Community leader rallies supporters to save Pearce

AUSTIN, Texas (KXAN) - Radio talk show host Michael Lofton refuses to give up on Pearce Middle School, even as the Austin school struggles to raise its academic performance and stay open.

Pearce has three years of academically unacceptable ratings, giving Education Commissioner Robert Scott the right to close the school if test scores released this summer.continue to flounder. In a last-ditch effort to rally the school, the Austin Independent School District has invited Lofton to use his radio show and volunteers to rally the school to raise its test scores.

"I don't think Pearce will close. I think it's a flawed law," Lofton said. "The law may have its supporters in the minds of some, but a school is a lot more than bricks and mortar. You need support and adequate resources to do what it takes to turn these schools around."

Pearce is closer to finishing the year -- and the tests that will decide the school's fate -- than it is to starting any major effort. Lofton is undeterred, planning both pep rallies and marches for the school with the help of Allen Weeks, whose efforts were credited with building the parent network necessary to turn around Webb Middle School.

Lofton, a radio host on KAZI-FM, already is host to the monthly African-American Men and Boys Conference, which travels around the district with speakers and workshops. The focus of the workshop is to give African-American males both the desire to pursue higher education and the skills to pursue an income that doesn't include selling drugs.

On Saturday, Lofton and supporters will gather at Andrews Elementary School at 1 p.m. for a march at 1:30 p.m. The message, Lofton has written in e-mail to supporters, is that closing a school and shipping kids out of their neighborhood is not the answer. Lofton is encouraging all alumni of the 50-year-old Pearce campus to join the effort.