The Power of History, Past & Future

Life changes for those who embrace history, both past history and what they plan for the future.

Quintanilla Middle School had their second 10-year reunion for students returning from a decade ago to claim the letters they wrote to themselves about their plans for 10 years into the future as of May 2006.  Was this process helpful?  Yes, the returning students overwhelmingly think that such planning was valuable.  Some are teachers, architects, managers, and at least one MD is now in his internship.  

It was a very positive reunion.  For the first time some of them were able to speak with current students, giving the recommendations they wish they had listened to a decade ago.

Quintanilla has also thrived!  While it is now still serving 1,200 students who are overwhelmingly from families that place them in poverty.  96% are on the free or reduced lunch.  In spite of this challenge, Quintanilla is now the DISD middle school with the highest School Effectiveness Indices! It is doing a better job helping students advance than any other middle school in all of DISD, even including the magnet schools!  See the data on middle schools on page two at https://mydata.dallasisd.org/docs/SEI/SEI1415/201415_SEI_REPORT_LIST_no_div.pdf 

SEI data from middle schools was used to create this list in order by SEI scores:

While Quintanilla is taking virtually all the actions taken by other middle schools to improve student achievement, the one action Quintanilla is taking that is unique is that it is the only middle school in DISD wherein students have been writing plans for their future for over a decade, and now students have returned two years in a row to pick up those letters.  The message is going out to the community and current Quintanilla students that the Time-Capsule is real!  The plans for the future will be returned.  The future is real.  Work for it now!

In 2009 Quintanilla began to add letters from parents to the letter writing process.  Parents start the process with a letter to their child about their dreams for them.  We are now starting to ask for such letters every year starting in the 6th grade, and we are preparing parents to write such letters every year for the next 6 years.  In one year children change dramatically, and dreams for the future will change, and each letter will be different.  We also ask for parents to place in each letter a different story from their past that they want their child to remember 30 years into the future.  

Such family stories will help a child to see their place in history.  What was their family doing on 4-9-2006 when the largest civil rights march in Texas History happened in Dallas with a half million people marching in Dallas?

This year for the first time all parents at Quintanilla will be asked to write letters to their student.  The students will then read and bring these letters to Language Arts Class the day they write their own letters for the Time-Capsule. Each year the letters from the year before will be returned to 7th and 8th graders.  It is only the letters written in 8th grade that stay in the vault for a decade.

With two years of practice, the final third letters written in 8th grade will be much more complete and more valuable in 10 years, especially with the priceless letters from their parent included with that letter.

The chances for a student to see their families place in history will increase.  They will better see how they themselves can help bring about positive change by becoming active in their community, and not only voting, but leading!

New DISD Administrative Headquarters: 9400 North Central Experssway

At the DISD School Board meeting on 4-28-16 the 8 remaining trustees voted 5 to 3 to purchase a $44 million building at 9400 North Central Expressway as Administrative Offices.  This had only been made public within a week of the board meeting and the only testimony at the meeting was against it, by me.  I gave copies of the following map to the trustees to document how this is a move away from the children.  That was apparently not important except to the three trustees who represented far south Dallas and the schools that would simply all be 6 miles more distant from DISD Headquarters.

Dallas ISD Map with Schools and IR/FIR schools indicated along with new headquarters

The body language by the 5 trustees who voted for this purchase, two of which this was their lasts meeting, was very negative toward the majority of DISD parents who will now be more distant from DISD Headquarters.
Who are the customers of DISD?

Quintanilla Time Capsule Reunion #2 & Progress!

This Friday, 4-22-16, in the early morning, over lunch, and after school, the letters the 8th grade Quintanilla Class of 2006 wrote to themselves will be returned.  Members of this class can come to Quintanilla from 7:30 to 9:30, or over lunch from 11:30 to 1:30, or after school from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. to pick up their letter.  They must bring their ID to pick up their letter from ten years ago. Hopefully the alumni from 2006 have already received a letter with these details.

========================================================
Here is a link to the newspaper coverage of the above event that went very well: http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2016/04/time-capsule-reveals-hopes-and-dreams-in-a-dallas-school.html/#commentsOuterWrapper
========================================================

Quintanilla achieved the status of the highest-performing middle school in all of Dallas last year with an SEI score (School Effectiveness Indices Score) of 59.3, the highest in the district! Quintanilla is a Dallas ISD middle school that has one of the highest 10 poverty levels of all 32 middle schools in Dallas ISD. The Quintanilla SEI was also higher than any of the 5 middle schools that are magnet schools.

