Friday, February 27, 2015

Dallas ISD Scandal Summary as of noon 02-27-15

It is exceptionally difficult to keep track of the scandals coming from Dallas ISD over the past 32 months.  This is an attempt to begin to list them here with links to data sources for each scandal.  This cannot pretend to be a comprehensive list.  It will be an ongoing work in progress.

The gravity of the list collected below has led to this petition started this week by a DISD high school student who is exceptionally well informed and articulate about DISD issues.   Read their statement on the petition web site. Please support this DISD High School student in his plea to the Trustees!
Just click on the photo below to read their petition and sign if you agree...


Mike Miles behavior has brought embarrassment after embarrassment to the city of Dallas. Students, parents, and teachers deserve to be in a school district they can be proud of. Right now, it is shameful to be a part of DISD, in large part because...
change.org

2-26-2015

Dallas ISD officials deny misleading trustees in hiring request
Some trustees remain skeptical about whether they were told the truth about the need to to approve $6.4 million to hire 137 teachers last fall. 


 TEA faults Dallas ISD for poor background check process
The state agency recommends sending a monitor to the district to ensure hiring procedures are followed, including the required fingerprinting.


2-25-2015
Black students in Dallas ISD suspended at disproportionate rate

About a quarter of black students in middle school and high school in Dallas ISD were suspended in the 2011-12 school year, according to a new report.  

Starfish and streetlights: Using data to evaluate public education in Dallas


Those of us who use data as a lens to evaluate the school system have to be careful not to put too much weight on Streetlight Data and not to undervalue Starfish Data.  

2-24-2015

3 Dallas ISD trustees want to discuss firing Superintendent Mike Miles (Note over 450 comments!)
The trustees question whether district leaders misled them in October about the need for $6.4 million to hire more teachers.

2-22-2015

Instant messages raise concerns about $6.4M for new teachers

Some Dallas school board members question whether administrators misled the board about the need for more teachers.

2-17-2015

Dallas ISD auditor launches investigations of HR department

After grilling by board, auditor Mike Singleton internal announces investigations into possible broken laws.


Report clears Dallas ISD trustee Bernadette Nutall of wrongdoing

The findings by a former U.S. attorney raise questions about Superintendent Mike Miles’ role in starting the investigation.

 

DISD auditor says he shared HR officials' disparaging messages in hopes Miles would act

During the Dallas ISD school board's hours-long meeting Monday night, trustees honed in on the timeline of when the district's internal audit department began its review of top human resources officials and when it notified Superintendent Mike Miles.  

The above scandals add to the following problems documented in multiple areas within DISD:

Anyone who finds mistakes in this data below is encouraged to review the data sources and contact bbetzen@aol.com with your findings and/or concerns.
  1. Texas Education Agency School Ratings: With 9 more DISD schools rated "Improvement Required" in 2014 (43) that in 2013 (34), Dallas has the sad distinction of deteriorating with more new failing schools than any district in Texas!  The rest of Texas improved with 5% fewer schools rated “improvement required” while DISD had 26% more. (T.E.A. 8-7-14, see links below.) 
  2. College Readiness: The number of SAT “college ready” scores above 990 went down for the first time in DISD history with the Class of 2014 when 195 fewer DISD students received scores above 990 than in 2013.  This was a drop of 16%, from 1,212 to 1,017. (D.M.N. 6-23-14, see links below.)
  3. Academic Issues:  The percentage of the 65,000 third through 8th grade students with passing grades on STAAR tests went down an average of 3 percentage points the spring of 2014 compared to the spring of 2013 in 4 out of 5 subjects.  The Minority Achievement Gap grew.  TEA did not raise passing standards for 2014. (See page 4 of 5-22-14 STAAR Report at https://mydata.dallasisd.org/docs/STAAR2014/2014_STAAR_38_AD1_PERCENT_LVL2_DISTRICT_C.pdf .) A higher percentage of DISD students failed in every subject in 2013/14 compared with the rest of Texas!
  4. Graduation Issues:  The Dallas ISD Class of 2014 was 427 students smaller than the Class of 2013. The Class of 2014 was the first graduation class in 7 years that was not larger than the previous years’ graduation class. (See chart below for more details.)
  5. Discipline Issues:  Total discipline problems increased 26% during 2012/13 school year.  The shift in 2013/14 to out of school suspensions continued while in school suspensions dropped to the lowest level on record, less than a third of what they were prior to 2009/10. (DISD records)
  6. Teacher Turnover Issues:  Since 2010/11 teacher turnover percentages have increased over 120%, going from 12.9% to 28.5% by 2013/14.  The 2014/15 school year began with DISD having the highest percentage of new, 1st year teachers in DISD History! As of 8-18-14 there are 3,343 out of 10,197 DISD teachers who have one year or less with Dallas ISD.  (DISD records)  Related to this are an accompanying explosion of the highest number (174) of $100,000+ administrative positions in the history of DISD.  From 8-18-14, when there were reportedly only 16 teacher vacancies, to 10-31-14 DISD hired 375 new staff as teachers but still had 233 vacancies.  This calculates to over 11 teachers resigning each school day!
  7. Needed Public Debate:  This data must be presented and debated in Dallas public meetings!  The public must be allowed to ask questions, especially to explore the truth of "data cherry picking" allegations that demand more exploration.
  8. Letters sent to the Dallas Board of Trustees:

