Question for Mike Miles demanding an answer in 2014

Multiple times Mike Miles has been responsible for student groups that were somehow reduced in size before testing that then showed rising grade averages compared to the previous larger group.

These incidents started with the Harrison School District Two Class of 2009, the first year with a smaller 12^th grade enrollment than the previous year.  This process of smaller 12^th grade enrollments continued past the Harrison Class of 2012, by which time the 12^th grade enrollment had shrunk by 32%, but average ACT scores had gone up!   See details at http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2013/05/damage-by-mike-miles-in-colorado.html

Meanwhile over at School District 11, to the north of Harrison School District Two, they were accepting a majority of Harrison 12^th graders who were leaving under some apparent pressure.  The District 11 ACT scores went down.

Another incident happened in Dallas ISD with the first ACT testing after Mike Miles had started as DISD superintendent.  The percentage of minority students taking the ACT went down by over 23% following a 5 year history of this percentage constantly rising an average of 17 percentage points.   DISD reported the results of this test as showing a full point rise from 17 to 18 on the ACT.   However, upon closer study, the real change reported, as they had been reported for years with one point more of precision, was a change from 17.2 to 17.6.  See details at http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2013/10/does-race-guide-how-disd-treats-students.html

The most recent incident was the NAEP testing under Mike Miles this past year.   The results were released and reported on December 18, 2013 in the Dallas Morning News with the headline:  “Compared to other big-city districts, Dallas ISD is on par in math, lags in reading” Mike Miles was quoted in the article as having called the results encouraging: “They showed increases in areas where we needed to make gains and confirm that Dallas ISD is making steady progress toward increasing student achievement levels”

However, what was not released by DISD, nor reported on by the Dallas Morning News, was that DISD had failed to test all students.  In another national publication it was reported:  “Then there’s Dallas Independent School District. It excluded 36 percent of fourth-graders in special ed ghettos from NAEP; it also excluded 30 percent of fourth-graders in ELL ghettos. These high levels of exclusions may explain why Dallas managed to reduce the percentage of fourth-graders reading Below Basic by three percentage points between 2011 and 2013. Dallas also excluded 26 percent of eighth-graders in special ed ghettos…”   This is reported from http://dropoutnation.net/2013/12/19/naep-dishonor-roll-urban-edition/

The current incident, still in process, involves the DISD Class of 2013, the last graduation class benefiting from the ongoing progress being made before July 2012.  It was the largest DISD graduation class in 31 years!  Changes by Mr. Miles started quickly showing in the Class of 2014. In November of 2013 the official enrollment count for the Class of 2014 recorded the greatest year to year drop in 12th grade enrollment in 29 years!  The Class of 2014 enrollment had lost over 530 students compared with the Class of 2013 enrollment!   Consistent with Mr. Miles history of reducing 12th grade enrollment, the remaining students in the Class of 2014 should provide college ready testing scores that are higher than the Class of 2013.   See more details at http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2013/12/blog-post.html

These multiple incidents each involve reductions in the number of students being tested, apparently so as to eliminate lower scoring populations.  It appears to be a critical part of the strategy used by Mike Miles to increase the average test scores for students under his supervision. 

The question for Mr. Miles is:

 "Mr. Miles, how often have you raised college readiness grade averages and senior class sizes at the same time, compared with the number of times those class sizes dropped, in your career?"

To provide more detail it should also be asked:

"Is it true there is a correlation between higher college readiness test grade improvements happening when class sizes dropped the most during your years as a district superintendent?" 

(Note: since both Colorado Springs and Dallas were/are growing during his years, growing senior classes should be normal.)

Can Dallas ignore what happened in 2013 in DISD?

The DISD Class of 2013 was the last graduation class benefiting from the ongoing progress being made before July 2012.  It was also the largest DISD graduation class in 31 years! 

Then, in November 2013, things rapidly changed.  The official enrollment count for the Class of 2014 recorded the greatest drop year to year in 12th grade enrollment in 29 years!  The Class of 2014 enrollment had lost over 530 students compared with the Class of 2013 enrollment!  What suddenly started happening in DISD?

Dallas ISD Graduation Demographics 1970-2014
(Click on chart to enlarge/print)

Is this record loss in Dallas ISD 12th grade enrollment in any way related to the identical losses that were created in the Harrison School District Two during the last 4 years that Mike Miles was Harrison Superintendent?   During those four years the 12th grade enrollment was constantly dropping while elementary enrollment was constantly rising.  Total district enrollment was therefore stable while 12th grade enrollment dropped over 32% under Mr. Miles.

How was this loss in 12th grade enrollment related to Mr. Miles strategy to develop a core of students with higher grade averages on college readiness tests?  Was he attempting to eliminate low scoring students, students who were not adequately prepared for the next grade? Was that strategy also a factor in the large number of Harrison seniors who transferred to Colorado Springs District 11, to the north of Harrison, where college readiness scores suddenly went down?  

How is this strategy for raising college readiness grade averages substantially different from the "disappeared student" strategy judged by the courts to have been used in El Paso by the now incarcerated former superintendent, Mr. Lorenzo Garcia?

Three questions Mike Miles must answer

Since the official DISD enrollment count of 11-01-13 it is clear Mike Miles must answer three questions regarding current senior enrollment:

1. Is it true both that student loss has made the DISD Class of 2014 the first senior class in 7 years that is not larger than the previous year’s senior class, and that their loss is so large that DISD has now suffered the greatest loss in senior enrollment year to year of any senior class in 29 years? 
2. How is this senior student enrollment loss in Dallas different from what happened from the Class of 2009 to the Class of 2012 in Harrison School District Two during which time 1/3 of the senior enrollment was lost?
3. What are the reasons for this massive loss happening to the DISD Class of 2014?

