Dallas ISD did not vote last year to close "11 underperforming schools"

Editorial: Dallas ISD trustee's outrageous outburst

• "Dallas ISD trustee Bernadette Nutall has often impressed us. She brings valuable experience as a community outreach educator to the board, has supported several important reform efforts and courageously voted last year to close 11 under performing district schools, including five in her southern Dallas district. We’ve admired her composure and professionalism."

The above statement from a recent Dallas Morning News Editorial is incorrect. Dallas ISD did not vote to close 11 under performing district schools. Test score performance played no part in the decision.. On January 26, 2012, Trustees voted to close the 11 schools in order to save money - $11.5 million dollars.
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The crowd reacts as DISD trustee Lew Blackburn, center, called for the removal of Joyce Foreman, not pictured, prior to a vote on a proposal to close 11 schools. Trustees approved the $11.5 million cost-cutting plan in a 6-2 vote... Dallas ISD trustees vote to close 11 schools
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The money saved was a mere drop in the billion dollar budget.

At the end of the 2011-2012 school year - four months after voting to close the schools - Dallas ISD ended the 2011-2012 school year with a budget surplus. Another surplus is expected at the end of this school year.

Within five months after closing the schools, the Dallas Morning News Editorial Board and Todd Williams, who had become Chair of the Dallas ISD Citizens Budget Review Commission wanted the schools to be turned over to private charter school operators.

City Park Elementary, Frazier Elementary, Wheatley Elementary, Harllee Elementary, Arlington Park Elementary, Fannin Elementary, Bonham Elementary, O.M. Roberts Elementary, H.S. Thompson Elementary, D. A. Hulcy Middle School, Pearl C. Anderson Middle School
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Editorial: Opportunity for DISD, charters in closed campuses-June 17, 2012

"Todd Williams, a former Uplift Education board member who chairs DISD’s citizens budget review commission, sees it, too. His idea to require charter tenants to maintain at least state-recognized standing makes sense for quality control.

  

"Those eight elementary schools and one middle school are closed, perhaps forever. Shifting school-age populations left these buildings too empty to keep open. DISD trustees were right to make the wrenching decision to shutter them and save about $11.5 million in operating expenses.

Now, those campuses represent something different: opportunity."

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Todd Williams - Williams Preparatory Charter School - Uplift Charter Education

Todd Williams - appointed by Trustee Bernadette Nutall to represent District 9 on Dallas ISD Citizens Budget Review Commission

Todd Williams - former Uplift board member

Todd Williams - head of Committ

Todd Williams - former chair - Dallas ISD Citizens Budget Review Commission

Todd Williams - Education Advisor - Mayor Mike Rawlings

Phillip Montgomery - first Chair - Dallas ISD Citizens Budget Review Commission

Phillip Montgomery - founding Chairman - Uplift Charter Education - 2003-2011

Proposed budget cuts, mid-year grade level changes and school closings on Thursday’s agenda
DISD Trustees Don't Want to Close Campuses. But They're Told:They Have No Other Choice
Pressure mounts to pull school closure plan from tomorrow’s Dallas ISD school board meeting
Mayor Rawlings and Dallas ISD Board President Blackburn agree on: the need for more charter school
Dallas ISD says it won’t sell school buildings that were closed this month
What should DISD do with the closed schools?
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 DISD Trustees Don't Want to Close Campuses. But They're Told:They Have No Other Choice

" Later, Carla Ranger would characterize that number as "arbitrary..."

 "Ranger, who spent most of Thursday trying to put off the inevitable by delaying several items on the January 26 voting agenda, once again requested the trustees to put off voting on consolidation. But she wasn't asking for a mere month.

"I think we ought to take the opportunity to look at this for another year," she said. "There's a lot to be considered." Yes, she said, these campuses are small, "but there's a lot to be said for smaller schools. They have been and are being touted and promoted as being very successful schools, and many of these are high-performing schools. It was an arbitrary decision: 'Let's go below this number.' ... I am not ready or convinced this is what we ought to do."