Progress will only resume with more DISD openness to public involvement, similar to 2005-2007, when the seeds for these 5 years of record progress were planted within a unified DISD!

When it says "see below" above you can go to http://www.dallasisd.us and go to that section on the page given for those details and data sources.  Each of the above 8 areas are outlined in much more detail with links to the data.
These facts document some of the destruction under Mr. Miles:


1) Texas Education Agency School Ratings: With 9 more DISD schools rated "Improvement Required" in 2014 (43) that in 2013 (34), Dallas has the sad distinction of deteriorating with more new failing schools than any district in Texas!  The rest of Texas improved with 4% FEWER schools rated “improvement required” while DISD had 26% MORE. (T.E.A. 8-7-14)


2) College Readiness: The number of SAT “college ready” scores above 990 went down for the first time in DISD history with the Class of 2014 when195 fewer DISD students received scores above 990 than in 2013.  This was a drop of 16%, from 1,212 to 1,017. (D.M.N. 6-23-14)


3) Academic Issues:  The percentage of the 65,000 third through 8th grade students with passing grades on STAAR tests went down an average of 3 percentage points the spring of 2014 compared to the spring of 2013 in 4 out of 5 subjects.  The Minority Achievement Gap grew. TEA did not raise passing standards for 2014. A higher percentage of DISD students failed in every subject in 2013/14 compared with the rest of Texas!


4) Graduation Issues:  The Dallas ISD Class of 2014 was 427 students smaller than the Class of 2013. The Class of 2014 was the first graduation class in 7 years that was not larger than the previous years’ graduation class, the same pattern Mr. Miles had in Colorado! 


5) Discipline Issues:  Total discipline problems increased 26% during 2012/13 school year.  The shift in 2013/14 to out of school suspensions continued while in school suspensions dropped to the lowest level on record, less than a third of what they were prior to 2009/10.


6) Teacher Turnover Issues:  Since 2010/11 teacher turnover percentages have increased over 120%, going from 12.9% to 28.5% by 2013/14.  The 2014/15 school year began with DISD having the highest percentage of new, 1st year teachers in DISD History! As of 8-18-14 there are 3,343 out of 10,197 DISD teachers who have one year or less with Dallas ISD.  (DISD records) Related to this are an accompanying explosion of the highest number (174) of $100,000+ administrative positions in the history of DISD.  From 8-18-14, when there were reportedly only16 teacher vacancies, to 10-31-14 DISD hired 375 new staff as teachers but still had 233 vacancies.  This calculates to over 11 teachers resigning each school day!


The above facts and others are documented and linked to sources at www.dallasisd.us  Your comments and corrections are welcomed! 
These facts document some of the destruction under Mr. Miles:


1) Texas Education Agency School Ratings: With 9 more DISD schools rated "Improvement Required" in 2014 (43) that in 2013 (34), Dallas has the sad distinction of deteriorating with more new failing schools than any district in Texas!  The rest of Texas improved with 4% FEWER schools rated “improvement required” while DISD had 26% MORE. (T.E.A. 8-7-14)


2) College Readiness: The number of SAT “college ready” scores above 990 went down for the first time in DISD history with the Class of 2014 when195 fewer DISD students received scores above 990 than in 2013.  This was a drop of 16%, from 1,212 to 1,017. (D.M.N. 6-23-14)


3) Academic Issues:  The percentage of the 65,000 third through 8th grade students with passing grades on STAAR tests went down an average of 3 percentage points the spring of 2014 compared to the spring of 2013 in 4 out of 5 subjects.  The Minority Achievement Gap grew. TEA did not raise passing standards for 2014. A higher percentage of DISD students failed in every subject in 2013/14 compared with the rest of Texas!