========== Addendum 4-18-15 ====================

We now  know that these three questions written over a year and four months ago only pointed to the tip of the iceberg.  By the end of the 2013-14 school year DISD suffered one of the largest increases in PEG and Improvement Required schools, failing schools, in the history of DISD!  It appears Board President Miguel Solis knew that this tragedy was probably coming so he and a few other board members pushed to extend Mr. Miles contract before the information on failing schools was made public.

Now, a Civil Rights Complaint was filed with the Department of Education on 3-25-15 due to apparent funding irregularities within DISD that appear to have helped lead to these failing schools, and to the probable budget surplus that also helped Mr. Miles secure his contract extension early.

The reasons for the complaint are concentrated between two words, supplement and supplant.  Google both of them at the same time and in a nutshell you will see what has been going on inside DISD since 2012.  

That appears to be the source for the "Dallas ISD Miracle" with the sudden growth of the surplus inside DISD while suddenly having money for massive growth in administrative staff, salary, and expenses.  Can anyone else explain where this money came from?  

Dallas ISD Student Attrition Explodes! - as in the last district Mike Miles managed.

This school year, 2013/14, is the first school year in 7 years that DISD did not have a senior class that was larger than the previous years' class.  The tragedy is that this years' senior class is so small it represents both a 6% loss in enrollment and the largest loss of senior DISD enrollment in 29 years!   Why is the media not covering this tragedy?

Senior enrollment for the Class of 2014 has dropped by 531 students below the enrollment for the Class of 2013, over a 6.34% drop!  (NOTE: this is the result using DISD data from the DISD My Data web pages showing a 8,382 senior class enrollment for 2012/13.  The 2012/13 senior enrollment according to the PEIMS Standard Reports from the Texas Education Agency web site is lower than the DISD count by 34 students at 8,348. Either way the trend is the same, a disaster!)  This is the first drop in DISD senior enrollment since 2006/07.  

The Cumulative Promotion Index (CPI) is a graduation rate measurement that is among the most predictive, timely, and the least vulnerable to manipulation.  The CPI for Dallas ISD has now dropped to 62.5% for a drop of  3.6 percentage points!  This is also the first drop since a dramatic rise in CPI started in 2005/06 when this rate was only 40.7%.  Since then it has constantly gone higher until last year when a CPI of 66.1% was achieved.  Now DISD suddenly drops 3.6 percentage points.

Below is a chart with the data.  Click on it to enlarge it.   Excel copies are available.  Email bbetzen@aol.com and describe the report you want.  Corrections and comments are welcomed!


2003-2014 Dallas ISD Enrollment by Grade
Click on above image to enlarge, or download, to study.

The major reason for concern is that these same student attrition patterns happened in Colorado Springs when Mr. Miles was Superintendent over Harrison School District Two from 2006 to 2012, just before coming to Dallas. While it took 16 months for the senior losses to show up in Dallas after Mr. Miles started, in Harrison it took two years longer.  Once they started in Harrison School District Two, within 4 years 1/3 of the Harrison senior class had been lost!  The total high school student enrollment loss was 26%!

While the Dallas CPI rose a total of 25.1 percentage points from 2006 to 2012, to the high of 66.1%, in Harrison District in Colorado the CPI went down 15.2 percentage points.  Then Mr. Miles comes to Dallas and CPI improvements stopped for Dallas ISD.  Within 16 months of his arrival the CPI went down for the first time in 7 years, going down 3.6 percentage points.

How long will Dallas allow this deterioration to continue?  See the Colorado data at http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2013/05/damage-by-mike-miles-in-colorado.html .

No drop in senior class enrollment larger than 531 students can be found in DISD History until you get back to 1984.  That year, 1984, DISD lost 825 seniors.

Dallas ISD is facing a crisis now, in 2013!

(In 1984 DISD also lost 1,544 Anglo students from total enrollment as White-flight was slowing down, never loosing that many Anglo students again.  Many years of much greater annual loss of Anglo students had preceded 1984. The healing process finally led to 2009 being the first year with an actual increase in Anglo enrollment in DISD. See the enrollment chart going back to 1970.)

Questions for Miguel Solis - Transparency?

The contrast between DISD, as managed by Mike Miles, and the most high achieving school systems on earth must be talked about. Miguel Solis must address these contrasts and the questions below.  The entire DISD Board should join him. These questions and contrasts reflect issues of growing urgency for many in Dallas, especially our children.

DISD leadership can no longer ignore data slowly being exposed regarding the results of Mike Miles management of DISD.  It's having the same results as his management of Harrison School District Two in Colorado Springs where 1/3 of senior class enrollment was lost the last 4 years before he came to Dallas!  

Miguel Solis repeatedly spoke during his own campaign for office of his commitment to transparency.  He was sworn into office as a DISD board member 11-21-13.

To support transparency the following questions  were sent to Miguel Solis on 10-22-13 and never answered.  Miguel is now the official DISD Trustee for District 8.  Answers to these questions are much more important now.  Will Mr. Solis achieve the transparency he often spoke about? 

Here are updated questions.  They use new data available since the election including the painful documentation of 531 fewer seniors in the Class of 2014 compared with the Class of 2013:

1)      Before he was hired in Dallas ISD there is no evidence that Mr. Miles was asked about the 26% drop in high school enrollment during the 6 years he was superintendent over Harrison School District Two in Colorado Springs.  During a time when elementary enrollment rose over 20% in Harrison, indicating families were moving into the district, this loss of high school enrollment is an exceptionally dangerous sign.  Does this loss bother you?  What does it mean to you?  Can you secure, or did you ever receive an answer from Mr. Miles as to what happened in Harrison to cause this student loss?   Are you comfortable with his answers?   Would you allow such a loss to happen in DISD?