Supt. Mike Miles discusses principal changes in meeting at South Oak Cliff High School

From Dallas Morning News Editorial Board Interviews

New principal evaluations
Blackburn: “A big improvement over last year,” he said of the new, more rigorous principal evaluation system. He said that he’d like to see it even more rigorous in coming years."
     -- Dallas Morning News Education Blog-4-4-13-Tawnell Hobbs - Click Here 
Dallas ISD District 5 candidates have many differences — including how they rate the superintendent

Wilkerson-Wynn: "She believes that it’s too soon for principals to be evaluated under the new system, which was approved by trustees in January. (Superintendent Mike Miles has said that principals were made aware of the new expectations in June). She also believes that principals in the southern sector don’t have as many resources as their counterparts in northern Dallas."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From Fox 4 News
Dallas News | myFOXdfw.com

Protesters from 21 cities say closing schools violates civil rights

Huffington Post - 1-29-2013 - Joy Resmovits

WASHINGTON -- "The standards-based education reform movement calls school change "the civil rights issue of our time." But about 220 mostly African American community organizers, parents and students from 21 cities from New York to Oakland, Calif., converged on Washington Tuesday to tell U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan he's getting it backwards on school closures.

Members of the group, a patchwork of community organizations called the Journey for Justice Movement, have filed several Title VI civil rights complaints with the Education Department Office of Civil Rights, claiming that school districts that shut schools are hurting minority students. While most school closures are decided locally, the Education Department's School Improvement Grant gives under performing school districts money for shakeups or turnarounds, including closures. 

The meeting became heated at times. "The voices of the people directly impacted can no longer be ignored," said Jitu Brown, an organizer from the South Side of Chicago. "This type of mediocrity is only accepted because of the race of the students who are being served." He called school closures "a violation of our human rights," since many communities are left without neighborhood schools after districts shut them down."

CLICK HERE

 
“I have been denied the right to a quality education,” said Gavin Alston, 12, whose Chicago school was shuttered last year. “We have no middle or elementary schools in my neighborhood anymore.”

Federal Complaint Alleges City Policy Discriminates Against Minorities, Poor - Wall Street Journal

Protesters from 18 cities say closing schools violates civil rights

Education Dept. to Hear School Closing Complaints

School Closures Challenged=Federal Complaint Alleges City Policy Discriminates Against Minorities, Poor

School closings discriminatory, coalition tells U.S. Education Department

" What all of this means is that however intuitive performance related pay seems, it doesn't work. You don't get better work when you try to motivate people this way; you get worse work and often less work."
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MoneyWatch - Click Here

By 

MARGARET HEFFERNAN / 

MONEYWATCH/ September 14, 2012, 7:00 AM

Why  performance  related  pay  doesn't   work

ISTOCKPHOTO

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(MoneyWatch) In the last month, I've sat in three board meetings where pay was discussed. Because money is tight, in each case someone suggested lowering base pay and increasing incentives. This suggestion was followed by uncomfortable agreement: Uncomfortable because it feels stingy, agreement because it feels like the pay strategy will work. And in each case, I've asked: Where's the evidence that performance-related pay actually works? So far, no one has come up with a good answer.

According to economists George Akerlog and Rachel Kranton, there are four reasons why performance-related pay does not work:

1. It's often hard to judge performance. High flyers regularly do things they haven't been asked to do, put out fires before anyone can see them, reassure nervous customers and share ideas widely that make everyone around them more successful. Under no circumstances do you want people to stop doing this - but you can't measure it.

2. Big rewards encourage big risk taking. Most people don't understand risk/reward trade offs and so, offered big rewards, they are prepared to take big risks. This is quite often exactly what you do not want. A pay system that encourages the wrong behavior while not encouraging the best behavior is hard to applaud.

3. Smart people game the system. They either deliberately under-promise to make over-achieving easy, they fudge their numbers, achieve their targets unethically or time their performance according to compensation schedules instead of what's best for the customer or the company.

4. Extrinsic rewards crowd out internal motivation. In other words, if I'm offered a big reward for one thing, I'll forget all the other reasons I wanted to do my job in the first place. In any number of psychology experiments, if you reward people for doing something they enjoy anyway, their commitment and engagement decreases. And they lose interest in making any extra effort.

