Southwest Center Mall & Charter Schools?

On January 13, 2016 the Dallas City Council will be asked to consider making about a $2.4 million grant to a multimillionaire who now owns the majority of the land at the Southwest Center Mall.  

In preparation for this meeting we will be having a community meeting at the Polk Wisdom Library this Tuesday, 1-5-16, starting at 5:30 PM with refreshments and discussion and a formal meeting promptly starting at 6:00 PM.  

We will have people present from the Economic Development Committee as well as the new owner of SW Center Mall, Peter Brodsky. I welcome this new investor to our neighborhood and hope we can work with him to be exceptionally successful. Here is information about him from the information presented to the Economic Development Committee on 10-28-15: 

"Owner: Peter S. Brodsky (3662 W Camp Wisdom LLC) A Dallas resident for over 20 years, Peter enjoyed a successful career in private equity at Hicks Muse (HM) and its successor firm, HM Capital, from 1995-2010. After leaving HM, Peter became the Board Chair of KIPP Dallas-Fort Worth, a high performing charter school group focused on serving southern Dallas. During his leadership, KIPP DFW has grown from one school serving 300 students to four schools in Oak Cliff serving over 1,300 hundred students. With the anticipated opening of KIPP DFW’s fifth school in August 2016, which will be in Pleasant Grove, KIPP DFW will serve over 2,000 southern Dallas students. Peter recently acquired the Southwest Center Mall and a few of the surrounding properties with a plan to execute a total redevelopment of the site, turning it into a high quality retail, entertainment, and residential center for southern Dallas."

Again, the above text comes from the material presented to the Dallas Economic Development Committee on 10-28-15.  You can find it in Appendix A of this document, online at: http://dallascityhall.com/government/Council%20Meeting%20Documents/eco_1_southwest-center-mall-partnership-proposal_111615.pdf

The document recommends many actions that include a Dallas City Grant of $2,400,000 be made to the current owner of SW Center Mall.

Due to the intense history of charter school development by Mr. Brodsky, and the intense saturation of charter schools in Southwest Dallas, and the growing concerns about charter school performance in Texas, it is recommended that a deed restriction be placed on this mall property so that it cannot be used for a charter school. 

Since a charter school placement is not being considered, and nobody is documented as even talking about that possibility, this should not be a difficult condition to meet.

This recommendation is made for many reasons but mostly due to the intense saturation of the Southwest side of Dallas by charter schools.  Over 53% of all children attending school in the Carter High School feeder pattern are attending charter schools.  This is 20 percentage points more than any of the other 22 feeder patterns in Dallas ISD.

A strongly related reason for this recommendation is the consistent records of charter schools having high student attrition rates, dropout rates 300% higher that independent school districts, and college readiness rates that are significantly lower than ISD's.  This is a very reasonable request. 

(These charter school performance issues are well documented on the Texas Education Agency web site, including the most recent 2014 data at https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/perfreport//snapshot/2014/state.html.

The main Snapshot web site is at https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/perfreport//snapshot/.  From there you can secure data on any district in Texas, including charter districts, on 98 data items going back 20 years.)

Bill Betzen
bbetzen@aol.com
214-957-9739

Charter Schools as Investments – 2016

Charter schools are being presented as solid investments for hedge fund managers and other investors:

·       Charter School Gravy Train Runs Express To Fat City - Forbes, 9/10/13

·       Why hedge funds love charter schools - The Washington Post, 6/4/14

·       Walmart is helping hedge funds make money off of charter - Business Insider, 3/17/15

·       Agassi Serves Merrill Clients a Charter-School Investment - WSJ, 9/9/15

But the shine from such investments has been fading at the same time:

Who Is Profiting From Charters? The Big Bucks Behind ... - Alternet.org, 5/8/13

In recent months more and more truths about charter schools and such investments are being made public.  A good representation of this is a Tampa Bay Times editorial just before Christmas last month:

Taxpayers assume risk, little gain for charter schools 12/24/15

This may be the beginning of the end for charter schools as an investment tool for millionaires, or the public for several reasons:

·       Charter Schools Remain a Bad Investment …Opinion, St. Agustine Record, Florida 9/15/15, a history in Florida

·       LA charter school study: who benefits? Berkley News 12-21-15, segregating better students into charters. (High charter attrition in Dallas is suspected to be caused by poor students leaving charters.)