2)     Mr. Miles is known for a policy of not allowing students to move to the next grade unless they can do the work well.   That policy, strictly interpreted with no extra help for students, would eliminate low scoring students, encourage students to transfer out, and encourage higher testing students to remain. Hundreds of students left Harrison and transferred to District 11 to the north where ACT averages then went down.  Is graduation a priority for you, or are higher average ACT scores a priority?  In what solutions to this issue would you place your energy?

3)     The majority of the above mentioned loss was to seniors.  The Harrison District senior class lost 33% of their enrollment during the 6 years Mike Miles was superintendent.  Now in Dallas, during Mike Miles second year in DISD, the senior class has lost 531 students compared to last year’s enrollment, 6% loss.  Does this loss bother you?  What accountability would you require from Mr. Miles if such senior enrollment loss continues?

4)     Mike Miles’ behavior necessitated a $100,000 investigation exposing many unethical actions by him against DISD policy, and against the board itself.  You have probably read that investigation.  What discipline would you have required as a board member?

5)     Mike Miles has alienated some of the most respected and accomplished leading education professionals in DISD.  It has resulted in many of them leaving their critical leadership positions as reflected in this article: http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/08/three-of-our-four-annointed-super-principals-have-been-drummed-out-of-disd.html/   Does this leave you comfortable about his leadership style?   What issues do you see?

6)     Mike Miles has had monumental difficulty in hiring and keeping staff who work closest to him in spite of the exceptionally high salaries he has given them: http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/05/when-will-disds-revolving-door-end.html/ .   What is your opinion of this turnover?  What issues does it present that you can identify?

7)     Mike Miles has paid some of the closest staff he had conflicts with to keep quiet. Are you comfortable with that?   What actions would you take, if any, to allow the board to freely speak with all such departing staff?  http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2013/09/coggins-report-did-dallas-isd-superintendent-mike-miles-buy-former-communication-chiefs-silence.html/

8)    Miguel, you have said you support transparency.   Would you vote to require DISD to have the same level of transparency regarding teacher positions filled, and vacancies, as we now enjoy with student enrollment? (I am thinking of the enrollment listings at https://mydata.dallasisd.org/SL/SD/ENROLLMENT/Enrollment.jsp?SLN=1000)    That is, would you require that within the next working day every new vacancy would be public and listed online by school as well as totaled for the entire district?   This would allow the public to know exactly how many classrooms in their local school are not filled on any day with a full-time (not substitute) certified teacher for those students and subjects, as required by law.  How concerned are you about the record number of over 1,700 staff who have already left DISD these first 16 months of Mr. Miles tenure?  http://keranews.org/post/more-disd-teachers-resigned-year-last-and-some-say-mike-miles-why.

9)     In 2013, when reported at the end of July, DISD did not officially notify the board that, for the first time in DISD history, the proportion of DISD students taking college entrance exams went down.  The percentage of DISD Minority students taking the ACT exam fell by over 23% while that percentage was virtually unchanged for the SAT exam.   Does it bother you that Mike Miles did not point out these reductions in the student population tested to the Board?  Does it bother you that instead, through reports given, he claimed very questionable and unjustifiable student progress with higher average grades reported for the ACT? 

10) In 2013 Mike Miles decreased the public transparency relative to the average ACT scores reported to the public.  Historically they had been reported to the first place after the decimal point.  In 2013, due probably to the 23% decrease in the minority percentage tested, the scores increase from 17.2 to 17.6.   Then for the first time in history these results were reported to the nearest whole number only.   The result was that it appeared the scores went from 17 to 18 instead of  the 4/10 of one point improvement that actually happened.  Does that reduction in transparency bother you?  What do you think explains this? What would you have done if you were on the Board when such reporting was attempted with no clarification of the changes?   Nothing?

The responses of Miguel Solis to these questions will be posted here if and when they are received.   (Note: as of January 1, 2015 Miguel Solis has continued in his refusal to answer or even discuss these questions.  Meanwhile, look at the continuing failures in performance for DISD: www.dallasisd.us )

Supporting Kristi Lara & Questions for Miguel Solis

Kristi Lara  is by far the strongest candidate in the District 8 election due to both her positive abilities and support for students, parents, and teachers, and due to her concerns about actions taken by Mike Miles.   Too many questions remain unanswered about the apparently positive and blindly supportive relationship Miguel Solis enjoys with Mike Miles.  

Most professionals would probably support the majority of the reforms Mike Miles has both continued and initiated in DISD.  However, a painful minority of his other actions appear to be oblivious of the progress made since 2006.  He pushed many of the central leaders in DISD schools out, destroying too much of the ongoing critical progress being made since 2006. Mike Miles thereby specifically appears to be doing much damage, including repeating in Dallas the damage he did to student enrollment in Colorado.  Senior class enrollment has dropped by 530 students in the past year in DISD!

To secure specific opinions of Miguel Solis regarding this evidence and these practices by Mike Miles, the following questions were sent to him on 10-22-13.  

1)      Before he was hired in Dallas ISD there is no evidence that Mr. Miles was asked about the 26% drop in high school enrollment during the 6 years he was superintendent over Harrison School District Two in Colorado Springs.  During a time when elementary enrollment rose over 20% in Harrison, indicating families were moving into the district, this loss of high school enrollment is an exceptionally dangerous sign.  Does this loss bother you?  What does it mean to you?  Can you secure, or did you ever receive an answer from Mr. Miles as to what happened in Harrison to cause this student loss?   Are you comfortable with that answer?   Would you allow such a loss to happen in DISD?