4) Graduation Issues:  The Dallas ISD Class of 2014 was 427 students smaller than the Class of 2013. The Class of 2014 was the first graduation class in 7 years that was not larger than the previous years’ graduation class, the same pattern Mr. Miles had in Colorado! 


5) Discipline Issues:  Total discipline problems increased 26% during 2012/13 school year.  The shift in 2013/14 to out of school suspensions continued while in school suspensions dropped to the lowest level on record, less than a third of what they were prior to 2009/10.


6) Teacher Turnover Issues:  Since 2010/11 teacher turnover percentages have increased over 120%, going from 12.9% to 28.5% by 2013/14.  The 2014/15 school year began with DISD having the highest percentage of new, 1st year teachers in DISD History! As of 8-18-14 there are 3,343 out of 10,197 DISD teachers who have one year or less with Dallas ISD.  (DISD records) Related to this are an accompanying explosion of the highest number (174) of $100,000+ administrative positions in the history of DISD.  From 8-18-14, when there were reportedly only16 teacher vacancies, to 10-31-14 DISD hired 375 new staff as teachers but still had 233 vacancies.  This calculates to over 11 teachers resigning each school day!


The above facts and others are documented and linked to sources at www.dallasisd.us  Your comments and corrections are welcomed! 
These facts document some of the destruction under Mr. Miles:


1) Texas Education Agency School Ratings: With 9 more DISD schools rated "Improvement Required" in 2014 (43) that in 2013 (34), Dallas has the sad distinction of deteriorating with more new failing schools than any district in Texas!  The rest of Texas improved with 4% FEWER schools rated “improvement required” while DISD had 26% MORE. (T.E.A. 8-7-14)


2) College Readiness: The number of SAT “college ready” scores above 990 went down for the first time in DISD history with the Class of 2014 when195 fewer DISD students received scores above 990 than in 2013.  This was a drop of 16%, from 1,212 to 1,017. (D.M.N. 6-23-14)


3) Academic Issues:  The percentage of the 65,000 third through 8th grade students with passing grades on STAAR tests went down an average of 3 percentage points the spring of 2014 compared to the spring of 2013 in 4 out of 5 subjects.  The Minority Achievement Gap grew. TEA did not raise passing standards for 2014. A higher percentage of DISD students failed in every subject in 2013/14 compared with the rest of Texas!


4) Graduation Issues:  The Dallas ISD Class of 2014 was 427 students smaller than the Class of 2013. The Class of 2014 was the first graduation class in 7 years that was not larger than the previous years’ graduation class, the same pattern Mr. Miles had in Colorado! 


5) Discipline Issues:  Total discipline problems increased 26% during 2012/13 school year.  The shift in 2013/14 to out of school suspensions continued while in school suspensions dropped to the lowest level on record, less than a third of what they were prior to 2009/10.


6) Teacher Turnover Issues:  Since 2010/11 teacher turnover percentages have increased over 120%, going from 12.9% to 28.5% by 2013/14.  The 2014/15 school year began with DISD having the highest percentage of new, 1st year teachers in DISD History! As of 8-18-14 there are 3,343 out of 10,197 DISD teachers who have one year or less with Dallas ISD.  (DISD records) Related to this are an accompanying explosion of the highest number (174) of $100,000+ administrative positions in the history of DISD.  From 8-18-14, when there were reportedly only16 teacher vacancies, to 10-31-14 DISD hired 375 new staff as teachers but still had 233 vacancies.  This calculates to over 11 teachers resigning each school day!