What all of this means is that however intuitive performance related pay seems, it doesn't work. You don't get better work when you try to motivate people this way; you get worse work and often less work. I am always struck that the people who propose performance-related schemes are never on them themselves. That tells me everything.

What's important to remember, however, is that on some level we are all on performance-related pay schemes - insofar as the ability of an employer to pay at all is heavily contingent on everyone doing a good job. When everyone performs, everyone gets paid. That, it turns out, is motivation enough.

© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.

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• Margaret HeffernanON TWITTER »
  

  View all articles by Margaret Heffernan on CBS MoneyWatch »
  Margaret Heffernan has been CEO of five businesses in the United States and United Kingdom. A speaker and writer, her most recent book Willful Blindness was shortlisted for the Financial Times Best Business Book 2011. Visit her on www.MHeffernan.com.

Texas House of Representatives adopts anti-voucher amendment

"During debate of the state budget bill, Senate Bill 1, on the House floor on Thursday, state representatives adopted an amendment by Rep. Abel Herrero (D-Robstown) that would prohibit money appropriated to the Texas Education Agency from being used to support school vouchers or scholarships for private primary or secondary education provided by nonprofit entities using donations received from entities that receive tax credits as a result of the donations. The amendment was adopted on a vote of 103-40."

TASB Government Relations

Eugene Robinson gets it right on "the racket with standardized test scores"

Pulitzer prize winning opinion writer Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post recently got it right on the corrupting influence that high-stakes tests combined with merit pay-performance bonuses have become in American education. 

On April 1, 2013 he wrote about the most recent indictments of numerous officials of Atlanta Public Schools.

In his opinion article "The racket with standardized test scores" Robinson states:

• " It is time to acknowledge that the fashionable theory of school reform — requiring that pay and job security for teachers, principals and administrators depend on their students’ standardized test scores — is at best a well-intentioned mistake, and at worst nothing but a racket."
• "I mean that literally. Beverly Hall, the former superintendent of the Atlanta public schools, was indicted on racketeering charges Friday for an alleged cheating scheme that won her more than $500,000 in performance bonuses."
•  “Principals and teachers were frequently told by Beverly Hall and her subordinates that excuses for not meeting targets would not be tolerated,”
• "The principal and teachers would get bonuses. Hall would get accolades, plus a much bigger bonus."
• "And students — duped into thinking they had mastered material that they hadn’t even begun to grasp — would get the shaft."
• "In the District of Columbia, for example, there are unanswered questions about an anomalous pattern of wrong-to-right erasures on answer sheets during the reign of famed schools reformer Michelle Rhee"
• "Standardized achievement tests are a vital tool, but treating test scores the way a corporation might treat sales targets is wrong. Students are not widgets."
• "But how does it help these students to have their performance on a one-size-fits-all standardized test determine their teachers’ compensation and job security?"
• "... even absent cheating, the blind obsession with test scores implies that teachers are interchangeable implements of information transfer, rather than caring professionals who know their students as individuals. It reduces students to the leavings of a No. 2 pencil."
• "School reform cannot be something that ostensibly smart, ostentatiously tough “superstar” superintendents do to a school system and the people who depend on it."

In other words, corruption is the inevitable result of this false approach to so-called school reform, and the result is always detrimental to students, parents and the public interest in public education.

Texas Education Commissioner Michael L. Williams removes Dallas ISD Monitor

On March 19, 2013, TEA Commissioner Michael L. Williams notified Dallas ISD of his decision to remove Dallas ISD Monitor Bobby Parker - effective immediately.

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TEA 
Texas Education Agency

70 orth Congress Ave. • Austin, Texas 78701-1494 • 512 463-9734 • 512 463-9838 FAX • www.tea .state.tx.us

CERTIFIED MAIL

057-905

March 19, 2013


Mr. Lew Blackburn, Board President
Mr. Mike Miles, Superintendent 

Dallas Independent School District
3700 Ross Avenue
Dallas , Texas 75204-5491

Dear Mr. Blackburn and Mr. Miles:

The purpose of this letter is to notify you of my intent to remove Bobby Parker as the monitor appointed to Dallas Independent School District (ISD). The removal is effective as of today, March 19, 2013.