2)     Mr. Miles is known for a policy of not allowing students to move to the next grade unless they can do the work well.   That policy would eliminate low scoring students, encourage students to transfer out, and encourage higher testing students to remain. Hundreds of students left Harrison and transferred to District 11 to the north where ACT averages then went down.  Is graduation a priority for you, or are higher average ACT scores a priority?  In what solutions to this issue would you place your energy?

3)     The majority of the above mentioned loss was to seniors.  The Harrison District senior class lost 33% of their enrollment during the 6 years Mike Miles was superintendent.  Now in Dallas, during Mike Miles second year in DISD, it appears the senior class has lost over 500 students compared to last year’s enrollment, over a 5.5% loss.  Does this loss bother you?  What accountability would you require from Mr. Miles if such senior enrollment loss continues?

4)     Mike Miles’ behavior necessitated a $100,000 investigation exposing many unethical actions by him against DISD policy, and against the board itself.  You have probably read that investigation.  What discipline would you have required as a board member?

5)     Mike Miles has alienated some of the most respected and accomplished leading education professionals in DISD.  It has resulted in many of them leaving their critical leadership positions as reflected in this article: http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/08/three-of-our-four-annointed-super-principals-have-been-drummed-out-of-disd.html/   Does this leave you comfortable about his leadership style?   What issues do you see?

6)     Mike Miles has had monumental difficulty in hiring and keeping staff who work closest to him in spite of the exceptionally high salaries he has given them: http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/05/when-will-disds-revolving-door-end.html/ .   What is your opinion of this turnover?  What issues does it present that you can identify?

7)     Mike Miles has paid some of the closest staff he had conflicts with to keep quiet. Are you comfortable with that?   What actions would you take, if any, to allow the board to freely speak with all such departing staff?  http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2013/09/coggins-report-did-dallas-isd-superintendent-mike-miles-buy-former-communication-chiefs-silence.html/

8)    Miguel, you have said you support transparency.   Would you vote to require DISD to have the same level of transparency regarding teacher positions filled, and vacancies, as we now enjoy with student enrollment? (I am thinking of the enrollment listings at https://mydata.dallasisd.org/SL/SD/ENROLLMENT/Enrollment.jsp?SLN=1000)    That is, would you require that within the next working day every new vacancy would be public and listed online by school as well as totaled for the entire district?   This would allow the public to know exactly how many classrooms in their local school are not filled on any day with a full-time (not substitute) certified teacher for those students and subjects, as required by law.  How concerned are you about the record number of over 1,700 staff who have already left DISD these first 16 months of Mr. Miles tenure?  http://keranews.org/post/more-disd-teachers-resigned-year-last-and-some-say-mike-miles-why.

9)     In 2013, when reported at the end of July, DISD did not officially notify the board that, for the first time in DISD history, the proportion of DISD students taking college entrance exams went down.  The percentage of DISD Minority students taking the ACT exam fell by over 23% while that percentage was virtually unchanged for the SAT exam.   Does it bother you that Mike Miles did not point out these reductions in the student population tested to the Board?  Does it bother you that instead, through reports given, he claimed very questionable and unjustifiable student progress with higher average grades reported for the ACT? 

10) In 2013 Mike Miles decreased the public transparency relative to the average ACT scores reported to the public.  Historically they had been reported to the first place after the decimal point.  In 2013, due probably to the 23% decrease in the minority percentage tested, the scores increase from 17.2 to 17.6.   Then for the first time in history these results were reported to the nearest whole number only.   The result was that it appeared the scores went from 17 to 18 instead of  the 4/10 of one point improvement that actually happened.  Does that reduction in transparency bother you?  What do you think explains this? What would you have done if you were on the Board when such reporting was attempted with no clarification of the changes?   Nothing?

The responses of Miguel Solis to these questions will be posted here if and when they are received.   (as of 11-30-14 nothing has been received.)

Dallas ISD Graduation Rate Measurements Falling

The graduation rate for DISD is falling. The many measurements indicating this tragedy cannot be ignored.  Here is the spreadsheet with today's (10-15-13) enrollment numbers inserted.  The "official" 2013/14 enrollment numbers will be frozen in about two weeks.

Dallas ISD Enrollment 2002/03 to 2013/14
Click on above spreadsheet to enlarge and/or print.
Excel copies are available if requested from bbetzen@aol.com.

The 12th grade enrollment has fallen 5.5%, not going up for the first time in 7 years.  Instead our enrollment has fallen back 4 years to the level of the Class of 2010.  This is in spite of the fact that total DISD enrollment is up over 2,500 students.  The 12th grade enrollment is down over 500 students from last year! 

Since the original 9th grade enrollment for the Class of 2014 was over 1,100 students fewer than the Class of 2013, it is very probable that using the 9th grade cohort formula for graduation rate, once we know how many actually received diplomas for the Class of 2014, that there will still be a rise in graduation rate this year.  But please note that last year this 1,100 student difference in the 9th grade enrollment between these two classes had been reduced to only 116 students by the 11th grade due to the good work of 9th grade coordinators and DISD staff in general.  Now that 116 difference has exploded to over a 500 student difference indicating significant deterioration within the past year!