·       High Charter School Market Share: A Big City School District Phenomenon 12-4-15, Newoak.com, See where Dallas stands nationally, but within Dallas there are feeder patterns where 53% of children attend charters.

·       These Charter Schools Tried to Turn Public Education Into Big Business. They Failed. Slate 12-17-15, “The decline of for-profit charters underscores another fundamental, and probably immutable, fact about American education: It’s a local, not national enterprise; states pride themselves on the distinctness of their laws and educational approach.”

This history of charter schools is actively being written.  The above articles are frightening because we are experimenting on children too often with little public visibility or accountability.  The above articles were found by googling “Charter School Investment” first, and then limiting that search to only the past month.  Do you your own exploration.  Then look at what is happening in your own city.

Construction & Maintenance Transparency as Life or Death Issue

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On 12-26-15 a series of tornados went over North Texas killing 11 people.  The morning of 12-31-15 this was the headline and photo (with modifications since) taken from the Dallas Morning News

Without more accountability and transparency relative to all public school construction and maintenance we can only imagine the potential public loss.

Why is name Mike Miles gone from Dallas Morning News?

In 2012 Dallas ISD had improved enough, and public agency transparency had advanced enough, that how terrible things had been for a very long time in DISD was exposed more than ever. The Dallas Mayor and others fixated on the bad news while failing to adequately study the record setting DISD improvements since 2006.

A tragedy was about to happen! The structure that led to the 2006-2012 progress (shown in record setting improvements in both graduation numbers and statewide test scores through 2013) was replaced with the disaster reflected in these charts.  Both graduation numbers and test scores fell.

Here is the same data with 10 more years of history added:

How long before the people of Dallas, and the leaders of Dallas, admit what has happened?  What is that delay in admitting a severe mistake costing our students?

While this tragedy was unfolding in DISD those supporting the main leader in the dismantling of DISD, Mike Miles, began an active cherry picking campaign of pointing to the achievements of subgroups within the Dallas ISD student body who were making progress.  They were presenting this to the Mayor and the public as evidence of progress.  These defenders of Mike Miles refused to look at the numbers for the entire DISD student body.  They clung to cherry picked subgroups with indications of progress. 

They would not even discuss the meaning of record numbers of PEG campuses within DISD.

The evidence of what happened under the leadership of Mike Miles is increasingly hard for the Dallas Morning News and other Dallas Leaders to ignore.  The name of Mike Miles is slowly disappearing from editorials and articles in the Dallas Morning News. It only remains in the comment sections where the public has not forgotten.  The editorial supporting the Mike Morath nomination for Texas Education Commissioner did not even mention the name Mike Miles!  Since Mike Morath was the strongest supporter of Mike Miles on the DISD Board, this is exceptionally interesting.  What is the Dallas Morning News saying? 

Snapshot: Texas School District Profiles, both charters and ISD's

One of the most powerful collections of data online supporting improved education in Texas is the "Snapshot" collection of data for each public school district in Texas. This listing includes both charter school districts and ISD's and allows for a powerful comparison between them.

Due to the power of this data it may reasonably be feared that attempts will be made to eliminate this data from easy online availability.  Beware!

The data is a year old and not posted until a year after the end of the school year.  The need for absolute accuracy is valued, but we all need to request that a "subject to correction" copy of the data be posted 10 months sooner so that initial data analysis can be done in a more timely manner.