I would like to caution Dallas lSD that, although I am encouraged by the district's improvement, I am still concerned about the continuing academic issues facing the district. It is, therefore, critical that Dallas ISD continue to work with their Professional Service Providers (PSPs) on academic performance issues and continue with the training and improvement plans.

Thus, although I am removing the monitor at this time, Dallas ISD is advised that it will continue to be subject to the interventions and sanctions under TEC , Chapter 39, and Title 19, Texas Administrative Code, Chapter 97, to address any deficiencies identified for the district. Any questions may be addressed to Ron Rowell, Director of School Governance , at (512) 463-9623 or via email at ronald.rowell@tea .state.tx us.

Sincerely,

 

MLW/Im

cc: Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds. Chief Deputy Commissioner, TEA

Sally Partridge, Associate Commissioner , Accreditation and School Improvement , TEA
Alice McAfee, Director, Enforcement Coordination, TEA
Ron Rowell, Director, Governance, TEA
Bobby Parker, Monitor

The inevitable corruption of educators through high-stakes testing

35 educators indicted in Atlanta cheating scandal - Click Here

The Inevitable Corruption of Indicators and Educators Through High-Stakes Testing - Click Here

Press Release - Click Here

The Education Policy Studies Laboratory (EPSL) would like to call your attention to The Inevitable Corruption of Indicators and Educators Through High-Stakes Testing, released by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice

EAST LANSING, Mich. (Friday, March 18, 2005)— America’s public schools are setting goals and making harmful, irreversible decisions based on test results that in an increasing number of cases can’t be trusted, said an independent study from the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State University.

The report, made possible by a grant from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice, determined that the pressure of high-stakes tests is forcing school districts to take short cuts to avoid being labeled as failing for not meeting certain benchmarks. As a result, their scores are subject to corruption.

“Policy makers have oversold the public on the notion that high-stakes test scores are the best way to hold schools accountable,” said Teri Moblo, director of the Great Lakes Center. “Because of No Child Left Behind and other measures, school districts know that the results of one or two tests determine if they are considered successful. This creates enormous pressure on educators and their students, because long-term decisions are being made based on scores that can’t be trusted.”

David Berliner and Sharon Nichols, co-authors of the report, The Inevitable Corruption of Indicators and Educators Through High-Stakes Testing, point to examples of how unbridled pressure to reach unrealistic goals, whether in the boardroom, on the playing field, or in our own government, can inevitably lead to a “beat-the-system” mentality. 

“Now we see this kind of mentality seeping into our schools, where future generations are training merely to beat the system,” Berliner said. “Learning subject matter in depth is no longer the goal of schools in high-stakes states. We are witnessing proof of a well known social science law, which basically says the greater the pressure to perform at a certain level, the more likely people will find a way to distort and corrupt the system to achieve favorable results.”

Drs. Berliner and Nichols identified 10 trends that outline the consequences of high-stakes testing, which ultimately all negatively impact the quality of education for our nation’s children. The trends are:

• Administrator and Teacher Cheating
• Student Cheating
• Exclusion of Low-Performance Students from Testing
• Misrepresentation of Student Dropouts
• Teaching to the Test
• Narrowing the Curriculum
• Conflicting Accountability Ratings
• Questions about the Meaning of Proficiency
• Declining Teacher Morale
• Score Reporting Errors

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35 educators indicted in Atlanta cheating scandal

"Former Atlanta schools Superintendent Beverly Hall was the leader of a corrupt organization that used students’ test scores to earn bonuses if they rose, or intimidation and termination if they fell, according to a 65-count indictment returned Friday.

“If a school achieved 70 percent or more of its targets, all employees at the school received a bonus,” the indictment said. “Additionally, if certain system-wide targets were achieved, Beverly Hall herself received a substantial bonus.”