School Effectiveness Indices for the past 2 years for 32 Dallas ISD Middle Schools 

Quintanilla has many of the same programs as other middle schools in Dallas ISD except for one program that has been only happening at Quintanilla for the past 12 years. That is the School Archive Project, or as it is now more frequently called, the Time Capsule Project.

This is the second year Quintanilla has had reunions of students who were in the 8th grade at Quintanilla 10 years earlier and wrote letters for the vault bolted to the floor in the school lobby. Having these students return is making the project more real for current students. They are realizing more that the future will be here and their letters really will be returned to them in 10 years. What they do now will make the difference for their future!

This year for the first time these returning students from a decade ago will be invited to volunteer to speak with current Quintanilla students on Career Day on May 2nd!  A priceless set of messages will be delivered about the decade after 8th grade.

Beginning in 2009 the first of 7 other middle schools in DISD with time-capsule projects will begin their own patterns of annual 10-year reunions for classes who have been writing letters since their schools' time-capsule projects started. These schools will all see hopefully similar achievement gains from an ever stronger student focus on their own future.

The photo on the left is of the Quintanilla Time-Capsule contents. It shows the 2015 shelf with the new letters from the 8th grade class of 2015 after the letters from 2005 were removed to return to the Class of 2005.  The letters from 2006 are still in the vault waiting to be returned to the 8th grade class of 2006 beginning on 4-22-16.

In the constant effort to continue to raise achievement, Quintanilla is now planning to request that all Quintanilla parents this May write letters to their student about their parental dreams for their student, and to begin an annual pattern of such letter writing.  A child changes a lot in one year.

In each of these letters we will also be asking each parent to tell one story from their family history that they want their child to remember when they are 40 years old.  What can be more valuable than to reinforce connections to a child's personal family history, along with parental dreams?

All Quintanilla students will then bring these priceless letters to their Language Arts Classes after STAAR testing.  They will use them to write a letter to themselves about their own plans for their future, and how they will achieve those goals.  Then all the letters for each student will be placed in one self-addressed envelope for each student and placed into the vault.  The 6th and 7th grade students will have their letters collected for the vault.  The 8th grade students will be writing the letter for 10-years into the future and will place their letter into the vault themselves after the normal annual photos are taken.

Next year the same process will be repeated at the end of the year except that 7th graders will receive back their 6th grade letters, and 8th graders will receive back their 7th grade letters.  The goal is to constantly write better, more complete plans for the future as the normal changes in life happen.  Parents will also be asked to write new letters each year as they observe their child's changes year to year.

With this process the achievement level at Quintanilla will continue to rise if all other factors in the school remain positive.

Texas Ethics Commission Complaint Resolved

A year ago I filed a complaint against a DISD Trustee Candidate who failed to complete campaign finance reports, failed to respond to the Texas Ethics Commission in a timely fashion, but then went on to lose the election in spite of the secrecy his failure provided.

Last week I receive formal notice that the complaint was found valid and that $750 in fines had been paid by this candidate due to this complaint and his delayed response to it.  See order entered at https://www.ethics.state.tx.us/sworncomp/2015/3150486.pdf

The system works!  It must be used. Complaints must be filed in a timely fashion and failure to respond in a timely fashion by the respondent will be held against them.

Here is a record of those groups who were supporting this candidate:  http://www.dallasisd.org/Page/13930.  You need to download the various reports for the most complete image of who was supporting this campaign.

If you study the campaign finance reports over time, and in the current election, you will find a consistency in that the same collection of PAC's and individuals is supporting candidates who most strongly supported Mike Miles and the well documented destruction of DISD since 2012.

There is also a high correlation of investments in charter schools, and people serving on charter school boards in these groups and among the candidates they have supported.

Notice the large amount of the support for Demarcus Offord that came from Dallas Kids First:

Dallas Kids First support for Demarcus Offord in 2015 election

Notice who Dallas Kids First is endorsing in the May 2016 DISD Trustee elections:

 http://www.dallaskidsfirst.org/2016-disd-election.html

Dallas ISD District 5 Candidate Forum 4-5-16

DISD District 5 Candidate Forum

League of Women Voters AND West Dallas 1 Neighborhood Coalition

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

6 to 7:30 p.m.