The easiest way to find the web site is to google TEA and Snapshot.  The first hit is https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/perfreport//snapshot/

On that page in the left hand column you have access to year by year data for every school district in Texas going back 20 years. As is stated on that page: "From this website up to 98 items of data for each district can be accessed. The items can be browsed or downloaded. Twenty years of information are currently available at this site:2013-14, 2012-13, 2011-12, 2010-11, 2009-10, 2008-09, 2007-08, 2006-07, 2005-06, 2004-05, 2003-04, 2002-03, 2001-02, 2000-01, 1999-2000, 1998-99, 1997-98,1996-97, 1995-96, and 1994-95. Additional text and exhibits are available from this website for 1996-97 through 2001-02 when Snapshot was published as a book. Beginning with 2002-03 a print version of Snapshot is no longer available.

On this page if you click on Snapshot 2014 at the top in the left hand column you will immediately go to: 
https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/perfreport//snapshot/2014/index.html

On that page if you click on  State Totals you will immediately see a powerful comparison of all the charter schools in Texas compared with all the ISD's.

This is only the beginning of the comparisons possible with this data.

Note teacher turnover patterns which are high in charter schools and the generally lower achievement in spite of the cherry picking of students they are able to do.

Many hours can be spent on this site, but it is a powerful weapon in the war to improve our public schools!

Coalition against the relocation of the Argos Cement Plant in West Dallas

The 10-28-15 vote of 8 members of the Dallas City Council to move a 30-truck-per-hour Argos cement facility to less than 300 feet UPWIND from Edison Middle School is another reflection of the racism in Dallas.   Can anyone find such a facility this close to any school in the U.S., especially one that is also Anglo majority? Edison is surrounded by documented pollution with the RSR Smelter to the west and the GAF Roofing factory to the east.

The 8 council members supported this move are being confronted. Some of them are now having doubts. We must protect the children of West Dallas. Call your Dallas City Council Person at 214-670-4050. The record of environmental abuse in West Dallas must stop.

Argos Cement Plant West Dallas move approved 10-28-15

Please congratulate your city council member if they voted against this move, or ask to visit with them as to why they voted for this continued abuse of the people of West Dallas.  Do they know of any similar facility within 300 feet of a school anywhere in Texas or in the nation?

Please share the above poster online with everyone you know in Dallas.

Not another Uptown! West Dallas Gentrification must embrace local cultures.

The 2015 Dallas ISD Bond Program started badly.  It exposed that leaders in Dallas wanted to eliminate all schools from any areas east of Hampton Road in West Dallas.  That change moved schools over 2 miles more distant from homes in the Los Altos and La Bajada Communities.  The land would have been less valuable for families.  Was the real goal to help developers secure land closest to current the Trinity River less expensively?

Fortunately those plans have been stopped!

Families in these two communities east of Hampton Road are now asking for their current schools, Carr and DeZavala, to be upgraded to Pk-8 schools as they work on alternatives to an Edison Middle School just 200 feet downwind from a cement plant. Such a move would improve student achievement due to improvements available in Pk-8 schools.

It would also keep students away from Edison Middle School, a constantly low performing middle school now becoming the neighbor to an up-wind cement processing plant.  These plans are presenting new problems for Edison and all of West Dallas.

West Dallas Gentrification Process 2015

The gentrification goals in West Dallas must be inclusive ones, not like Dallas Uptown where families were pushed out.  With significant improvement in the quality of the schools the students of West Dallas attend these same students will be able to much more often become the gentry right where they grew up!

Such a change in gentrification patterns is already happening in areas of Oak Cliff.  It was addressed this past March by the Dallas Observer, http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/mexicans-saved-oak-cliff-while-they-saved-american-cities-bikos-came-later-7126267 .

The new gentrification must embrace and build from the cultures and history in place, not erase them again as has happened too often in Dallas History.  The messages from history must be embraced, not erased as in the culturally sterile development of Uptown.