For the first time in 7 years the Cumulative Promotion Index has fallen for DISD!  The CPI measurement has fallen back to 2009 levels.  This most timely and predictive of all graduation rate measurements indicates the damage now happening by increased student attrition within DISD. A fall in the CPI indicates that somewhere along the 4 movements toward graduation (9th to 10th, 10th to 11th, 11th to 12th, and 12th to graduation) significantly fewer students were making the transition over the past 12 months since the official 2012/13 enrollment count.  Motivation is suffering. Parents feel abandoned by the schools.  Students are leaving as they reach senior year. 

We are in danger of loosing much of the progress DISD made over the past 7 years.   We must not repeat what happened in Harrison School District Two in Colorado where they lost 33% of their senior class and 26% of their high school enrollment over the 6 years from 2006 to 2012.  Their CPI fell 15 percentage points!

These numbers represent children.  In Dallas they represent many more hundreds of children, if not thousands.

Mike Miles' Resume & Worsening Student Attrition

Mike Miles Resume History Focusing on Student Attrition
Click on above image to enlarge.



Far too many indications are now appearing in Dallas ISD that the student attrition explosion that happened in Harrison School District Two in Colorado Springs under Mike Miles is now beginning in Dallas:

1. For the first time since 2006 the senior class is not only not growing but it has shrunk over 6%.  The current loss is over 450 students!
2. For the first time since 2009 documented discipline problems are going up and going up significantly with a 26% increase. Such changes usually indicate students will be leaving, as they left in Harrison.
3. For the first time since 2006 the Cumulative Promotion Index (CPI) measurement, the most valuable of dropout rate predictors, has not improved but has actually gone down! With today's data it is calculated as 63.4%, but needs to be recalculated with the more offical enrollment data at the end of this month, the time of the normal annual count. This 63.4% is a drop of over two percentage points for 2013, back to pre-2010 levels! The CPI dropped over 15 points in the 6 years Miles was at Harrison.

These measurements are all predictors of a growing dropout rate and a shrinking DISD graduation rate for the first time since 2006!  See more data and details at http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2013/05/damage-by-mike-miles-in-colorado.html .

To see the current reasons for alarm one only needs to compare the following 17 year enrollment by grade history of Dallas ISD with current enrollment.

Dallas ISD Enrollment by Grade from 1996 to 2013
Click on above chart to enlarge or print.

The current DISD student enrollment by grade, usually from the previous school day, can be found at: https://mydata.dallasisd.org/SL/SD/ENROLLMENT/Enrollment.jsp?SLN=1000

At the end of October, or the first week of November, this enrollment count is frozen to become the "official" annual enrollment count.  It then is used in the above spreadsheet and many others places as the official annual enrollment count.   Notice how the Class of 2013 had a 8,348 student 12th grade count which has now dropped to only 7,895 for the Class of 2014, a loss of 453 seniors as of today!  The 11th grade differences between these two classes was only 116 students.

The improving graduation rate with growing 12th grade classes since 2006 has suddenly ended! Why?

*****

Email bbetzen@aol.com if you want a copy of any of these spreadsheets to check, including the one not yet posted with the 2013/14 data as of today, used to get a CPI estimate of 63.4%.  It will probably change with the official enrollment counts at the end of the month, but not much. Critical readings are priceless for this work! Errors happen and must be minimized.

Does race guide how DISD treats students?

Are Mike Miles and DISD treating Minority students the same as White students? 

Here are two spreadsheets tracking the percentage of DISD senior class students taking college entrance exams going back to 2007.  They document almost constant increases in the percentages of students tested until 2013 when, for the first time, DISD paid for the SAT. The percentage of DISD students taking either college entrance exam went down!  They only went down 0.5% for the SAT, but they went down 21.7% for the ACT!

When you separate students by race the 2013 changes are dramatic.  While the percentage of Minorities taking the SAT saw almost no change, only a 0.1% increase, the percentage of Minority students taking the ACT went down 23.1%!  That reversed a 5 year history of constant increases averaging over 17%.  If only the same proportion of students as in 2012, with no increase, had taken the ACT, then 676 more Minority students would have taken the ACT in 2013.  That did not happen. 

With the normal annual increases, a total of over 1,000 more DISD Minority students would have taken a college entrance exam in 2013, but the numbers dived instead.  What happened?

ACT Testing History Dallas ISD 2007-2013
Click on above chart to enlarge and/or print

Email bbetzen@aol.com for a copy of either of these Excel Spreadsheets so you can check the data and formulas used in them.  Below is the same spreadsheet as the 2013 ACT centered report above, but it contains the data from the 2013 SAT testing data:

SAT Testing History Dallas ISD 2007-2013
Click on above chart to enlarge and/or print

The 23.1% reduction in the proportion of Minority students able to take the ACT exam represents a total of 676 minority students who did not have, for whatever reason, the advantage of taking the ACT.   The 8.6% reduction in the proportion of White students able to take the SAT represents a total of 28 White students who did not have, for whatever reason, the advantage of taking the ACT.

In a search for the answer to questions about equal treatment for all students, it must be asked what could have caused the massive reduction in Minority testing as reflected in these charts. Are Minority DISD students being treated equally?  What changed so suddenly?  Was this an attempt to raise grade averages?

Also, why, for the first time in history, was the ACT average reported in whole numbers in all of the 2013 planning reports for all the schools? (See https://mydata.dallasisd.org/SL/SD/cdp.jsp .) Was this an attempt to give the perception of grades going from 17 to 18, a full point, when the real average changes were only 4/10th of a point, or from 17.2 for 2012 to 17.6 for 2013?   Lessening the precision in these reports was certainly a step back in transparency.

Any claim that the 17.2 to 17.6 change is an improvement is erased by the 23.1% decrease in the percentage of Minority students tested.

What other questions need to be asked about these ACT/SAT testing patterns for 2013?

