Sunday, April 15, 2018

Exposing Racial Inequality in Dallas ISD: School Equity Spreadsheet design 4-16-18

A spreadsheet with one row for each of 228 Dallas ISD schools, and 95 columns of student, teacher, achievement, and financial data by student in each school, will quickly expose any racial equity issues in Dallas ISD!  It will also expose how need-mandated funds are being used, if they are truly supplementary, or if they are being supplanted by the reduction of regular funds in schools with a large population of students receiving such need based funds.

Such a School Equity Spreadsheet will allow anyone to explore instantly any of these 95 variables and the relationships between them in any single school, or in any sub-grouping of Dallas ISD schools.  Here is a first detailed draft of suggested variables being requested 4-16-18 from the Public Information Request Division in Dallas ISD for this proposed School Equity Spreadsheet:



Item #
School Equity Spreadsheet Column data - one school per row with one column for each following data item:
1
Date Data is recorded
2
School Year represented in this data
3
School Name
4
Street Address
5
zip code
6
Census tract

Student Enrollment:
7
# in pk
8
# in k
9
# in 1
10
# in 2
11
# in 3
12
# in 4
13
# in 5
14
# in 6
15
# in 7
16
# in 8
17
# in 9
18
# in 10
19
# in 11
20
# in 12
21
total enrollment
22
total enrollment capacity
23
White student enrollment
24
African American Enrollment
25
Hispanic Student Enrollment
26
American Indian Enrollment
27
Asian Enrollment
28
Hawaiian Enrollment
29
Multi-racial Enrollment
30
Ethnicity not reported
31
Total Female Students
32
Total Male Students
33
LEP total
34
BE
35
ESL
36
Sheltered
37
DEN
38
Not Served
39
LEP SPED
40
BE not LEP
41
LEP exit
42
At Risk
43
Economically Disadvantaged
44
Special Education
45
TAG

Teacher Information:
46
Total number teachers
47
White teachers
48
African teachers
49
Hispanic teachers
50
American teachers
51
Asian teachers
52
Hawaiian teachers
53
Multi-racial teachers
54
Total Female teachers
55
Total Male teachers
56
SPED teachers
57
Counselors
58
% teachers 0-3 years experience
59
% teachers with 11+ years experience

Achievement information:
60
School Effectiveness Indices (SEI) for this school year
61
Percentage of students approaching standards in STARR
62
Percentage of students meeting standards in STARR
63
Percentage of students mastering standards in STARR

Expenditures by Object (Objects 6100-6600) - Data from PEIMS Standard Financial Reports
64
Total Expenditures all funds per student
65
Operating-Payroll all funds per student
66
Other Operating all funds per student
67
Non-Operating(Equipt/Supplies) all funds per student

Expenditures by Function (Objects 6100-6400 Only)
68
Total Operating Expenditures all funds per student
69
Instruction (11,95) * all funds per student
70
Instructional Res/Media (12) * all funds per student
71
Curriculum/Staff Develop (13) * all funds per student
72
Instructional Leadership (21) * all funds per student
73
School Leadership (23) * all funds per student
74
Guidance/Counseling Svcs (31) * all funds per student
75
Social Work Services (32) * all funds per student
76
Health Services (33) * all funds per student
77
Food (35) ** all funds per student
78
Extracurricular (36) * all funds per student
79
Plant Maint/Operation (51) * ** all funds per student
80
Security/Monitoring (52) * ** all funds per student
81
Data Processing Svcs (53)* ** all funds per student

Program expenditures by Program (Objects 6100-6400 only)
82
Total Operating Expenditures all funds per student
83
Regular all funds per student
84
Gifted & Talented all funds per student
85
Career & Technical all funds per student
86
Students with Disabilities all funds per student
87
Accelerated Education all funds per student
88
Bilingual all funds per student
89
Nondisc Alted-AEP Basic Serv all funds per student
90
Disc Alted-DAEP Basic Serv all funds per student
91
Disc Alted-DAEP Supplemental all funds per student
92
T1 A Schoolwide-St Comp >=40% all funds per student
93
Athletic Programming all funds per student
94
High School Allotment all funds per student
95
Prekindergarten all funds per student


The above 95 data items come from the Dallas ISD Data Portal (items 2-63, except for item #22 from 2015 Bond Data, but hopefully more current enrollment capacity data for each school is possible) and from the PEIMS Standard Financial Reports maintained by TEA (items 64-95).

This data is freely available online on each school, but not now in this spreadsheet format allowing comparisons. This format with a row dedicated to each school and 95 data items in the columns makes it very easy to compare equity between schools.  It saves hundreds of hours of work.  That required work in fact keeps the equity comparisons hidden from the public. 

The possible inequalities between the schools are not easily transparent, not easily visible.


