5-24-19 email sent DISD Board: Data driven racial equity in Dallas ISD

From: Bill Betzen <bbetzen@aol.com>
To: edwinflores <edwinflores@dallasisd.org>; Hinojosam <Hinojosam@dallasisd.org>; miguelsolis <miguelsolis@dallasisd.org>; danmicciche <danmicciche@dallasisd.org>; maxiejohnson <maxiejohnson@dallasisd.org>; joyceforeman <joyceforeman@dallasisd.org>; justinhenry <justinhenry@dallasisd.org>; dustinmarshall <dustinmarshall@dallasisd.org>; benmackey <benmackey@dallasisd.org>
Cc: LWILLIAMS <LWILLIAMS@dallasisd.org>; SELIZALDE <SELIZALDE@dallasisd.org>
Sent: Fri, May 24, 2019 12:46 pm
Subject: Data driven racial equity in Dallas ISD

Dear President Flores, Dr. Hinojosa, and members of the Dallas ISD Board:

Racial equity progress must be data driven, like all progress in Dallas ISD, with both cause and effect documentation!

Dallas ISD has a massive history of racial inequities that still in 2019 cannot be openly talked about or documented due to the minimal resources and authority given the Racial Equity Office. These issues are not being addressed by any Dallas ISD Leadership! The issue volatility, and the lack of clear causative data covering the past decade of continued inequity in Dallas ISD, limit such discussions to being weak and opinionated.  Too many civil rights violations have continued over the past 10 years. Nobody appears willing to provide needed documentation to prove such violations have stopped causing inequity. We must be able to speak in terms of documented causative factors here in Dallas ISD. 

You know about the federal complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), Civil Rights Division on 4-21-15 by 15 Dallas residents against DISD for a multitude of civil rights violations. (http://billbetzen.blogspot.com/2015/06/title-vi-complaint-against-dallas-isd.html)

During the 2 years and 5 months after the complaint was filed over 300 additional pages were given to the DOE Civil Rights Division documenting these allegations. There were several in-person interviews.  Finally a 9-page letter from DOE, Civil Rights Division, dated 9-22-17 was received to document 15 violations and then close each violation without investigation. That letter is copied at the link given below.

This letter closed the investigation by giving technical reasons for not doing an investigation into each one of the 15 allegations identified. It does not invalidate a single one of the 15 allegations.

The DISD Racial Equity Office (REO) cannot achieve their goals and ignore these 15 allegations! DISD must first resolve these alleged and well documented violations.  DISD must show ample documentation to verify violations have ended, and then ongoing public documentation from this day forward so the public can always verify they are never repeated! The REO does not have needed resources or authority and administrative support for such an effort.

Mike Miles, the superintendent during the 3 years the supplantation situation in DISD significantly deteriorated, resigned 6-23-15.  That was 3 weeks after a comprehensive report on the major Dallas evening news station, WFAA, Channel 8, about these allegations and this Federal complaint. If Miles' resignation had not happened, the continued fighting of this case would have been necessary.

It appears the degree of supplantation lessened significantly in DISD since that resignation. Work must continue to document the extent to which any level of supplantation may continue. One small hint of the progress is on the current Dallas ISD At-a-Glance page. Comments are inserted on a copy of the small chart from the lower left side corner of the current Dallas ISD At-a-Glance page:

Few things reflect the lack of racial equity inside Dallas ISD more than the potential for a hidden, ongoing supplantation of need-based federal funds to be continuing.  Why is data, in a format with which the public could easily verify and/or rule out inequity, hidden? 

