Dallas ISD Superintendent Mike Miles evaluation instruments approved 8-1

 'We can teach our way to the top, but we cannot test our way to the top..." 
Heath Morrison - Superintendent of Charlotte-Mecklenburg

Tuesday, December 18, 2012 - Called Board Meeting - 5:30 P.M.

Discussion, Consideration and Take Possible Action to Approve Superintendent of Schools Evaluation Instruments

Dallas Morning News - December 25, 2012- Click Here

"Trustee Mike Morath, who was part of a board committee that created the evaluation criteria, said he believes it’s a more rigorous assessment than used for the past superintendent. 

“We wanted to raise the bar in terms of performance expectations, and we wanted explicit ties to student achievement,” he said. (Translation - "we wanted explicit ties to student test scores")

Trustees approved the Superintendent of Schools evaluation instruments by an 8-1 vote.

Voting Yes to tying Superintendent pay to student test results
Lew Blackburn
Mike Morath
Bernadette Nutall
Nancy Bingham
Eric Cowan
Elizabeth Jones
Dan Micciche
Adam Medrano

Voting No
Carla Ranger

Paul Thomas of Furman University (Ed.D) in South Carolina states:

Tests Fail South's Legacy of Inequity - Click Here 

"The essential flaws with high-stakes standardized tests are magnified in states shackled by social inequity and poverty because tests function as gatekeepers (for example, the SAT) and mechanisms for educational inequity: Children born into poverty are tested, labeled, and then sorted into a educational system that reflects and perpetuates that inequity. 

For decades now, ample evidence shows that test-based accountability labels high-poverty schools as failures and affluent schools as successful. Any deviations from these patterns are rare and outliers.

Continuing to focusing on tests and seeking new and better tests are commitments to distracting society and education from addressing the real and systemic problems facing both. America's test-mania is a test we are failing. 

Especially in the South, investing in new and more high-stakes standardized testing is a failure we can no longer afford."

Dallas ISD Trustees have now monetized tests as never before in the history of the district. 

Trustees have now imposed additional test related pressure on the teachers and students of Dallas ISD by connecting standard test results to huge monetary awards for the Superintendent.

Some call it "a more rigorous assessment" but others might call it irresponsible to put huge dollar signs on the backs of children and teachers based on "an inadequate and unreliable measure of both student learning and educator effectiveness."

National Resolution on High Stakes Testing- Click Here

National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing

From Valerie Strauss - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post - 4-24-12-Click Here

National Resolution On High Stakes Testing

"This resolution is modeled on the resolution passed by more than 360 Texas school boards as of April 23, 2012. It was written by Advancement Project; Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund; FairTest; Forum for Education and Democracy; MecklenburgACTS; Deborah Meier; NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.; National Education Association; New York Performance Standards Consortium; Tracy Novick; Parents Across America; Parents United for Responsible Education - Chicago; Diane Ravitch; Race to Nowhere; Time Out From Testing; and United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries."

We encourage organizations and individuals to publicly endorse it (see below). Organizations should modify it as needed for their local circumstances while also endorsing this national version. 

WHEREAS, our nation's future well-being relies on a high-quality public education system that prepares all students for college, careers, citizenship and lifelong learning, and strengthens the nation's social and economic well-being; and

WHEREAS, our nation's school systems have been spending growing amounts of time, money and energy on high-stakes standardized testing, in which student performance on standardized tests is used to make major decisions affecting individual students, educators and schools; and

WHEREAS, the over-reliance on high-stakes standardized testing in state and federal accountability systems is undermining educational quality and equity in U.S. public schools by hampering educators' efforts to focus on the broad range of learning experiences that promote the innovation, creativity, problem solving, collaboration, communication, critical thinking and deep subject-matter knowledge that will allow students to thrive in a democracy and an increasingly global society and economy; an

WHEREAS, it is widely recognized that standardized testing is an inadequate and often unreliable measure of both student learning and educator effectiveness; and

WHEREAS, the over-emphasis on standardized testing has caused considerable collateral damage in too many schools, including narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the test, reducing love of learning, pushing students out of school, driving excellent teachers out of the profession, and undermining school climate; and

WHEREAS, high-stakes standardized testing has negative effects for students from all backgrounds, and especially for low-income students, English language learners, children of color, and those with disabilities; and

WHEREAS, the culture and structure of the systems in which students learn must change in order to foster engaging school experiences that promote joy in learning, depth of thought and breadth of knowledge for students; therefore be it

RESOLVED, that [your organization name] calls on the governor, state legislature and state education boards and administrators to reexamine public school accountability systems in this state, and to develop a system based on multiple forms of assessment which does not require extensive standardized testing, more accurately reflects the broad range of student learning, and is used to support students and improve schools; and

RESOLVED, that [your organization name] calls on the U.S. Congress and Administration to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as the "No Child Left Behind Act," reduce the testing mandates, promote multiple forms of evidence of student learning and school quality in accountability, and not mandate any fixed role for the use of student test scores in evaluating educators.

Some of the Signers

• NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. — New York, NY
• National Education Association — Washington, DC
• United Church of Christ Justice & Witness Ministries — Cleveland, OH
• Parents Across America - North Carolina — Durham, NC
• National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest) — Boston, MA
• Citizens for Public Schools — Boston, MA
• Research on Reforms, Inc — New Orleans, LA
• SchoolsMatter — Cambridge, MA
• Children Are More Than Test Scores — New Britain, CT
• Keystone State Education Coalition — ARDMORE, PA
• Race to Nowhere — Lafayette, CA
• Parents Across America - Baton Rouge — Baton Rouge, LA
• FL Parents Across America — Boca Raton, FL
• Race to Nowhere — Lafayette, CA