The above facts and others are documented and linked to sources at www.dallasisd.us  Your comments and corrections are welcomed! 
Education Agency School Ratings: With 9 more DISD schools rated "Improvement Required" in 2014 (43) that in 2013 (34), Dallas has the sad distinction of deteriorating with more new failing schools than any district in Texas!  The rest of Texas improved with 4% FEWER schools rated “improvement required” while DISD had 26% MORE. (T.E.A. 8-7-14)


2) College Readiness: The number of SAT “college ready” scores above 990 went down for the first time in DISD history with the Class of 2014 when195 fewer DISD students received scores above 990 than in 2013.  This was a drop of 16%, from 1,212 to 1,017. (D.M.N. 6-23-14)


3) Academic Issues:  The percentage of the 65,000 third through 8th grade students with passing grades on STAAR tests went down an average of 3 percentage points the spring of 2014 compared to the spring of 2013 in 4 out of 5 subjects.  The Minority Achievement Gap grew. TEA did not raise passing standards for 2014. A higher percentage of DISD students failed in every subject in 2013/14 compared with the rest of Texas!


4) Graduation Issues:  The Dallas ISD Class of 2014 was 427 students smaller than the Class of 2013. The Class of 2014 was the first graduation class in 7 years that was not larger than the previous years’ graduation class, the same pattern Mr. Miles had in Colorado! 


5) Discipline Issues:  Total discipline problems increased 26% during 2012/13 school year.  The shift in 2013/14 to out of school suspensions continued while in school suspensions dropped to the lowest level on record, less than a third of what they were prior to 2009/10.


6) Teacher Turnover Issues:  Since 2010/11 teacher turnover percentages have increased over 120%, going from 12.9% to 28.5% by 2013/14.  The 2014/15 school year began with DISD having the highest percentage of new, 1st year teachers in DISD History! As of 8-18-14 there are 3,343 out of 10,197 DISD teachers who have one year or less with Dallas ISD.  (DISD records) Related to this are an accompanying explosion of the highest number (174) of $100,000+ administrative positions in the history of DISD.  From 8-18-14, when there were reportedly only16 teacher vacancies, to 10-31-14 DISD hired 375 new staff as teachers but still had 233 vacancies.  This calculates to over 11 teachers resigning each school day!


The above facts and others are documented and linked to sources at www.dallasisd.us  Your comments and corrections are welcomed! 

Friday, February 20, 2015

Texas Graduation Rate is not 88%!

The Texas Education Agency is claiming that in 2013 Texas had a graduation rate of 88%.  The errors in that claim are rather clear as stated by Bill Hammond in this article: http://www.texastribune.org/2014/08/05/texas-posts-top-high-school-graduation-rates-again/

They are claiming that this is the highest graduation rate in the US due to the chart they quote in this press release today: http://tea.texas.gov/About_TEA/News_and_Multimedia/Press_Releases/2015/Texas__high_school_graduation_rate_for_Class_of_2013_again_exceeds_national_average/

The only problem with this claim is obvious when you look at the enrollment by grade patterns over the past decade for Texas:


Texas Enrollment by Grade 1997-2014
Click to enlarge image.
Notice the Promotion Rate line above in the chart, 5 lines from the bottom.  Yes, Texas has made constant progress, but when only 79% of 9th graders are even making it to 12th grade, how do you have a graduation rate of 88%?   

When the Cumulative Promotion Index, the last line, is only also 79%, how can you have a graduation rate of 88%.  As multiple people are saying, this claim does not match with the data.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

New Hires leaving Dallas ISD more Quickly

While the turnover in Dallas ISD has doubled over the years from 2010 to the present, the number of those leaving DISD within just 3 months of being hired has gone up almost ten fold! 

These facts led to the following letter today to the DISD Board of Trustees:

Dear President Solis and all DISD Trustees,

It appears that the quality of the teacher candidates being hired by DISD has gone down significantly since 2012 based on the almost ten-fold increase in the number of teachers leaving within 3 months of being hired. Should this massive increase be one of the factors included in the current HR investigation?

While teacher turnover has doubled over the past 6 years, the number of new hires leaving DISD within 90 days during the first half of the school year has increased almost ten-fold.  That would indicate that the quality of candidates being selected is going down. This pattern was first noticed by studying those teachers who leave during the first half of the school year which for this study was defined as 8-19 of each school year through January.

In the 2010-11 school year, 11 teachers with 3 months or less tenure left from 8-19-10 through January 2011.
In the 2011-12 school year, 10 teachers with 3 months or less tenure left.
In the 2012-13 school year, 34 teachers with 3 months or less tenure left.
In the 2013-14 school year, 80 teachers with 3 months or less tenure left.
In the 2014-15 school year, 97 teachers with 3 months or less tenure left.