Below is the listing of the 15 allegations.  At http://billbetzen.blogspot.com/2019/05/dallas-isd-racial-equity-office-15.html?m=0 you will also find the the full 9 page letter from the US Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights.  It closed the investigation of the complaints filed 4-21-15, but failed to invalidate any of these 15 allegations identified in the letter:

1. The DISD illegally supplants Title I, career and technical education (CTE), state compensatory education (SCE), and high school allotment (HSA) funding for regular education spending.
2. The DISD illegally supplants funding for supplemental programming such as programming for special education (SPED), homeless students, suspended and expelled students,students failing any test, and limited English proficiency (LEP) students for regular education funding for students.
3. The DISD's planned Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS) budgets filed with the State of Texas have not complied with House Bill 5 (HB5) requiring accelerated instruction for all high school students who failed an end-of-course (EOC) exam.
4. In 2014, the DISD gerrymandered the attendance boundaries for Lakewood Elementary School (LES) to intentionally exclude poor students that could decrease property values for LES. 
5. The DISD's April 24, 2014 decision to not consider redrawing the attendance boundaries for LES created de-facto segregation to limit LES to wealthy white students.
6. The DISD denies at-risk and low-income students equal access to equitable education resources with respect to magnet, talented and gifted (TAG), and performing and visual arts programs, support services (e.g., counseling, SPED and LEP resources), adequate facilities, and teacher equity and instructional leadership.
7. The DISD's principal and teacher hiring and evaluation practices have created excessive turnover and high teacher-student ratios at the DISD's campuses serving majority at-risk and low-income students.
8. The DISD disproportionately assigns African-American students to exclusionary discipline. 
9. The DISD denies African American and Hispanic students, special education (SPED) students, and limited English proficiency (LEP) students equal access to equitable education resources with respect to magnet, TAG, and performing and visual arts programs, support services (e.g., SPED and LEP resources), adequate facilities, counseling and teacher equity and instructional leadership.
10. The DISD's principal and teacher hiring and evaluation practices have created excessive turnover and high teacher-student ratios at the DISD's campuses serving the majority of African American, Hispanic, SPED, and LEP students.
11. The DISD discriminates against students with disabilities by denying them admission into the magnet and TAG programs.
12. The DISD discriminates against national-origin language minority students who are LEP by denying them admission into the magnet and TAG programs.
13. The DISD discriminated against minority students when it flagrantly refused to provide Accelerated Instruction as required by the state of Texas for all students failing an end of course exam in the 2014-2015 school year. The affected minority students were located on the same campuses whose regular education dollars were not comparable to that of magnet school campuses with high percentages of white students, and whose turnover rates in principals and teachers far exceeded that of magnet school campuses.
14. The DISD disproportionately assigns African-American male students to exclusionary discipline; and this occurred mainly at campuses where no supplemental programming existed because of illegal supplanting of Title I funds.
15. The funding of non-Title I campuses and magnet school campuses is not comparable to the funding of Title I campuses for the required foundation programs.

Again, how can Dallas ISD try to hide their less than equitable history behind a Racial Equity Office (REO) and ignore these 15 allegations? DISD must resolve these alleged and well documented violations first.  DISD must show ample documentation to verify they have ended, and continue providing such ongoing public documentation from this day forward so the public can always verify they are never repeated with equity maintained.

The last line in the "elevator speech" circulated by the Racial Equity Office is "Our goal is for Dallas ISD to become a national model for Racial, Socio-Economic and Educational Equity." 
 
That goal will never be achieved without addressing these 15 allegations, and in the process documenting the past decade of inequity evidence, making it public. Using the causal data indicated, Dallas ISD can build a Racial Equity Plan that will be more truly accountable and data driven. They will be able to create a system where the public can check at any time as to how funding of each school is fully equitable, as well as the progress toward more equitable achievement outcomes.

Thank you for your service,

Bill Betzen
www.dallasisd.us 

Dallas Mayoral Runoff Election June 8, 2019

Selecting the next Dallas Mayor from among two excellent candidates may come down to which one both knows best, and is most transparent, about where the "bodies are buried" in Dallas. Griggs edges forward here as he clearly has much more time spent "finding bodies" on the Dallas City Council. Most critically, he has a solid reputation of blowing the whistle on "bodies found," often issues the "Dallas Establishment" wanted kept quiet. Is this an accurate perception of the major differences between these two candidates?

If you look at who is financially supporting each candidate, and having their photos taken with each candidate, this difference is painfully reinforced. If Johnson's supporters, such as Mayor Rawlings, were in charge, Dallas would be building a Trinity River Toll Road now.

