Dallas White Flight, Dates, Numbers, and Lies

"Desegregation of the Dallas Schools was accomplished in the course of ten short years with a minimum of commotion and stress. This may be viewed as just short of miraculous." Published 1966.

"Education in Dallas" P 159

Desegregation was required by the Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954. Twelve years later this was the public record of desegregation in Dallas as found in a book published in 1966 called "Education in Dallas - 1874 to 1966." The book is in the Dallas Central Library, and several friends have told me they have it. The less than 2 page section on desegregation starts on page 159. The next decade proved the statement quoted above evolved into a great lie!

This was the public record Jim Schutze was facing as he wrote Accommodations. Accommodations will be discussed in the first of four weekly gatherings starting 8-8-17 at 7 pm at Mac's Southside, 1701 S. Lamar, Dallas. Here is the Facebook Link with details:  https://www.facebook.com/TheAccomodation/

Accommodations is best read with an understanding of DISD desegregation issues and history during these years.

DISD Administration has rarely been more wrong in an enrollment prediction than in May and August 1970. In May DISD was predicting as many as 180,000 students by the end of that school year. By August that prediction was down to 177,000 students. The final full enrollment count for 1970/71 was only 164,726. 

In 1969/70 DISD had a full enrollment of 173,799 students, the largest annual enrollment ever!  DISD thought they would be growing, but then suddenly started to shrink. The loss of White students was for the first time thousands greater than the increase in minority students that had sustained total DISD enrollment growth since 1965.  A new stage of White flight began as DISD full enrollment began to shrink. That shrinkage continued until 46,337 students had been lost in just 14 years! The full enrollment of 173,799 in 1970 was down to 127,462 by 1984. 

The summer of 1970 was the highest loss of White students in all 44 years of White Flight, 1965-2009, and in all of DISD History!

(I estimate that over 10,000 White students left the summer of 1970! - BB)

In 1971/72 DISD had the second highest loss as another 8,698 students left. White Flight continued with thousands leaving annually for three decades, until 2002 when the annual White loss fell to and remained in the hundreds for a total of 8 more years.

The 1964/65 school year was the highest White enrollment on record for DISD, 127,124. Then White numbers began to decline in 1966, but minority numbers grew faster than the White decline until 1970. Above please find the two pages from a 1874-1966 DISD History describing the desegregation process. Notice the page with cut out to highlight the desegregation process in DISD, and the statistical consequences. Also find below the chart with enrollment by race from 1970 to 2015.

White Flight ended in 2009 when White enrollment hit 7,207, the lowest DISD White enrollment in over 120 years. (This is an estimate as I have not yet checked 1889 enrollment numbers from 120 years earlier.)  In 2010 White enrollment went up, for the first time in 45 years, to 7,232. 

White enrollment increases have continued but are tragically concentrated in the best magnet schools, such as the Booker T. Washington Arts Magnet. Often non-minority students from expensive private schools, who were never DISD students, and often do not even live inside DISD, take places that should go to Black and Hispanic students from inside DISD. The Civil Rights battles are not finished!    

Magnet school demographics must come MUCH closer to matching those of DISD! How do you defend a ten-fold over-representation of White students? (Warning, listen to yourself trying to defend this privately before you do it in public. Record yourself and listen.)

All students must have an equal right to the best education possible! Racial patterns in achievement are still far too common.

There is still a well documented pattern of misusing need-based federal funds that are supposed to supplement education for children of poverty, children who do not speak English, and who have other special needs and therefore are allocated such Federal Funds. While these need based funds are properly allocated to the right schools, that increase is used to then replace regular funding that is moved from those high poverty schools to other less needy schools and apparently for other administrative costs in Dallas ISD. 

A federal complaint was filed 4-21-15 against DISD for the massive supplantation of federal funds that happened under Mike Miles.  This is how he was mysteriously able to secure a surplus while funding new programs in DISD. Here is a link to that complaint which is still under active investigation by the U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Division: http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2015/06/title-vi-complaint-against-disd.html .  This complaint was amply covered on the evening news on June 3, 2015 covering also the resignation of the DISD Budget Director. See  http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/investigates/budget-director-leaves-amid-questions-of-misspent-disd-at-risk-funds/148904332 . 