This means that the number of classrooms suddenly without their newly hired teacher during the first half of the school year has increased almost tenfold in DISD since 2012.  This is part of the explanation for the drop in student achievement that will probably be continued for the second year with this years STAAR tests when you compare Dallas ISD with the rest of Texas.

The file used to secure this data was open records request #13765.  Since it is a rather small file it is attached if you want to double check these numbers, or search out other patterns.  This file is a listing of all separations since 1-1-2010 through 2-6-2015 with type of separation given along with hire date and school.

There are certainly many other conclusions that need to be studied with this valuable set of data such as which schools are suffering the worst turnover.  Is the most severe turnover being suffered by the most poverty stricken segments of the DISD student body?

Hopefully this data is helpful in the exceptionally difficult job you face.  It is strongly recommend you advise Mr. Singleton of this pattern of poor hires if he has not already noticed it.  The quality of the new teachers being hired as reflected in this pattern certainly should merit research so it is not continued.



Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Professional Accountability Demands Transparency!

Massive damage will continue in any school district, like DISD, where secrecy of public information is allowed.  The DISD crisis is bigger than any one person.

While it's good the Home Rule Commission stopped the process of changing DISD into a Dallas Home Rule Charter District, everyone agrees that changes are needed.  During the Home Rule Commission meetings the most common phrase spoken was "we need more information."

There is a glut of valuable data on the Dallas ISD and Texas Education Agency web sites for the few people who know how to navigate those web sites.  But that data is old and effectively "secret" due to the few members of the public who know how to find it. 
A mandated monthly system of much more timely and consistent DISD reports is urgently needed. 


Monthly reports must be designed, approved by the trustees, and then consistently attached to the DISD Board Agenda to be presented as part of the Superintendents' Report at each school board meeting.   As issues evolve in DISD the format of monthly reports can be modified, with board guidance and approval, to meet changing needs.


Once a monthly report format is approved by the trustees it must be completed going back monthly at least five years, and then archived online so month to month and year to year patterns are easy to observe. 
 This data must be very visible to the public, and much more easy to navigate.

Dallas should have no more nasty surprises such as the HR crisis made visible the last week of January, 2015.  Such monthly reports (see potential design below) would have indicated long ago that there are such problems!  Dallas would have seen the reasons parents were moving students and the reasons that teachers were leaving, and the reasons the best teachers were leaving, and the testing results going down in DISD relative to the rest of Texas.   

Without a much more consistent system for transparency, reforms being attempted inside DISD have little meaning.  The potential for problems to be hidden and grow increases with the level of secrecy, as Dallas is now witnessing.


Dallas ISD Monthly Public Reports should include:
  1. Student movement by school including students entering or leaving DISD, or transferring between schools, including demographic profiles and a third party managed survey to protect privacy asking parents for their three main reasons for the transfer. The monthly report should include notice of DISD schools becoming overcrowded or underutilized due to such movements.
  2. Teacher movement by school including teachers hired and leaving DISD, or transferring between schools, including demographic profiles, CEI averages, and a third party survey to protect privacy of separating teachers asking for their three main reasons for leaving or transferring. The anonymous survey should somehow separate teachers into three general CEI levels to report reasons for leaving by such levels.  (Why is DISD losing their best teachers?)
  3. Use of substitute teachers by school. An additional tabulation must be included by school of the frequency of substitute teachers being needed but not being available, and therefore of any class having to be split up or moved to other locations to spend the day due to the lack of available substitutes. Hopefully all parents of all children involved in such neglect on the part of DISD were informed the same day such incidents happening. Such a public monthly report by school and date of occurrence would help assure that such parental notice is happening!
  4. Reports of any district wide testing results received that month, both by school and for the district, with all the associated details to help in the assessment of performance, should be a normal part of all monthly reports. If the test results are a state test, then how DISD compared with the state averages outside DISD must be provided to help place the data in perspective.

If such monthly reports had been made over the past 2 years Dallas would be familiar with the significant decline in DISD student performance in all subjects compared to the State of Texas achievements from 2013 to 2014:


  This chart is also in section 3 at www.dallasisd.us with additional data.
With such monthly reports a chart such as the one above will be expected by the public. There will be fewer surprises in DISD.