The detailed Mayoral campaign finance reports are online at 
http://campfin.dallascityhall.com/search.aspx 

Using the data from that site, the chart below was made. It shows who the big donors like and who the small donors like. If this were a democracy ...

I believe Representative Johnson can rise above this fray and be as big an advocate for the entire city of Dallas as Scott Griggs has been.  Sadly it is painfully certain the former Dallas mayors and big donors supporting Johnson do not agree. This group has been right for the past several mayors they funded. 

Dallas ISD Racial Equity Office & 15 Documented Civil Rights Violations

This past Tuesday evening, 5/7/19, at the Oak Cliff Tower basement meeting room, I attended a very crowded and tense meeting of the District 5 and South Oak Cliff community group with Leslie Williams, the Dallas ISD Deputy Chief for Racial Equity.

Many frustrations were voiced that in no way can properly be present here.  I will present only one.

Dallas ISD has a massive history of racial inequities that are not being openly talked about or admitted by either the Dallas Racial Equity Office, or by other Dallas ISD Leadership.  Many of these civil rights violations happened as recently as during the past 10 years, and nobody is willing to provide needed documentation to say that they have stopped.  A federal complaint was filed with the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), Civil Rights Division on 4-21-15 by 15 Dallas residents against DISD for a multitude of civil rights violations. 

During the next 2 years and 5 months over 300 additional pages were given to the DOE Civil Rights Division documenting these allegations. There were several in-person interviews.  This 9-page letter from DOE, Civil Rights Division dated 9-22-17, is the response and is copied below.  It closes the case by giving technical reasons for not doing an investigation into each one of the 15 allegations identified. It does not invalidate a single one of the 15 allegations. 

How can the DISD Racial Equity Office (REO) achieve their goals and ignore these 15 allegations? DISD must resolve these alleged and well documented violations first.  DISD must show ample documentation to verify they have ended, and ongoing public documentation from this day forward so the public can always verify they are never repeated!

Mike Miles, the superintendent during the 3 years the supplantation situation in DISD  significantly deteriorated, resigned 6-23-15.  That was 3 weeks after a comprehensive report on the major Dallas evening news station, WFAA, Channel 8, about these allegations. If that resignation had not happened, the continued fighting of this case would have been necessary.  

It appears the degree of supplantation has definitely lessened in DISD since that resignation. Work must continue to document the extent to which it continues, and to determine how widespread it is throughout Texas, and in other states.  (See the creation of the School Equity Spreadsheet as one tool in this battle.)

Few things reflect the lack of racial equity inside Dallas ISD more than the potential for a hidden, ongoing supplantation of need-based federal funds to be continuing.  Why is data, in a format with which the public could easily verify and/or rule out inequity, hidden? 

Below is the listing of the 15 allegations.  Below that listing is the full 9 page letter from the US Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights closing the complaints filed 4-21-15, but failing to invalidate any of these 15 allegations identified in the letter:

