard questions. We stopped demanding better for our children. We allowed the wealthiest voices – the ones with political consultants and real estate portfolios – to convince us that the greatest threat to public schools is keeping them open. Not underfunding them. Not losing thousands of students to charters.
Somehow, finding ways to sustain good neighborhood schools has been cast as reckless.
This fear-driven narrative — that reopening a school will drive the district into financial ruin — isn’t just dishonest, it’s dangerous. It’s a smokescreen to hide a harder truth: El Paso ISD, the largest district in the county, is also the worst-performing.
Not because of teachers, but because of gross mismanagement, chronic underfunding of Title I schools, and a culture of complacency at the top.
Last week, the Texas Education Agency released its 2022-23 ratings. EPISD earned a C, with 21 out of 73 campuses — 29% — receiving D or F grades. In Ysleta ISD, just 4% of schools are failing. In Socorro ISD, none.
Think about that. The district with the most resources has become the least effective. The district that’s closed the most schools over the last decade has only seen student outcomes decline sharply.
Meanwhile, executive ranks have swollen, consultants have gotten rich, and the central office has stayed comfortable — while teachers try to educate kids in century-old, sweltering buildings.
Ysleta, Socorro and Canutillo — districts with fewer resources and less political clout — are finding ways to protect academic outcomes for their students despite severe financial challenges. EPISD, despite every advantage, is stuck in a cycle of self-inflicted harm.
Teachers determine academic success, but they are underpaid, undersupported and sidelined when they propose real solutions.
For years, we’ve been told that closures are the only “responsible” way to save our school district. But save who, exactly?
Not the children in the Chamizal, who saw Beall Elementary shuttered while the district pushed magnet programs miles away. Not the families in South El Paso, promised “destination campuses” only to see their schools stripped of staff, programs and dignity. Not the majority of socioeconomically disadvantaged students, whose test scores, graduation rates and access to advanced courses have declined.
No, rounds of large-scale school closures have not saved us. They are destroying us and the 140-year legacy of EPISD.
Behind it all is a school board majority propped up by business interests, voting in lockstep to dismantle what they were elected to protect. Their strategy: downsize, consolidate and cut — over and over again, without regard for who it hurts most.
Meanwhile, efforts to privatize public education are accelerating. Charter schools — though classified as public under Texas law — are governed by private boards, not elected ones. They creep deeper into our communities, draining millions from neighborhood schools.
PACs promoting charter expansion fund glossy campaigns and rigged policies that make it easier to shutter public schools, displace teachers and funnel public dollars into privately managed systems with little public accountability.
The playbook is the same everywhere: defund, declare failure, privatize — and EPISD is playing right into their hands.
Instead of resisting, our leaders are enabling this cycle. It’s gone too far. It stops with us.
So when we talk about “financial ruin,” let’s be honest: the real crisis isn’t reopening a school. It’s a district abandoning its mission. It’s a generation of working-class, immigrant and Latino children being told that excellence is too expensive, that dignity is unaffordable, and that thriving schools are a luxury reserved for the Westside — not Central, not Segundo Barrio.
This isn’t just about budgets. It’s about values. What kind of city claims to stand for equity but cuts it down in practice? Our elected officials must fight for our children every day, not surrender at the first sign of pressure from wealthy donors or political bosses.
We’ve been offered a false choice: preserve our finances or preserve our schools. Tight budgets are real — but they’re not unique to EPISD. What’s different here is the refusal to fight for anything better.
No audits of central office bloat. No real performance reviews of multi-million-dollar contracts. No freezes on travel or consultant spending. No transparency. No accountability. Just more plans to close more schools — especially those serving our poorest kids.
Instead of leadership, we get liquidation. EPISD has the region’s worst-performing schools — not because our children can’t succeed, but because the system keeps failing them. Instead of fixing the system, they’re closing one of only five A-rated elementary schools left.
At some point, we have to recognize that continuing to rely on the same broken strategies — and expecting different results — is its own kind of failure.
We owe our children better than managed decline. We owe them stewardship, not shortcuts. Because when you strip away the politics, the spreadsheets, and the spin, one question remains:
Will El Paso’s leaders stand up for our kids?
This commentary was submitted on behalf of Emily Davila-Flore, a mother of a student at Silva Magnet High School; Hiram Bolaños, a father at Putnam Elementary; Erika Morales, a mother at Lamar Elementary; Amanda Ramirez, a mother at Rusk Elementary; Maria Esther Salomon, a mother at Crockett Elementary; and Fernando Sanchez, a father at Park Elementary. They are part of Parents Protecting Schools, a general-purpose political action committee registered with the state of Texas.
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