Dive Brief:
- The football team in suburban Dallas’ Allen High School competes in a $60-million stadium and nearby McKinney will break ground in the coming weeks on a nearly $70-million stadium for its three high schools.
- The Los Angeles Times reports there is significant support for the stadiums among students and community members, who vote to pay for them, and proponents point to the multiple uses for the stadiums beyond football, including graduation ceremonies.
- Academics do not seem to suffer from the high spending on football, and while Grassroots McKinney has sprung up in opposition to the stadium, a wave of massive, high-priced stadiums around Dallas reflect the widespread support.
Dive Insight:
Wealthy districts around Dallas are competing for residents, some of whom decide where to live based on the schools. If all of the schools are high-performing, amenities surely factor in. And in Texas, where football is life, school officials have an argument when they say they want a new stadium to compete.
State education dollars are not being taken from high-poverty districts to fund stadiums in places like McKinney, but the optics have certainly helped create die-hard critics. While some schools can hardly afford toilet paper and they know they have no tax base to whom they can turn for additional help, other schools can win approval for a nearly $70-million stadium. It’s all legal, and local support or not, it helps feed a national dialogue about the way we fund education in this country and whether that needs to change.