The general concept of the School Equity Spreadsheet has been approved unanimously at a meeting of about 70 NAACP members and a meeting of the Our Community Our Schools Coalition.  Other groups concerned about equity in DISD schools are being approached and are asked to join in this effort, and/or provide ideas and direction for this effort to expose the equity or inequity between Dallas schools.


The effort to make this information visible is much bigger than any of us.  Ideas are welcome at bbetzen@aol.com.   This data must be made public before Dallas ISD considers a 13 cent tax increase in a Tax Ratification Election. 

What other variables should be added to this list of 95?

This open records request was submitted to Dallas ISD on 4-9-18.  A more detailed listing of the variables was requested.  This list will be submitted on 4-16-18.  Suggestions for improvement are valued!

Since this was submitted it was suggested that trustee district # be added as well as if the school is north or south of the Trinity on the west side of Downtown Dallas, or I-30 on the east side.

9 comments:

  1. Such data available so readily would be a great help in looking at DISD, by Parents, Administration, Legislators, and everyone who has a dog to hunt in the running and administration of public schools. I am less than enthusiastic about the current Administration being willing to let everyone know "up front" rather than having to dig, or as we say "mine data". Inherent unfairness is usually buried where it is least obvious to find. I would hope that DISD would like for everyone to know all this so readily, but I honestly don't have much hope for it. All this should be available at the "touch of a button" in this age.. by all of us... not just a few. tbrock

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  2. Bill, Thank you for your initiative and creating a school equity spreadsheet. It is elegant in its simplicity and the advantages are obvious to me. I would be interested to see a new row that documents the number or percentage of students who take the school bus to each school and how much time they spend in transit.
    I saw your letter to Dr. Hinojosa and your proposal deserves serious considereation. I'll send a letter myself.
    Thanks, Mellen West, Dallas TX

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  3. I am not aware of where or if that number is recorded, but it makes sense that it should be. If it is, that is one of the columns of data that could be added for each school. Please let me know if you hear more where such data is collected.

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  4. Bill, Have you considered removing Exposing Racial Inequity from the title with something less provocative like the DISD School Equity Report Card ? I'm sure your underlying racial message will become clear enough to anyone who reads it. I'm sure the graphic opportunities that this information will provide are not lost on you either.
    Mellen West, Dallas TX

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  5. Teacher tenure info is needed. Number of years teaching in total, number of years taught at the school. Also, % turnover of teachers each year....

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  6. Jerry you are raising a very good point. An attempt was made with items 58 and 59 to get some idea of that data. As this spreadsheet is established I can see these areas expanding. The agony now is to get he first one. Below is the email we received today.

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  7. Here is email received today:
    From: Sanchez, Rita
    To: bbetzen
    Cc: Mcgowan, Leticia D ; Inzillo, Franca-C65179
    Sent: Mon, May 7, 2018 2:52 pm
    Subject: Public Information Request #17105

    Dear Mr. Betzen:



    You have requested a list of statistical information regarding the PEIMS Financial Standard Reports generated for each campus over the last 10 school years. Clarification of the request was requested and received. Per the responding departments, the requested reports are in Adobe PDF format only. To export the PDF to a spreadsheet will required dedicated computer programming time to develop the scripts necessary to generate the data as requested. It is estimated that it will take a minimum of 32 hours, possibly more, for research, development, testing and execution. If you are willing to take PDF reports instead of a spreadsheet, the responding departments can pull the responsive information within a few hours.



    Please let me know your preference. If you do want the information in Excel, an itemized statement will be sent. Please contact Ms. McGowan at lmcgowan@dallasisd.org if additional information is needed.



    Rita Sanchez

    Open Records Specialist

    Office of Legal Services

    Dallas Independent School District

    9400 North Central Expressway, Suite 1675

    Dallas, TX 75231

    ReplyDelete
  8. Here is response sent 5-7-18:
    Dear Ms. McGowan and Ms. Sanchez,

    It is rather certain that the PDF reports you address started in a spreadsheet and were saved as PDF. The transition from PDF back to spreadsheet takes a few minutes at most. The claims in the email are rather strange. May I request to come watch DISD staff go through this process so as to extend it to 32 hours? The request is only for 95 data items on each of the 230 or so DISD schools with each row in the spreadsheet being one school and the 95 columns being the various demographic, achievement and financial data. Then the same data for each of the past 10 years.

    This is being copied to my trustee as she may find it strange also, especially if she is familiar with transitioning documents between Excel and PDF.

    In spite of this claimed time needed, the School Equity Excel Spreadsheets for the past 10 years are documents which a growing number of people in Dallas are waiting to see. This is a level of transparency that the DISD Board of Directors needs to provide the public. If not, that level of transparency will not be provided, that needs to be explained to the public. The minimal resources required to produce this set of critical spreadsheets needs to be allocated.

    Are there no spreadsheets similar to the one requested already in use in several forms inside DISD administration?

    Bill Betzen

    ReplyDelete

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