Within 3 weeks, on 6-23-15, Superintendent Mike Miles also resigned.

We now know that underachievement by minority children of poverty is NOT necessary. (It is embarrassing to still have to say that in 2017.) We have proven minority schools with adequate resources can do as well or better than any other schools, especially if the students are grounded in their family history and have constantly updated written plans for the future! See recent School Effectiveness Indices scores for Zumwalt and Quintanilla and a report on the Time Capsule Project they are active in. 

Being grounded in history is always a positive to help improve student achievement. The Dallas White flight was preceded by 29 years during which one of the major Confederate Monuments, and all 5 of the DISD Confederate-named schools, appeared. They were attempts to stop integration and preserve a segregated community and school system.

Over 152 years have passed since the Civil War.  Why was it only during the 29 years of the fight to defend legal segregation, just before it was declared illegal, that Confederate names were appearing?  Can anyone believe honor for Civil War Heroes was the main reason?  What happened to that honor before 1927, or since 1956, in Dallas? 

On Sunday 8-6-17 another article by a group wanting all Confederate Monuments destroyed or moved identified an additional 6 names on DISD schools of people who served in the Confederacy in various forms that they think should be changed. That would have made for a total of 11 such schools in DISD, two with the names already changed. I question how many of these additional 6 are identifiable to the public as Confederate Heroes, but this would be a great issue for our students to research and vote on. The potential for this as a learning exercise for our students is very high.

There are people trying to destroy the evidence of the manipulations done with Confederate Monuments instead of adding to these raw evidence from history with a Monument to Education telling more of the entire story. We must use this evidence of abuse in relatively recent times to tell a much more complete Dallas History at the same locations where Confederate Monuments are now. See http://billbetzen.blogspot.com/2017/08/confederate-monuments-as-education.html .

Confederate Monument as a Monument to Education

William Murchison and those arguing to preserve Dallas Confederate monuments are right, but for the wrong reasons. They argue about the value of Civil War History. Any message these monuments have about Civil War History is greatly overshadowed by the message they have about Dallas History. 

The Civil War is only a part of that message. What was happening in Dallas as these Confederate names and memorials were dedicated from 1927 to 1956 is the reason they must be preserved. The issue is education about Dallas History!  These monuments tell the story of the at-times violent struggle as Dallas was pushed toward ending "Separate but Equal." This evidence must not be destroyed or hidden but must be moved out of places of public respect and into museums that can properly tell a very painful history surrounding these statues.  It must be done in an accurate historical context reflecting the suffering they were used to justify and continue.  The rest of Dallas History is reflected in the abusive segregation these monuments were intended to continue!

The first Confederate Monument, and the largest in Dallas, was more definitely a memorial. Many Civil War Veterans were at that 1897 dedication. That was less of a reality at the 1936 dedication of the Lee Statue dedicated within that 29 year period from 1927 to 1956.  This time period was when 5 easily identifiable Confederate names, plus 4 other names of leaders who served in the Confederacy, were given DISD schools. This was allegedly to remember a war that ended in 1865, 62 years before the first Dallas school was given a Confederate name. The same process happened in most southern cities during roughly the same 29 year period leading up to the end of legal segregation. If these were really attempts to honor Civil War heroes across the U.S., why only during this 29 year period out of the last 152 years? 

(On Sunday 8-6-17 the Points section had a front page article titled "Dallas' Confederate memorials scream 'white supremacy'" in the online version, by Professor Michael Phillips and Edward Sebasta.  That article named an additional 6 schools in Dallas whose names I had not noted.  One of those was from 1913, Oran M. Roberts Elementary.  Another was from 1981, John H. Reagan. I question the public identifying all 6 of these names as "Confederate" representatives, though they did serve in the Confederacy.) 