El Centro West Campus

3330 N. Hampton Rd., Dallas, Texas 75212

Cosponsors: NAACP, Women’s Council of Greater Dallas

www.lwvdallas.org   214-688-4125   www.vote411.org

Come Join us and hear:

• Marquis Hawkins    
• Lew Blackburn
• Linda M. Wilkerson-Wynn

Texas Charter Schools, ISD's, and Dallas ISD compared, using Snapshot data

The most consistent and powerful data base on school districts, including charter school districts, in Texas is the Snapshot data base maintained by the Texas Education Agency at http://tea.texas.gov/perfreport/snapshot/index.html.  It is a data base going back to 1995 that has tracked and reported on 98 data items ever since this date for ever ISD and charter district in Texas.  Here is the most recent report for Charter schools, ISD's and Dallas ISD for the 2013/14 school year.  It is a report with about half of the 98 data items reported on.  Go to the above link for 2014 for the full report.

Questions for DISD School Board Candidates in 2016

I have suggested answers but these are certainly NOT the only answers.

1)    What are the three the most positive accomplishments approved by the DISD Board during the past five years of DISD History?  Why were they the most positive?
First - Early Childhood Education expansion.  That was long overdue and will greatly improve student achievement.

Second - Moving forward with a bond program to improve DISD schools that was also long overdue.  Too many DISD schools are in terrible condition.  However, the specifics of how this bond program was done was embarrassing.  The relative secrecy and lack of documentation surrounding the process of the work done by the Future Facilities Task Force is NOT the way DISD should run such planning. There are not even minutes to any of the meetings or lists of who attended. Even with those issues, the moving toward the discussion of the bond needs was a positive. It simply should have been handled more publicly. Here is a video documenting in questioning by former trustee Elizabeth Jones of Future Facilities Task Force Co-Chair, Isaac Faz, about the documentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9Aco49WP28&feature=em-share_video_user 

Three - rehiring Dr. Hinojosa. The current healing process would never have happened as quickly under anyone else. He was the right choice but needs to hear more from the public so that the right decisions can be made.  That business community segment that supported Mike Miles still has great power. Dr. Hinojosa cannot do what needs to be done alone.

2)    What are the three greatest mistakes made by the DISD Board during the past five years and why were they the worst?

First- hiring Mike Miles to be the superintendent with the least education experience of any superintendent in memory.

Second, - allowing Mike Miles to then operate in remarkable secrecy both from the Board and the public with almost no public accountability to create one of the most negative teaching environments in Texas leading to the departure of over 6,500 teachers.  This was the greatest teacher turnover in DISD History.

Third - refusing to have public presentations and accept public questions as a group regarding student achievement and the progress or lack thereof.

3)    The five years from 2006 to 2011 stand out in DISD History, why?

This was the greatest period of improvement in the graduation rate in DISD History which was accompanied by academic improvement and the lowering of the Texas/DISD Student Achievement Gap to the lowest levels in history! In 2011, for the first time in over 3 decades, the size of the graduation class was over 50% the size of the 9th grade class three years earlier! This progress led to the largest DISD graduation class in 32 years with the Class of 2013. See chart below on the Texas/DISD Student Achievement Gap: 

4)    Given this history, what should your goals be as Trustee?

Transparency (see below) and talking about the data revealed constantly so that actions can be designed to respond to the data revealed, and then be held accountable as these changes are implimented.  I would work to encourage parents at every elementary school in Dallas to study the history of Pk-8 schools both inside Dallas ISD and in the nationwide research.  I would encourage parents to decide if they want their child to attend such a Pk-8 school.  Then work to allow schools to transition to Pk-8 and close middle schools but always have some for those students who want to be in a separate middle school.
True centering on data! We cannot ignore that schools that have parents writing their child about their dreams for them, and then students writing about their own plans for the future, from 6th grade on, annually, have higher achievement and higher graduation rates.  The focus on the future works!  It also costs next to nothing compared to other academic solutions!

5)   How could this history have changed if the DISD Trustees, supporting transparency, had designed a monthly report with the 20+ most critical data items on it reporting on events inside DISD that have never been shared with the public in a timely fashion?  Such reports would include consistent measurements of student performance, student turnover and movement, and teacher movement and resignations. They would also include summaries of the most recent statewide testing. (Data in these areas given monthly would have warned Dallas of what was happening within DISD much more quickly during the damage done these past 3 years.)

See above.  This is only a small start for the many changes that would come with transparency.

6)    Would you support such transparency and a Board requirement that a monthly report be designed and mandated by the Board to encourage more public involvement in our schools?  

Absolutely!

7)   When the DISD Board is considering a major change generating public debate, would you support public debate events with each side able to present a team for open public questions in front of an audience at a very well-advertised venue?

Absolutely!