Teacher turnover set Dallas ISD student achievement progress back 8 years!

The DISD/Texas Student Achievement Gap (DSAG) has grown 25% since 2013, and will continue to grow if teacher experience continues to decline.

Dallas ISD Student Achievement Gap with Texas 2006-2015

Since 2012, experienced teachers have both been leaving Dallas ISD and not applying for jobs within DISD in numbers that have never before been seen.  The data for 2014-15 is not yet available but the patterns between 2010-11 and 2013-14 show a frightening loss of teaching experience in DISD:

• The percentage of teachers in the 2 to 5 years' experience range went down over 31% between 2010-11 and 2013-14.
• The percentage of teachers with more than 3 years' experience went down over 9% between 2010-11 and 2013-14.
• The percentage of teachers with over 20 years' experience has gone down over 26% between 2010-11 and 2013-14.
• The percentage of beginning teachers with no experience went up over 207% between 2010-11 and 2013-14.
• One year and almost 11 months have passed since this 207% increase was recorded.  The 2015-16 school year may begin with over a 300% increase in beginning teachers and 50% of DISD teachers having 5 years or less experience.
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We already know how many teachers new to DISD started the 2014-15 school year and 1/3 of all teachers had been with DISD for ONE YEAR OR LESS!  See details at http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2014/10/tenured-teachers-leaving-dallas-isd-8.html

Due to the patterns from the past two years, the not-yet-released 2014-15 information may be one of the reasons Mr. Mike Miles resigned from DISD. He knew the student achievement (DSAG), teacher experience information, as well as STAAR test data that was about to be made public.   See the Dallas Morning News article of 7-8-15 on the failure of the Imagine 2020 Project.

If the progress since 2000 had continued past 2013, DSAG (DISD/Texas Student Achievement Gap) would be down to 6 percentage points or less by now.  About 8,000 more DISD students would have passed all their statewide tests taken so as to achieve that 6 point DSAG.  Instead they failed and paid the highest price for the Mike Miles' reforms.

DSAG has exploded to 13 percentage points, the worst number since 2007!  

The history of progress since 2000, when DSAG was 20 percentage points, shows that Dallas ISD can eliminate any achievement gap with the rest of Texas!

Eliminate DSAG!

Dallas ISD Teachers 2010-2015 Turnover, Tenure, & DSAG

This chart will be updated as the 2014-15 data is made public.

The Class of 2013 ended the greatest decade of DSAG and graduation rate improvement in Dallas ISD History, and also appears to have started the most rapid achievement decline in DISD History. How far that DSAG decline will go is now in the hands of the Dallas ISD School Board.

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There is a need for much more public discussion of these issues.

Due to this need, and the need for accuracy documenting the three years of disaster Dallas ISD is now suffering, and the potential Dallas has for a truly powerful turnaround, personal invitations are being issued to those most active in designing and authorizing the tragic changes since 2012 in DISD.  Trustees Eric Cowan, Miguel Solis, Nancy Bingham, Mike Morath, and Edwin Flores, as well as Mayor Mike Rawlings, Dr. Mike Hinojosa, Dr. Ann Smisko, Mr. Todd Williams and Mr. Ken Barth, will each be contacted and invited to answer two questions:

1) What are the errors and/or omissions in the Dallas ISD Student Achievement Gap with Texas?  Can you show that DISD was not significantly improving before 2012, or is not now in crisis due to new measures of falling student achievement since 2013?

2) Would you assist in helping to begin a series of panel discussions to address what is happening in DISD.  The panel would equally represent those supporting the changes of the past three years and the concerns documented in the above spreadsheet and the need for change.  Would you support such community discussion with open Q & A at the end, and questions firmly limited to one minute?   (Questions may be selected beforehand to be read by the person asking them, but the one minute limit is firm.)

Any answers to these questions will be posted here with the permission of the person answering.

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To provide background for the public discussion of these issues here are a few articles that will help to show how Dallas ISD came to such a rapid deterioration since 2012:

http://inthesetimes.com/article/17110/dallas_home_rule_push_could_open_the_charter_floodgates is an article published last August that describes the Home Rule Charter District attempt on Dallas ISD.

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/got-dough-how-billionaires-rule-our-schools is another article that shows the issue from a national perspective.

Many of these issues are being constantly discussed, along with an abundance of local things happening in Dallas ISD, on the Dallas Morning News blog dedicated to Dallas ISD: http://live.dallasnews.com/Event/Talk_DISD

The more the public knows about our schools, and the political factors affecting them, the safer our children will be in securing a solid education.  The critical thinking skills such an education must provide have NEVER been more critical for living in our world.

Bill Betzen
7-7-15