These reminders of Confederate History were used to intimidate minorities in the fight to keep our cities and schools racially segregated. That fight was becoming more intense since the 1909 founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP. Within four years the NAACP was first mentioned in the Dallas Morning News. In 1929 the Dallas Chapter was founded. By the 1950's the NAACP was in the news monthly.

At the same time, opposition to the NAACP thrived. In 1923 the KKK Texas Fair Day set attendance records for any weekday up to that time. That night 6,000 new KKK members joined. In 1927 the first two Confederate-named DISD schools opened: Robert E. Lee Elementary and Sidney Lanier Elementary.

By 1929 KKK membership was declining with the active help of the Dallas Morning News reporting on the violence. Another group was taking over with less violent tactics for the same goal, the Dallas White Citizens Council, now the Dallas Citizens Council.

In 1936 the Robert E. Lee Statue was dedicated. Stonewall Jackson Elementary opened in 1940, Jefferson Davis Elementary opened in 1952 (renamed Barbara Jordan in 1999), and finally John B. Hood opened in 1956 (renamed Piedmont in 2016.).

In 1954 segregation was declared illegal in the Brown vs. Board of Education Court Decision. Using Confederate names and memorials across the US quickly stopped. No new easily recognizable Confederate-named schools can be found as having opened anywhere after 1959. (In Dallas John H. Reagan school was opened in 1981, but how many recognize him as a Confederate hero?)

In 1966 a book titled "Education in Dallas, 1974 to 1966" was published with a very unusual report on the desegregation process in Dallas ISD.  It said on page 159: "Desegregation of the Dallas Schools was accomplished in the course of ten short years with a minimum of commotion and stress. This may be viewed as just short of miraculous."

But as this book was published in 1966 White flight started in Dallas Public Schools. The record 1965 White enrollment of 127,124 dropped by 1,456 in 1966, beginning a 44-year process of loss with the largest loss being over 9,000 White students in 1971. By 2009 White Flight stopped with only 7,207 White students left in DISD. 120,000 White students had left.

During White flight the highest total DISD enrollment was 173,799 in 1970 and the lowest was 127,462 in 1984.

These monuments say much more about the local wars before integration was legally required in Dallas than they ever said about the Civil War. They reflect Dallas leaders fighting to preserve a segregated Dallas, failing, and the White flight that followed.

Now within a decade of White flight ending there are plans to move, change, or otherwise hide the Confederate memorials and names. It is like covering up all the “Colored Only” signs at the water fountains in the Records Building. It is hiding the heritage of abuse too many in Dallas are still forced to suffer, either as perpetrator or victim. Some want to lie about it and claim it never happened. Others are angry about those lies. Either way, we are suffering.

Denial is not the way to heal. Hiding Confederate memorials is not the way to heal. Both the monuments and the name changing process in our schools can become roads to education and healing.

Students in every Confederate-named school should first vote about the name change. This is a learning opportunity. Students must know the segregated schools these names were intended to defend. A super-majority of 80% of students should be required before the name can change. Until then the lesson has not been learned. Do not rush name changes. This will be a lesson that students study over several years. They will remember what a super-majority is also.

This is also an opportunity for students to study history. On Sunday 8-6-17 the Points section had a front page article titled "Dallas' Confederate memorials scream 'white supremacy'" in the online version, by Professor Michael Phillips and Edward Sebasta. It was an excellent article about the true meaning of these memorials. That article named an additional 6 schools in Dallas whose names I had not noted.  One of those was from 1913, Oran M. Roberts Elementary.  Another was from 1981, John H. Reagan. I question the public identifying all 6 of these names as "Confederate" representatives, though they did serve in the Confederacy, but this would be an excellent issue for our students to form opinions on and vote about as they get to know the people for whom their school was named after. 

At the Confederate Monuments Dallas must allow historians and artists to compete to show a more complete Dallas Civil Rights History. It is overdue! New monuments must interact with the old, affirming progress made against segregation. The ongoing equality struggle must be shown as both victorious and still active. History is the best tool. Dates and facts must be posted at the monument that are not yet well known in our history but that clearly indicate these truths.