Reasons Mike Miles must leave Dallas

By keeping Mike Miles, Dallas ISD will be sending a very negative message to the world about education reform, and Dallas.

1. DISD will be keeping a leader whose behavior necessitated a $100,000 investigation exposing many unethical actions by him against DISD policy, and against the board itself, actions that would lead to any CEO in the business world being fired.

2. DISD will be keeping a leader who disrespected some of the most respected leading education professionals in DISD, and their record of achievement, pushing them out of their critical leadership positions: http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/08/three-of-our-four-annointed-super-principals-have-been-drummed-out-of-disd.html/

3. DISD will be keeping a leader who has monumental difficulty in hiring and keeping staff who work closest to him. Why are those closest to him leaving? http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/05/when-will-disds-revolving-door-end.html/

4. DISD will be keeping a leader who it appears paid some of the closest staff he had conflicts with to keep quiet: http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2013/09/coggins-report-did-dallas-isd-superintendent-mike-miles-buy-former-communication-chiefs-silence.html/ To date those staff have kept quiet.

5. DISD will be keeping a leader who, ignoring documented histories of achievement, imposed an untested evaluation tool prematurely, evaluating staff without timely opportunities for improvement (time he then requested and received for himself from the Board), decimating teacher and principal numbers with questionable termination threats and actions. A record number of over 1,700 staff have already left DISD: http://keranews.org/post/more-disd-teachers-resigned-year-last-and-some-say-mike-miles-why. More are waiting to leave if Mike Miles stays.

6. DISD will be keeping a leader who for the first time in history decreased the percentage of DISD students taking the ACT exam by 21%, instead of the normal 20% average annual increases since 2007. He decreased the percentage of Black students in 2013 by 20.9% and Hispanic students by 24%, but increased the percentage of White students by 0.7%. He then claimed a testing improvement going from 17 to 18 without pointing out the changes in the tested population: http://www.dfpe.org/pdf/Student-Achievement-Data-Does-Not-Support-Retaining-Mike-Miles-091613.pdf

7. DISD will be keeping a leader who was never questioned about the monumental 26% high school enrollment decrease in his Harrison District while he was there with families moving into the district causing over a 20% increase in elementary enrollment: http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2013/05/damage-by-mike-miles-in-colorado.html

8. DISD will be keeping a leader who is now facing a 5% decrease in 12^th grade enrollment in Dallas, the first decrease in DISD senior enrollment since the Class of 2009 set the first of a series of senior all time enrollment records, which were broken every year since 2009 as senior enrollment constantly increased, until now. This sudden decrease in Dallas 12th grade enrollment demands that Dallas study details surrounding 33% decrease in senior enrollment during Mike Miles' 6 years in Colorado.

9. DISD will be keeping a leader who, following the monumental loss of tenured staff his first year, then saw a 26.8% increase in DISD discipline problems. Students had seen the loss of power by their teachers. Mandatory open doors were only part of the message. Students responded. Discipline problems exploded.

Mike Miles must leave! Ethics cannot be compromised without leaving a very bad image for reform!

Mike Miles understands that. He has already sent his family back to Colorado. He sold his Dallas home. Does the DISD Board understand?

Dallas ISD must not allow more of what happened in Colorado under Miles to be repeated in Dallas: http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2013/05/damage-by-mike-miles-in-colorado.html

Is Dallas reversing history of progress with Graduation Numbers?

With the 6.3% reduction in senior class enrollment after the first full year under Miles, to back under 8,000, how far is Dallas going back in history?  The last time senior enrollment lost over 530 students was back in 1984/85.  Notice that 1984/85 was also the last year DISD lost over 1,500 Anglo students as White-flight began to slow down, but continued at a milder pace for decades.


Dallas Graduation Class History 1971 to 2010
Click on above chart to enlarge and/or print.

Also, there was a massive reduction in the testing of minority students in 2013, reducing the percentage of Black and Hispanic students taking the ACT by 20.9% and 24% respectively, while increasing the percentage of White students tested ever so slightly.  

Where is Miles leading Dallas?

Change 2012 to 2013 in proportion of DISD students allowed to take ACT Exam

This chart above demonstrates the end of the constant expanding of the numbers of students having the opportunity to take the ACT test in DISD. For 5 years the average percentage increase year to year was over 20%.  Then in 2013 there was a monumental decline among minority students encouraged and allowed to take the ACT.  The percentage of Hispanic students went down 24% and the percentage of Black students went down 21% while the percentage of Anglo students went up almost 1%.  How were students being treated equally regarding opportunities in this process?

In a separate area, after 5 years of constantly higher 12th grade enrollments, breaking all 12th grade enrollment records going back at least 30 years, it now appears that in 2013/14 DISD will have the smallest 12th grade enrollment since the Class of 2010.  It appears 12th grade enrollment will be going below 8,000 students for the first time in 4 years!  Last years enrollment of 8,348 was the highest 12th grade enrollment in over 33 years.

While he was the superintendent over Harrison School District Two in Colorado Mr. Miles oversaw the reduction of 12th grade enrollment there, going down 33%.  See http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2013/05/damage-by-mike-miles-in-colorado.html   Is that process starting in Dallas?


Email sent Dallas ISD Board re: Mike Miles' Data Manipulations

See more precise numbers at bottom of posting.  Corrections are inserted into the memo  =============

Dear Dallas ISD Trustees,

When Mr. Miles handed out the 2013 student performance measurements he probably spoke of the improvements, and mentioned the 1 point rise in the ACT score from 17 to 18. Did he also speak of how it was probably affected by a disproportionate, 23.7% (20.9%), decrease in the number (percentage) of Black students tested, and an 18% (24%) decrease in the number (percentage) of Hispanic students tested? It also is clear that the numbers of students tested decreased the most in schools with a history of low test scores? Do you really think that was an accident, especially after Mike Miles' history in Colorado?

