Sunday, September 29, 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 12th 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

Friday, September 27, 2013

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?


Monday, September 23, 2013

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

==========  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.

Monday, September 9, 2013

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!

Mike Miles in Colorado

During the 6 years Mike Miles was Harrison School District Two Superintendent in Colorado, hundreds of families moved into the area.  Elementary enrollment went up 20%, but high school enrollment dropped 26%!  Senior enrollment dropped 33%!  Why were so many secondary students leaving?  Is it the same reason that record numbers of seniors are now leaving in Dallas after Mr. Miles has been the DISD Superintendent for 16 months? As of 11-1-13, the official 2013/14 count, DISD has lost more seniors since 2012/13 than for any year since 1984.  (1984 was the last year over 800 seniors were lost as the most intense years of White Flight were slowing down at that time for Dallas ISD.)

* * * * *

If the DISD Board had more properly vetted Mike Miles by studying Harrison School District Two enrollment patterns since 2006, when Miles began his 6 years as superintendent there, they would have seen many reasons for intense concerns.  They would have had many more questions!

Compare enrollment by grade when Mike Miles arrived at Harrison in 2006 with that enrollment as he left to come to Dallas in 2012.  The following facts are found:

1. High school enrollment dropped over 26% while total Harrison School District Two enrollment was unchanged.  K through 7th grade enrollment grew enough to make up the difference showing that family movement out of the district was not the reason for the loss of the older students.  The critical question is: “Were students with poor test grades being pushed out as they neared SAT/ACT testing?”   Such allegations were reported by several residents in Colorado Springs, but never formally investigated.

2. The Promotion Rate (percentage of 9th grade enrollment reflected in 12th grade enrollment three years later) deteriorated, dropping over 31 percentage points in Harrison under Mike Miles.  Meanwhile, in Dallas that same measurement improved to record high measurements, going up over 14 percentage points during the same time period!

3. The percentage of 9th grade enrollment NOT reflected in 12th grade enrollment 3 years later, exploded over 500% in Harrison under Mike Miles.  In Dallas that same measurement was improving, shrinking from 2006 to 2012, going down over 16 percentage points as the percentage of 9th grade students not reflected in Dallas ISD 12th grade enrollment shrunk from 52% of the total to 35.3%.

4. The Cumulative Promotion Index (CPI), the most precise, timely, and predictive of the graduation rate measurements, fell 16 percentage points in Harrison Two while that same powerful measurement rose over 20 percentage points in Dallas ISD to the highest, most positive level on record. By 2011 the CPI in DISD was 12.3 percentage points higher than the same measurement for Harrison Two! (Data not found to use for CPI calculation in Harrison for 2012.)

5. From 2005/06 to 2012/13, while elementary enrollment grew enough in Harrison Two to make up the loss, 8th grade enrollment dropped 7.2%, 9th grade enrollment dropped 16.2%, 10th grade enrollment dropped 22.7%, 11th grade enrollment dropped 22.3%, and 12th grade enrollment dropped 33.2%!   Why would this pattern of student loss exist unless students were leaving to avoid something, like SAT/ACT tests?  Which students were most likely to be feeling such pressure, those getting high test grades or those getting low test grades?

6. How did Harrison School District Two progress under the leadership of Mr. Mike Miles compared with other districts in Colorado?  Using http://www.schooldigger.com/go/CO/districtrank.aspx you find that Harrison School District Two is ranked as of 9-9-13 as 89 out of 123 districts in Colorado or above 71.5% of the ranked Colorado districts.  In Texas, Dallas ISD, on the same web site on the same date, was ranked 749 out of 935, or above 80% of the ranked districts in Texas!  Given the poverty rates among DISD students,  86.9% in DISD vs 68.5% in Harrison,  this is even more reason for concern!  Looks like Dallas may be headed down.