1. The DISD illegally supplants Title I, career and technical education (CTE), state compensatory education (SCE), and high school allotment (HSA) funding for regular education spending.
2. The DISD illegally supplants funding for supplemental programming such as programming for special education (SPED), homeless students, suspended and expelled students,students failing any test, and limited English proficiency (LEP) students for regular education funding for students.
3. The DISD's planned Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS) budgets filed with the State of Texas have not complied with House Bill 5 (HB5) requiring accelerated instruction for all high school students who failed an end-of-course (EOC) exam.
4. In 2014, the DISD gerrymandered the attendance boundaries for Lakewood Elementary School (LES) to intentionally exclude poor students that could decrease property values for LES. 
5. The DISD's April 24, 2014 decision to not consider redrawing the attendance boundaries for LES created de-facto segregation to limit LES to wealthy white students.
6. The DISD denies at-risk and low-income students equal access to equitable education resources with respect to magnet, talented and gifted (TAG), and performing and visual arts programs, support services (e.g., counseling, SPED and LEP resources), adequate facilities, and teacher equity and instructional leadership.
7. The DISD's principal and teacher hiring and evaluation practices have created excessive turnover and high teacher-student ratios at the DISD's campuses serving majority at-risk and low-income students.
8. The DISD disproportionately assigns African-American students to exclusionarydiscipline. 
9. The DISD denies African American and Hispanic students, special education (SPED) students, and limited English proficiency (LEP) students equal access to equitableeducation resources with respect to magnet, TAG, and performing and visual arts programs, support services (e.g., SPED and LEP resources), adequate facilities, counseling and teacher equity and instructional leadership.
10. The DISD's principal and teacher hiring and evaluation practices have created excessive turnover and high teacher-student ratios at the DISD's campuses serving the majority of African American, Hispanic, SPED, and LEP students.
11. The DISD discriminates against students with disabilities by denying them admission into the magnet and TAG programs.
12. The DISD discriminates against national-origin language minority students who are LEP by denying them admission into the magnet and TAG programs.
13. The DISD discriminated against minority students when it flagrantly refused to provide Accelerated Instruction as required by the state of Texas for all students failing an end of course exam in the 2014-2015 school year. The affected minority students were located on the same campuses whose regular education dollars were not comparable to that of magnet school campuses with high percentages of white students, and whose turnover rates in principals and teachers far exceeded that of magnet school campuses.
14. The DISD disproportionately assigns African-American male students to exclusionary discipline; and this occurred mainly at campuses where no supplementalprogramming existed because of illegal supplanting of Title I funds.
15. The funding of non-Title I campuses and magnet school campuses is not comparable to the funding of Title I campuses for the required foundation programs.

Work is needed to verify these allegations are not continuing to happen within Dallas ISD. A decade of Dallas ISD History with the school by school funding from all sources, as reflected in the PEIMS Financial Reports, is needed first.  The reports should be annual reports, one for each school year, in Excel format spreadsheets with all schools listed, one per row, with 200+ columns of data including the 32 financial items reports in each PEIMS Financial Report, and others of the most critical variables, for each school. 
Here is the letter from the US Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, documenting these needs for Dallas ISD.








===================================================================The work to be done within Dallas ISD as reflected in the above letter must not be slowed down by the conflicts happening in Washington as reflected below.  How else can we claim to be authentically pursuing racial equity here in Dallas, the former national headquarters for the KKK?===================================================================On 5-26-18 an NPR article explained why this Civil Rights Complaint against DISD from 4-21-15 was closed 9-22-17.  The article stated:
"Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, asked DeVos about the department's Office for Civil Rights, which began dismissing claims of civil rights violations this spring, under updated guidance for responding to cases. Department representatives have said the changes were meant to help the office manage its caseload.
DeVos said she was confident that the Office for Civil Rights was committed to upholding the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
"How do you do it if you continue to try to dismantle and defund the office?" Fudge asked. "I'm not understanding."
"We haven't done any such thing," DeVos responded."
You can find this full NPR article online at  https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/05/26/614008167/teachers-win-at-the-polls-devos-fields-questions-on-the-hill?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social Posted by Bill Betzen

Below is the 9 page 9-22-17 letter from the U.S. Department of Education, Office For Civil Rights, that closed the then 2-year 5 month old complaint filed 4-21-15 by 15 DISD parents, and residents against Dallas ISD for multiple civil rights violations including the supplantation of Federal need-based funds in hundreds of schools. The need-based Federal funds were supposed to be supplementary funds above and beyond regular funding.  Instead they were being used to replace regular funding. The students in need were not benefiting. A summary of the complaint can be found at http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2015/06/title-vi-complaint-against-disd.html

Consistent documentation going back a decade on each DISD school is needed to document that none of these 15 allegations have existed.  If this documentation proves that they did exist, then continuing documentation must verify year to year, school by school, that these situations are corrected, and remain corrected.  This must be constantly reflected in annual, public, auditable information, online, from this day forward. 

Districts closing schools!

The tragic news of neighborhood schools being closed due to budget mistakes or charter school losses is a disaster if all alternatives have not been tried. $150,000+ "miracle worker" administrators are NOT needed when that same money can fund three teachers!

Student achievement is driven by motivation, students knowing where they came from and were they are going.  Most parents and their students do not keep a constant focus on either.  When parents see that change in their school and realize there is a focus on their child and their parental goals in a school, they will not transfer their child to another school!