It appears you may be considering something less than the termination of Mr. Miles employment this week. I'm certain you are under much pressure from many sources. Please share this email with anyone giving you such pressure to keep Miles, and especially with anyone who would be inclined to either help disprove or verfy the data being presented here. Our student's progress demands accurate data, with accurate interpretations of that data!

Student progress also demands the public know the data. Therefore this email to you is also being shared widely.

I've recently spoken with professionals who knew the former El Paso Superintendent, Lorenzo Garcia, now in federal prison for the first year of his 42 months sentence: http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_21711101/sentence-disappoints-teachers-schemes-victims?source=pkg The manipulations Mr. Garcia orchestrated were terrible. There are many lessons to be learned by studying the El Paso investigation of Mr. Garcia. First is that it took years to finish that investigation. The second lesson is that Mike Miles may be joining him in prison if the Harrison District allegations from Colorado, accumulated during the 6 years Mike Miles was there, combined with multiple pieces of circumstantial evidence pointing the same way, are found to be correct.

About 2 months ago I reported my findings from investigating Harrison School District Two to the Department of Education in Denver. They have sent it to a division for study, but warned me that any potential investigation will take months before I'm even contacted again. I'm told that is normal by multiple sources. There is only minor evidence that Mr. Miles has done in Dallas any of the things that Mr. Lorenzo Garcia did in El Paso, or that it appears Mike Miles did in Colorado. But Dallas must be vigilant. To see the evidence from Colorado go to http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2013/05/damage-by-mike-miles-in-colorado.html .

One initial warning for the people of Dallas comes with the first testing under Mike Miles, the 2013 testing in Dallas ISD. For the first time in history the percentage of students taking the ACT has fallen significantly, 18.7%, for the 2013 ACT testing session under Miles. Ever since the DISD data packets, found on the web page https://mydata.dallasisd.org/SL/SD/cdp.jsp , have been reporting on ACT testing, starting in the 2009-2010 report going back to 2007, DISD has increased the numbers of student taking the ACT every single year by hundreds of students. Then Mr. Miles stopped that progress in 2013!

Only 2,436 students took the ACT in Dallas in 2013, a decrease of 18.7% from the 2,995 who took the test in 2012. But, even more significantly, 23.7% fewer Black students took the 2013 exam, 18.0% fewer Hispanic students took the exam and 2.6% fewer White students took the exam. This data is from page 218 of the 2013/2014 planning report at https://mydata.dallasisd.org/docs/CILT2014/DP1000.pdf

Do you think this is an “accident” that allowed the ACT score reported by Mr. Miles to go up 5.6%? No, that was planned and orchestrated by Mike Miles by eliminating low scoring schools and over 550 students from the testing in Dallas ISD.It also allowed him to speak of a reduction in the “racial gap.” Did he clarify that this “reduction” in the gap was because the average Anglo rate went down one full point, going from 24 to 23? Since the 2013/14 Data Packet for Planning that is on the above linked DISD web page is now, for the first time in history, only reporting ACT scores in whole numbers, with no decimals, the accuracy/transparency of these measurements is reduced, also for the first time. Consequently the scores for both African American students and Hispanic students did not change this past year, Anglo scores went down one point, and somehow the district average went up one point. This is probably a result of rounding, but why was that decimal point of accuracy elminated?

If Mr. Miles has already pointed out to the DISD Board that Black students were disproportionately under-represented in the 2013 ACT exams, then we may be more comforted. Sadly, it appears that he did not point that out to the Board.

Does anyone see behavior that is consistent with some of the manipulations Superintendent Lorenzo Garcia was doing in El Paso before he went to prison? ... or what Mike Miles was doing back in Harrison School District Two before he came to Dallas?

We have a problem in Dallas ISD. This week is probably the last chance DISD will have to end the contract with Mike Miles without the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars with a significant separation package going with him, unless the Colorado Federal Department of Education actually starts an investigation and it goes much faster than is anticipated, and charges are filed against Mr. Miles.

Dallas must not wait for that. Our students have been waiting for too long! They have no time to waste. You must vote to end the employment of Mike Miles with DISD this week.

I welcome any questions. Contacts are especially welcome from anyone who can help verify this data, or disprove the interpretations I am giving this data. Share this page with anyone who may be able to help, or who is interested.

Bill Betzen LMSW (Emeritus)

blogger & retired DISD teacherhttp://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/

Dallas, Texas 75237

bbetzen@aol.com

==========  Correction to above email ===========

I have been posting data regarding Mike Miles and the negative effect of his manipulations on DISD students performance for many months. I'm often attacked by those defending Mr. Miles, but I have never had anyone actually attack my data and correct my calculations until now. Mike Morath made a very accurate critique of my calculations.   He pointed out that the 23.7% fewer Black students tested by Mr. Miles in 2013 compared to 2012 was also associated with a significant drop in Black 12th grade enrollment. 

I agreed with Mike Morath's correction. The calculations needed to be more precise due to that decrease in Black student enrollment. Comparing total number changes was not precise. Instead we needed to use a comparison of the percentage of Black students allowed to take the ACT in 2012 and with that percentage in 2013. Both Mr. Morath and I recalculated the correct number as a 20.9% decrease in the percentage of Black students tested in 2013. Still bad, but more accurate than the 23.7% number using only the raw decrease in 2013 numbers.