(Update: Dallas has fallen, as has Harrison with the changes Mr. Miles initiated.  If you look at these Schooldigger.com rankings on 11-23-14, Harrison has fallen over 10 percentage points to being ranked 78 out of 128, or higher than 60.9% of rated Colorado districts.  Dallas has also fallen to 706 out of 944, a five percentage point drop to being above only 74.8% of Texas districts.)

Each of the issues reflected in pre-2012 data should have been specifically addressed in questioning and known to the public before Mike Miles was hired in Dallas.  We do not want the same dramatic enrollment losses to happen in DISD as students near their SAT/ACT testing and graduation.

A poll of the general public was started by the Dallas Morning News 9-11-13 at http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2013/09/vote-should-dallas-isd-superintendent-mike-miles-be-fired.html/   As of 8:30 AM on 9-15-13 78.86% of the 1,173 respondents have asked that Mike Miles be fired.  Another 5.88% have voted that he should receive a reprimand. Only 15.26% have voted that nothing should be done.

Below is some of the documentation leading to the above issues:
======================================
The Promotion Rate is the percentage of 9th grade enrollment actually reflected in 12th grade enrollment three years later.  It should go up, not down!  It's a predictor of the graduation rate and was used in 2006 by John Hopkins University to identify over 1,700 "dropout factories" in the United States.  It tells you how many 9th graders actually made it to the 12th grade.  It fell dramatically under Mr. Miles as superintendent in Colorado Springs!  Meanwhile, the exact same measurement in DISD was constantly going up during the same years it was falling in Harrison Two School District in Colorado Springs!
Right click above image and hit "open link" to enlarge or print.
Allegations that Mr. Miles pushed low performing students out so as to raise his grade averages for his district are in at least one Colorado Springs newspaper.   These charts are consistent with that happening. With that thought in mind the following chart was created with 4 year cohort graduation rates and Cumulative Promotion Index (CPI) rates through the Class of 2011:
Right click on above image and open link to enlarge and/or print.

At the bottom of the page linked here is an explanation of the CPI and the value it has in tracking progress in a school and in a school district.  The CPI is the most precise, timely, and predictive of all graduation rate measurements.
 
During the time Mike Miles managed Harrison 2 District the inverse of the Promotion Rate, i.e. the percentage of 9th grader enrollment NOT reflected in the 12th grade enrollment 3 years later, exploded over 500%!   At the same time, due to such student loss, the high school enrollment dropped 26%, the CPI dropped over 15 percentage points, and the Promotion Rate dropped over 25 percentage points!
 
Was this information even looked at by the Dallas ISD Board during the hiring process? 
 
Why were increasing numbers of students missing as they neared the 12th grade in the Harrison Two School District?  The 26% drop in high school enrollment happened while elementary enrollment grew and the full district enrollment remained stable. Were high school students with lower test scores being pushed out as part of a strategy to help test scores rise, as was suggested in Colorado press?

While Dallas ISD made wonderful progress in their Promotion Rate, going from 47.3% in 2006 to 67.8% this year, now DISD has hired a superintendent from a school district where he enforced policies that made the Promotion Rate go the other direction, dropping over 18 percentage points!  The Harrison Promotion Rate fell from 86.5% in 2006/07 to 68.4% in 2012/13.

Harrison School District 2, Colorado Springs, Promotion Rate History
and documentation of 26% drop in high school enrollment since 2006.

Right click above image to enlarge.

The above enrollment data for Harrison 2 is from http://www.hsd2.org/departments/student-services/statistics. At the bottom of that page click on October Count Student Enrollment to find the past 12 years of enrollment history for Harrison 2. This data was used to create the last 3 lines in the above spreadsheet that indicates the damage done in Harrison 2 under Mike Miles. 

