I found an interesting article explaining the changes and challenges that our school district has encountered in the past 40 years.  Below you will find some  fragments,  statistics and conclusions from the article.
  



 Today, 79.2 percent of the HISD's 202,773 students are from economically disadvantaged homes.

According to  Professor Stephen Klineberg , Anglos were pouring into Houston during the years of the oil boom. After  1982, the Anglo population stopped growing and virtually all the population increase in Harris County during the past 28 years has been non-Anglo growth. This is the primary reason for the increase in HISD Hispanic students from 13 percent in 1970 to 62 percent today. The students of HISD today are 27 percent African-American, 62 percent Hispanic, 8 percent Anglo and 3 percent Asian-American.

Immigrant students to the Houston region have largely been of limited English speaking ability. In 2009-2010, the HISD Home Language Survey reflected that 99 languages are spoken in students' homes, and 31 percent of HISD's 202,773 students are limited English-speaking.

Over these 40 years, the family structures of our society changed, with an ever increasing number of single parents. Many children do not have parents with whom to live. The incarceration rate in Texas has tripled, with most of the imprisoned being dropouts or undereducated.

During the last decades of the 20th century, the community basically abandoned and neglected our public schools, especially the core city school districts such as the Houston ISD. Many leaders of all races and ethnicities who could have made a difference in the Houston schools left. It was like a football team losing many of its key players without a draft to replenish the talent loss.

The business community became less engaged in actively supporting Houston's public education. People were interested in educating "my" children, but there was little support for educating "those" children.

Teacher unions and special interest groups filled much of the influence vacuum created by this neglect and abandonment. Their enhanced presence made terminating unsatisfactory teachers, administrators and staff increasingly difficult.

We live in a competitive world economy, and to survive and prosper, we must have an educated population. Globalization and modern technology have ushered in new economic realities. An educated, trained and skilled work force is required if the Houston region is to have a secure economic future. To do so, we must focus on providing a quality education not just for "my" children but for "our" children.

But assuring our region's economic viability is only one part of the picture. We must have an educated citizenry to support our democracy and maintain our freedom. The Texas Constitution established the public free schools with the acknowledgment that "A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people …." We must return education to its historic priority to maintain our freedom.

To fix our schools, the community must make education the central priority that is reflected in the hearts, minds and actions of our community. Our children must be convinced that getting an education is important to their future.

The Houston region children currently number 1,216,109 with 92.8 percent attending public schools, 2.8 percent in charter schools and 4.3 percent in private schools. As these percentages show, the focus for improving education in Houston must be on the public schools.



Source: Houston Chronicle