Imagine parents being asked, every time they enroll their Pre-K child, to submit letters each parent writes to their child about their goals for their child. Imagine this happening every year through second grade. Imagine a 700-pound vault at the school designated as the School Time Capsule.  It holds these priceless records of child development and parental development in an envelope for each child.  Can you see the feelings of the parents for the school changing?

Each school has two or three volunteer Time Capsule Postmasters who help these letters follow the child and their parent as change happens.  The Postmasters help the third graders write letters to each parent and close relative asking for a letter back about their dreams for them, and with a story from their history they want the child to know.

Such letter writing happens once in every grade.  The Postmasters hand out the previous years letters in each class as the next letter writing assignment starts. From year to year each child sees the goals of their parents and relatives and their own plans for the future as they evolve. 

Changing plans is never a problem.  The disaster is when a child has no plans for their future.

Postmasters help the 5th grade letters find the child in middle school 6th grade to help make that often hard transition a bit easier.

As students experience the power of writing year to year, their dedication to writing improves.

In the 8th grade all letters from parents, family, and the student are focused on dreams 10 years into the future.  These letters stay in the vault until the 10-year reunion for that 8th grade class coordinate by the Postmaster.

This no-cost (beyond the money for the vault) volunteer-ran project helps students see the power of writing, their family history, and planning for the future.  Achievement soars!  The attachment to these community schools soars!  Rarely will students transfer their child to another school.  No need for any closure.

Would you like to be a Time Capsule Postmaster and see your favorite school improve?

This is a way to save money and massively increase student achievement while decreasing behavior problems, and the probability of a school closing, at the same time.  See https://schooltimecapsule.blogspot.com/

4-25-19 Testimony: Conflict of Interest Complaint against Dallas ISD Trustees

(Testimony given at 4-25-19 Dallas ISD Board Meeting addressing item 6.02: "Board Members Ethics Agreement.")

This testimony is also online at www.Dallasisd.us.

Almost a month ago an ethics complaint was filed against the DISD Board for allowing conflict of interest situations to continue unchallenged and undocumented on the DISD Board.  The complaint was sent to every board member and Dr. Hinojosa. It included 5 pages with the following wording and 6 signatures on each of these 5 pages.

Each signed page reads as follows:

"We, the undersigned, hereby file a complaint against the Dallas ISD Board of Trustees for allowing conflicts of interest to continue existing, undocumented, on the DISD Board of Trustees.  On page 5 of the Dallas ISD Handbook on Ethics and Integrity the first item is:

1. Avoid conflicts of interest.

A conflict of interest exists when a person has a position of trust that requires him to make decisions for the district and also has interests or obligations with another person, company, or group that may interfere with his exercise of good judgement and which the person is morally obligated to either avoid or openly acknowledge.

How is being a DISD Trustee while also in a board or administrative position in another ISD or charter, and actively competing with Dallas ISD for the same students in today’s open enrollment environment, not a conflict of interest demanding, at a minimum, transparency?

We ask you to resolve these conflicts and advise the public of your actions taken."


This complaint, along with the first 30 signatures, was emailed to all Trustees and Dr. Hinojosa on Friday, March 29th, last month. Nothing has been heard from anyone in an official capacity from Dallas ISD about this complaint since.  

Today, 4-25-19, these 30 signatures have again been sent in an email to all trustees and Dr. Hinojosa along with an additional 62 signatures.

We are now asking that this item be placed on the Board meeting agenda for May and be discussed in public so the public can know how you plan to handle these obvious ongoing conflicts of interest.

If any Trustee thinks they should be held to a lower standard than DISD employees, it is requested that they so state in public in a recorded board meeting.

Again, this testimony with links to additional documentation is at www.dallasisd.us.

(End of planned testimony.)

Here is a link to more details about this ongoing issue with DISD Trustees that goes back 6 years and longer.  It includes documentation of a current Trustee who, while serving as DISD trustee, also signed papers as the President of a charter board to begin work toward 8 more charter schools in the Southside of Dallas ISD.

Racial Equity Demands more transparency than Dallas ISD wants to provide

Nobody debates education must be transparently data driven. How is racial equity any different?