Here is the spreadsheet used to compare Dallas and Harrison Two school districts.
Right-click on above image and select "open link" to enlarge and/or print.
Questions about, and a very critical reading of the above data, are all welcomed: bbetzen@aol.com, 214-957-9739.  With the volume of data referenced above, errors are possible. I welcome corrections!  Copies of these spread sheets are available as well as more complete working spreadsheets used to tabulate this data. Please help double check this critical data for accuracy if you have any doubts whatsoever.  Don't stand at a distance and say it is wrong without finding the errors. I think this data is correct, and shows major problems about to explode in Dallas ISD.  Is DISD also about to also see student enrollment loss in the upper grades as electives are eliminated, test preparation time increases, and pressures to pass tests increase?

This page will continue to evolve as data is available or errors located. I will gladly explain the details related to these valuable academic measurements and the sources for the data to the best of my ability.  With this data and the overwhelming collection of articles and studies indicating problems with the management style of Mike Miles, it certainly appears that Dallas ISD students are in danger!

The above facts went into signs used to picket Mr. Miles as he spoke in a local Dallas church on Sunday morning.  The media went out of their way not to show these signs in their coverage of the event.  All six signs were used.


Signs used 5-26-13 morning in picketing in front of True Lee Baptist Church, Dallas,
but never shown by the media. 

Can we avoid such questions?
6/9/13 8:30 AM
Bill Betzen
Comments regarding the accuracy of the above data are encouraged, bbetzen@aol.com .

6/29/13 the following post was made to a Dallas Morning News article about Mike Miles in Harrison School District Two in Colorado Springs, Colorado:
Posted by Theresa Null from Colorado Springs: ============================
Miles hurt D2 students in Colorado when he forced principals to expel students who performed poorly on statewide assessments while students who had the same infractions but did well on those tests were allowed to stay : over 400 students were forced to attend schools outside the district! Of course, the district CSAP scores LOOKED good, but it was at the cost of uprooting students and their families instead of solving the problems. Miles bullied teachers and executive professionals to the extent that they were afraid to use outside partnerships for scholarships, field trips and the like. The micro-management may have worked had Miles been open to use those civic organizations. Students, during their break and with permission, protested across the street from Sierra HS. Miles called the police to arrest the students and called them delinquents in the newspaper. As far as being fair by protesting at his home, well, maybe he should feel a little disruption to his home life compared to the disruption he caused in Colorado Springs.  (This was in response to statements that I and others would not picket Mike Miles  private home here in Dallas.)
=============================



How is what happened in Colorado related to what happened in El Paso?  The El Paso Superintendent received state awards for raising test scores, but is now in prison for making low scoring students disappear: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/education/el-paso-rattled-by-scandal-of-disappeared-students.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0





Bill Betzen 6/29/13

=== Notes taken 07-21-13 ===

As we worked to find out what happened to the 33% of 12th grade enrollment that was missing from Harrison School District two by 2012, it would be logical to see what happened to the ACT scores in the surrounding districts.   In an August 2012 article at http://gazette.com/act-scores-mostly-steady-across-colorado-region/article/143367 it is verified that District 11 did in fact have a lower ACT score in 2012. It is alleged many if not most of the Harrison students who left went to District 11.   Were those low scoring students?  The ACT scores for Harrison went up, a contributing factor to the positive reputation for Mr. Miles that allowed him to be selected here in Dallas.  This lowering of the scores in District 11 is consistent with allegations that low scoring students were being pushed out of Harrison by Mr. Miles.

 



Miles hurt D2 students in Colorado when he forced principals to expel students who performed poorly on statewide assessments while students who had the same infractions but did well on those tests were allowed to stay : over 400 students were forced to attend schools outside the district! Of course, the district CSAP scores LOOKED good, but it was at the cost of uprooting students and their families instead of solving the problems. Miles bullied teachers and executive professionals to the extent that they were afraid to use outside partnerships for scholarships, field trips and the like. The micro-management may have worked had Miles been open to use those civic organizations. Students, during their break and with permission, protested across the street from Sierra HS. Miles called the police to arrest the students and called them delinquents in the newspaper. As far as being fair by protesting at his home, well, maybe he should feel a little disruption to his home life compared to the disruption he caused in Colorado Springs,