In the same way, while the Black enrollment was going down, so was the 12th grade White student enrollment, and the Hispanic 12th grade student population grew from 5,022 in 2012 to 5,417 in 2013. Therefore the correct decrease in the percentage of Hispanic students tested is 24%, and not the 18% I had originally reported in my initial report. Using that same method, the percentage of White students actually increased. It did not go down 2.6% as initially calculated. The percentage of White students taking the ACT went up 0.7% in 2013. I would presume the percentage of Asian students also increased, but DISD did not make that data available online.

These corrections much more strongly make the point that the claimed improvement in the ACT score from 2012 to 2013, going from 17 to 18, is even more suspicious! The highest scoring population group was better represented in the sample group while the lowest scoring sections of the student population both were reduced over 20%. Black students percentages taking the test were reduced by 20.9% and Hispanic percentages were reduced by 24%. Why? That is a question for Mr. Miles that must be answered.

These calculations underline the horror of the manipulations in DISD under Mike Miles! They are what DISD should have expected due to similar manipulations used in Colorado by Mr. Miles to raise ACT scores there.

Thank you Mike Morath for helping improve the precision of these numbers.

Mike Miles' Dallas record & resignation petition

On Thursday, 9-12-13, at 4:00 PM there will be a Board Briefing to cover the agenda found at http://www.dallasisd.org//site/Default.aspx?PageID=663#sthash.Vdo1eYpp.dpbs  Among the multitude of items that will be covered you will find a report on Discipline in DISD comparing the past two years.   It is at http://sirepub.dallasisd.org/SIREPub/cache/2/zkeuxt3j4uznul23ur4ekdfj/42606109092013120336301.PDF and documents a dramatic 26% increase in disciplinary actions last year, since Mr. Miles became superintendent.  Here is a graph showing the types of discipline that increased:

Increased disciplinary actions under Mike Miles
(Click above image to enlarge.)

 Due to staffing cuts many schools closed their in-school suspension room or that number would have probably gone up significantly more than it did.

Discipline documented 2007 to 2013 Dallas ISD
(Click on above image to enlarge.)

============================================




On Saturday 9-7-13 the results of an investigation of Mr. Miles were made public.  A copy of the complete 49 page investigation was inserted into the newspaper article at http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2013/09/investigation-finds-that-dallas-isd-superintendent-mike-miles-violated-district-policy-and-helped-craft-an-administrators-resignation-letter-that-bashed-his-bosses.html/

The largest discussion online of these issues can be found at http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/headlines/20130906-investigation-dallas-isd-superintendent-mike-miles-violated-policies-could-face-termination.ece  

Another side of the investigation with less discussion is at http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/headlines/20130906-dallas-isd-superintendent-mike-miles-worked-to-publicly-disparage-trustees-report-finds.ece

Here is an article and discussion about Jim Schutze and his involvement: http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2013/09/dallas-observer-columnist-jim-schutze-responds-to-investigation-of-superintendent-mike-miles.html/

Resignation Petition

On 8-30-13 an online petition was started to petition for Mike Miles resignation.  It not only collects names but also statements from those signing, if they wish to leave one, as to the reason the resignation is requested.   See http://www.thepetitionsite.com/222/888/939/people-of-dallas-demand-mike-miles-resignation/   and you may sign the petition.

The posting below being moved to a 9-9-2013 date as part of an ongoing record as to what is happening to Dallas ISD under Mike Miles.

4-18-13 posting:

 

Mike Miles, 4-12-12 Colorado talk, and 4-18-13 national study

 

Today (4-18-13) a very critical national study was published about the alleged educational reforms that have been inflicted on Dallas ISD over the past year, often with great cost and pain.   See the full study at http://www.epi.org/files/2013/bba-rhetoric-trumps-reality.pdf

In studying this report it became clear that the original title given this posting as focusing only on the responsibility of Mr. Miles in DISD, was wrong.  The problem is much bigger than just Superintendent Miles.  It started long before he was ever hired!  I am moving that discussion to another blog more appropriately titled: National Study Critical of Dallas ISD Reforms, published 4-18-13 .

A majority of the current DISD Board are responsible for bringing DISD to this place. Yes, some of the changes must continue!  But we must be selective.  We must pay attention to the data!

"Data-driven decision making" is a regularly abused mantra allegedly supporting these changes in DISD.  It is too often simply a lie, mostly un-intentional, used by the public, DISD staff, and by the Board.  Data must always be used very carefully, with those using it always willing to debate the sources and conditions of the data.  Lack of full transparency is an ongoing problem with data manipulations.

An article posted by the Dallas Morning News on 4-17-13 directly involves behavior by Mr. Miles that indicates he is less than respectful of DISD and Dallas.   It includes a 35 minute recording of a presentation given in Colorado 4-12-13 by Mr. Miles. You can hear verbatim from his mouth what he is saying about Dallas when he is out of town starting at minute 22 in the tape.   Listen to his talk and share your opinion:

http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2013/04/dallas-isd-superintendent-mike-miles-visit-to-colorado-raising-eyebrows.html/ . 

He missed the dedication of a DISD school to a very respected and prominent Dallas leader, Adelfa Callejo.  Instead he went to Colorado to give this talk. While these may be true stories he told, how does sharing them like this in Colorado help Dallas?  Why is our superintendent having his expenses covered by someone to go about the nation and talk like this about Dallas and Dallas ISD?  His talk certainly did not help the work of the Dallas Chamber of Commerce to improve the national image of Dallas!  He never spoke about the record setting improvements in DISD during the 5 years before his arrival. This is not the way a professional superintendent acts who is dedicated to their school district, their city, and the children therein!