Forgione Revises History

Dear Editor,
    AISD Superintendent Pat Forgione revises history when he says "Liberal Arts was not a strong academic school. It was starting to lose it" [“Just Add Students,” News, August 8].
    Forgione has conveniently forgotten the successful challenge by Liberal Arts students to the district’s unconstitutional practice of assigning a portion of the “top 10%” of the class to students who were not in the top 10% at Johnston and LBJ High School. AISD’s bizarre policy was a result of its efforts to avoid accountability for the education of Eastside neighborhood students. To mask the performance of nonmagnet program students, AISD insisted that the school be unified with one principal and one Texas Education Agency accountability number, even though many parents of neighborhood and magnet program students had long advocated two separate programs, with separate TEA numbers, under one roof.
    In 2001, three Liberal Arts students challenged AISD policy because it violated the state’s top 10% law and the federal constitution by enabling students ranked below the top 10% to secure automatic college admission privileges. Federal District Judge James Nowlin agreed, and ordered AISD to stop the practice. The Fifth Circuit also agreed, in Malish v. Austin ISD.
    For Forgione to suggest that the Liberal Arts Academy was “not a strong academic school” is utterly false. LAA students were among the most academically accomplished in AISD. They were sent to the Science Academy after AISD successfully lobbied the state Legislature to create an exception to the top 10% law for LBJ High School.
    And as a direct consequence, exactly five years later (the maximum allowable time under the Texas Education Code for continued failure of performance), Johnston High School was shut down by the Commissioner of Education.