April,
2015
Dallas Independent School District (DISD) operated under a
federal desegregation order from the mid-seventies until 2003. As a part of
that desegregation order, a series of magnet schools were created to meet
federal desegregation plans. These DISD magnet schools are no longer part of
any desegregation order but are top-ranked schools locally and nationally with
heavy filtering of students for admission.
Added to these magnet schools are Montessori schools, the
single sex academies of Barack Obama and Irma Rangel, and High Tech High School
at A. Maceo Smith. Each of these magnets and choice schools carefully screen
students on the basis of test scores, grades, attendance, and sometimes a
talent audition in the arts. Few of these schools have but a small percentage
of Limited English Proficiency (LEP), special education, or at-risk students.
Dallas ISD also operates many elementary and secondary
campuses that are on the “Improvement Required” (IR) list of failing schools in
Texas. This annual list, created by the Texas Education Agency (TEA), contains
43 DISD schools. In addition, the annual Public Education Grant (PEG) list
contains 71 Dallas campuses where test scores have been low enough to give
students the opportunity to transfer to another campus. The DISD PEG list,
inclusive of IR schools, contains schools with very high percentages of LEP,
special education, and at-risk students.
Complainants’ initial concerns centered around the two-tier,
unconstitutional system that affords magnet, vanguard, and Montessori students
access to campuses with high achieving students, veteran faculty, stable
teachers and principals with little churn in professional staff, and higher
regular education funding compared to neighborhood campuses with high levels of
LEP, special education, and at-risk students who receive few of these learning
advantages.
While Dallas ISD must meet Title I comparability on all its
campuses in order to receive federal Title I funds, the current comparability
formula in Dallas ISD has been compromised through illegal supplanting of high
amounts of state compensatory education funds, through backdooring millions in
high school allotment funds into the magnets, and through extremely low levels
of regular education funding for neighborhood Title I schools. There is
substantial evidence that the current financial model of equity used for
funding DISD campuses is actually a financial shell game intended to increase
the district surplus fund at the expense of low income, high risk students.
As is the case in all
50 states, the required state curriculum for Dallas ISD students must be
provided by local and state foundation funds before any compensatory state or
federal funds can be used to supplement learning opportunities on Title I
campuses. In Dallas ISD, local property taxes provide funding for the required
curriculum with additional state monies available for special education
students, bilingual education, and Career and Technical Education (CTE)
electives at the secondary level.
In addition, the state of Texas since 2006 has provided an
additional supplement of $275 per high school student based on average daily
attendance (ADA). This High School Allotment funding could be used for
enrichment, such as Advanced Placement courses, or for any programming intended
to increase graduation rates and college and career readiness.
Because complainants had concerns about disparities in
levels of funding per student provided magnet campuses compared to neighborhood
schools, the official state records of actual spending on campuses were compared
in regard to regular education funding provided magnet and choice schools
compared to neighborhood Title I schools. These financial records, PEIMS
records, are available on the Texas Education Agency web site for both planned
and actual school district and campus spending per student.
An analysis of the PEIMS records for the past three years provided
the following insights:
·
Magnet and choice campuses and the few non-Title
I campuses in DISD had much higher levels of regular education funding to
provide the instructional program where most students spend the majority of
their school day.
·
Huge discrepancies in regular education funding between
choice and neighborhood schools had small correlation to the level of teacher
experience on campus.
·
Looking at the total spend per student in
programming is misleading due to incredibly high levels of state compensatory
education funding provided in the presence of low levels of regular education
funds, the provision of PreK programs on some campuses and the absence of these
programs on other campuses, and high levels of special education funding
provided failing campuses for double the district percentage of special
education students.
·
The methods DISD used to disperse high school
allotment funding essentially negated any Title I comparability. Some magnets
received thousands of dollars per student while low performing campuses
received much less than the $275 per student provided by the state.
In addition to these intra-district equity issues, a
comparison of PEIMS records of the regular education funding of Dallas ISD
neighborhood Title I campuses compared to those in bordering suburbs adds
another layer of inequity. Essentially, Title I schools in Dallas ISD are at an
unconstitutional disadvantage in funding compared to Title I schools in
surrounding suburbs and even compared to campuses in suburbs with no Title I
funding.
DISD is a not a property poor district. Inequities in funding within the district and
compared to bordering districts were the result of central administrative
decisions over the last three years to move funding out of classrooms filled
with some of the highest concentrations of student poverty in the state of
Texas. The tax revenue from local property taxes taken from DISD classrooms
could then be used to dramatically increase the size of the surplus fund, to
create millions for pet projects of the current Superintendent, and to double
the size of middle management by increasing class size and lowering the level
of teacher experience in Dallas classrooms.