All politicians, especially education leaders, claim to be both transparent and data driven.  But how many are transparent to the extent that they share the original sources of the data they are using, sources that are public and easy to locate online, sources that report multiple years of data that are easily followed to show multi-year patterns?

How many can point to conclusive, published, and peer reviewed research that academic progress was verified as changed by whatever methods the leaders are supporting? How many point to spending per student in the 32 cost centers in the PEIMS Financial Reports to validate racial equity in funding between schools? NONE!

Education leaders rarely advertise easy-to-digest public information.  They rarely follow data over the years from decade to decade.  Only small snapshots of cherry-picked data are used to justify the most recent multimillion-dollar innovations.  That seems to be the extent of being "data driven" in our public schools. Peer-reviewed published research is painfully rare.

For education to be data-driven the public must know where to find the information year to year so that, as much as is possible, they can do the driving in "data-driven."  They should be led by well informed trustees.  Sadly, too few trustees seem to even know the sources of the data needed, or care about exposing the data so that parents and teachers can better understand and support any allegedly "data-driven" changes.  Here is a summary of some of those data sources:

The Dallas ISD Data Portal, should be, and almost is, the most valuable source for information for everyone.  See https://mydata.dallasisd.org/  It is a very large site. After over a decade of work on it, I can only claim to know more than most residents, but not everything.  The main DISD Data Portal menu below has these choices. It is safe to presume that the most-used-choice selected is "Statistics and Reports."

https://mydata.dallasisd.org/

I have invested thousands of hours over the past 15 years working with these 4 alternatives, spending most of my time in the first three choices on enrollment, Data Packets, and the powerful SEI, the School Effectiveness Indices.  They are powerful!

Enrollment is only current data.  Data Packets have all data for school indicated going back nine years.  It is powerful, but all in a pdf file and therefore very difficult to quickly use in showing patterns year to year.  That takes work!

SEI (School Effectiveness Indices) data is very powerful and useful in tracking progress in schools.  I have used it extensively to follow schools with School Time Capsule Projects.  This measure must never be allowed to stop unless replaced by an improvement.  It is very useful.  It is over 20 years old and unique to DISD as far as I know.

The STARR choice shows the history of such tests by school going back to 2012.

During the past year I have been shown a much more powerful data set that is not in the Statistics and Reports tab but you can find it under the "Resources" tab to the right of "Statistics & Reports":

The "School Information File" is POTENTIALLY the most powerful tool in the Dallas ISD Data Portal.  It creates a spreadsheet in seconds with one line for every school and academy in DISD and currently provides 40 variables per school, some of the most critical.  It needs to be expanded to hundreds of additional variables per school.

The "School Information File" has the potential of overcoming the greatest weaknesses of the fragmented data systems used by all school systems nationwide, ease of use.  None of them have taken the hundreds of major variables per school and placed them into one large spreadsheet with 200+ columns of data per school that could easily be compared with all other schools in the large urban district, or even with all the schools in the state.

The major resistance requests in Dallas for such multi-year transparency have encountered indicate that leaders know what will be exposed: a history of the massive supplantation of federal funds reflecting MASSIVE RACIAL INEQUITY within Dallas ISD!

Here is one design for a "School Equity Spreadsheet" to use in obtaining needed transparency:
http://billbetzen.blogspot.com/2018/04/disd-school-equity-spreadsheet-design.html

Sadly there are many issues related to education equity and investments in schools that Dallas does not want to discuss: http://billbetzen.blogspot.com/2018/04/forbidden-topics-in-education-equity.html .

Resistance in Dallas ISD to discussing racial equity data is happening today with the struggles of the Dallas ISD Racial Equity Office. That office has a full time data staff person who could have created such a Racial Equity Spreadsheet comparing achievement, monetary investments, staffing and multiple other variables for all DISD schools in one spreadsheet. Such a powerful tool would allow the public to both help validate racial equity between schools, or document massive differences, so that true equity goals could be established.  It has not happened!  Until this changes is appears that the Racial Equity Office is designed to hide racial inequity in Dallas ISD.