A further
examination of PEIMS records revealed probable fraud in the use of state
compensatory funding and the use of the PEIMS code for the High School
Allotment totaling over $35 million dollars. Moreover, reports from
former and present teachers and principals provide consistent evidence that
federal Title I dollars are illegally being used to compensate core academic
teachers because funding on neighborhood campuses is not sufficient to provide adequate
teachers to staff state mandated programming.
The reasons for severe cuts in regular education funding and
the illegal supplanting of Title I, state compensatory funding, and the High
School Allotment may revolve around the bragging rights to a district surplus
fund that grew substantially based on fraud, underfunding high poverty schools,
and understaffing Title I campuses. The result was an increase in failing DISD
campuses, especially at the secondary level where many Dallas ISD middle
schools are rated the worst in the state.
As funding fell on many Title I campuses and the achievement
gap between white and minority DISD students grew, DISD’s reserve fund also grew
to $350 million dollars and provided the prime impetus for an early renewal of
the Superintendent’s contract in July, 2014. The expansive growth of the
surplus fund was questioned by no Dallas media outlets and by only a few
Trustees, one of whom was physically removed from a district campus and
“investigated” by the Superintendent and another Trustee whom the
Superintendent helped smear in a local alternative paper known for its loyalty
to the Superintendent.
In addition to funding inequities within DISD and compared
to bordering districts, the current Superintendent created greater disparities
in experienced teacher talent available for choice schools compared to constant
teacher and principal churn at failing neighborhood schools. The policies of
the current Superintendent are violations of the Equal Protection guarantees of
the 90% of Dallas ISD students attending neighborhood schools.
Greater teacher and principal churn on failing campuses, the
extensive use of inexperienced and uncertified Teach for America recruits on
failing campuses, and discriminatory employment practices have become common
place with the current Broad-trained Superintendent. These discriminatory
employment practices, violating state and federal laws, were documented in Human
Capital Management text messages that were released after the firing of several
whistleblowers in the Internal Audit Department over the past year and the
departure of a district investigator who feared releasing a report documenting
illegal employment practices. Interference of the Superintendent into internal
investigations also raises concerns regarding the ability of Trustees to
provide for the safety and security of 160,000 students.
Similar to the shell game played with campus funding, the
majority of Trustees on the Dallas ISD Board never received reports detailing
the internal investigation on illegal hiring practices that was completed for
them by Internal Audit any more than most Trustees were given enough
information to determine the source of the sudden increase in the District surplus
fund and whether that increase came on the backs of Title I students.
The lack of
transparency in District operations provides a fertile breeding space for
violations of equal protection guarantees of students. DISD Trustees lack
information to access accuracy in teacher vacancies, Title I comparability
formulas, campus funding, and Human Capital Resources staffing practices
provided them by the Superintendent and central staff. Trustees who ask “too
many questions” have been excluded from
vital information by the Superintendent of Schools. This practice removes the
protections guaranteed students and parents as constituents of elected Trustees
in a democracy.
Annual budget discussions that include power point
presentations that give the appearance of equitable levels of spending across
campuses when no such equity exists make it difficult for elected Trustees to
guarantee student access to comparable district resources.
The following Title VI complaint is intended to provide
equity in sourcing of all campuses across Dallas ISD by correcting illegal and
unconstitutional practices in student funding, campus and administrative
staffing, biased appraisal systems for teachers and principals, lack of
adequate special education services and training, lack of campus security, lack
of appropriate staff development, and lack of resources to adequately decrease
student attrition in comprehensive high schools. Each of the separate
complaints described in detail in the Title VI complaint will require
corrective remedies in order to provide constitutional Equal Protection guarantees
for all Dallas ISD students, but the best protection of the civil
rights guaranteed all students in Dallas public schools is much more
transparency at the Board level.
=============================================
The full 76 page version of this complaint being studied by Department of Education staff, has replaced this morning the older 70 page version on the WFAA web site. You can now go to
http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/investigates/2015/05/28/disd-budget-director-questions-misspent-at-risk-funds/28121153/ for this most current 76 page copy.
I welcome questions. The three attorneys who are the federal investigators on this complaint would love to hear from people with evidence that may be related to this complaint. Here is their address:
Office for Civil Rights, Dallas Office
U.S. Department of Education
OCR Complaint # 06-15-1411
1999 Bryan Street, Suite 1620
Dallas, TX 75201-6810
Telephone: (214) 661-9600
Bill Betzen
bbetzen@aol.com