(I no longer agree with much of what I have written here, especially what follows.  I had underestimated the continuing racism in Dallas that was more than blatantly obvious at hearings and public gatherings I participated in since writing this. Sadly I was one of the first speakers in a City Council meeting and then sat to listen to 50 additional speakers. By the time the last speaker spoke I realized I had been blatantly wrong!  The statues MUST come down. NOW!  At gatherings near the Lee statue I also had some in the crowd speak with me not knowing me and presuming all Whites were blatantly racist. I could say nothing but should have. I never realized how protective living 43 years in South Oak Cliff had been.)

Is Dallas strong enough to post more dates and facts from this painful time on a new Monument to Education near the Lee Statue on an identical, but taller, base in Lee Park?  

An integrated 6^th grade class and their teacher, identical in design to the Lee statue but 20% larger in scale, would be standing on the new monument base looking at the Lee statue.  The Black male teacher appears to be speaking, maybe about history.  The gaze of General Lee would be focused on a Black male student in the class. The teacher would be looking down at Lee and gesturing toward him respectfully.

Reverend Peter Johnson, the organizer assigned to Dallas by Dr. Martin Luther King in the 1960’s, has agreed to allow his image to be used as the teacher. He is now teaching a Dallas Civil Rights class at UNT-Dallas.

The focus by Robert E. Lee on the Black male student in the Monument to Education would affirm the sentiment Mr. Murchison wrote about regarding the healing Lee sought after the Civil War.  

Fair Park Redevelopment Group - Dallas

These ten covenants were made public 2 weeks ago. Monte Anderson and the Fair Park Redevelopment Group are speaking about them. I heard Monte last week. If these 10 Covenants truly drive the redevelopment of Fair Park, Fair Park will reclaim its status as the location Dallas is most proud of:

1) We Promise to make the surrounding neighborhoods the first priority in all of our decisions.

2) Ensure Self-Sustaining Operation with a goal of diminishing subsidy and tax payer funding to zero in the 10th year of operation.

3) A Park for Everyone, All of the Time – Improve and expand the existing signature park to create a world class public amenity

4) Neighborhood Connection – We will reconnect the surrounding neighborhoods with infrastructure, buildings, homes and parking structures so that the large parking lots can be minimized.

5) Recreate Transportation Connections – We will create and implement a transportation plan that will properly handle the large amounts of people who come to Fair Park using pedestrian and bike friendly best practices and incentives for shuttling not driving.

6) Inspiring Local Business – We will use an incremental master plan that will allow locals new business opportunities.

7) Always Open – We will collaborate with the State Fair of Texas so that the entire park and buildings will be open year round.

8) Work with Schools – We will lease the buildings to educational and arts organizations and museums year-round so that they can integrate their programs with other tenants.

9) Restore and Revitalize – We will continue to restore and repair the buildings, the art and the grounds to create a world amenity with year-round draw.

10) Open Meetings – We promise to hold regular board/planning meetings so that the stake holders and citizens of Dallas can participate, comment and review all the plans, finances and details.

Here is a link to the pdf file that composes the 16 slides reflecting the Group and the 10 Covenants above.

Cost for failure to admit cause for Civil War

The Sons of Confederate Veterans are having their national convention this week in Richardson, an excellent opportunity for exploring U.S. History.  

Most Confederate Monuments were erected, and Confederate names given to buildings, over 60 years after the Civil War. 

More significantly, the monuments and Confederate names only began to appear in greater numbers a decade after the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.  

It would suggest that the naming and raising of monuments was associated with active work to defend “separate but equal” and segregation.  It ended by 1960 with few if any such monuments, or Confederate names given to buildings, after the end of the 1950’s. Even though the legal foundation was laid with the Brown v Board of Education 20 years earlier, the last major city to legally integrate all schools was Dallas in 1976. The reason for Confederate names and monuments was gone long before 1976, but the failure to discuss and admit the reason for the Civil War has continued to this day at great cost.

The attempt to create a sanitized history of the motivation behind the Civil War was universal across the south.  The large majority of slaves were owned by less than 2% of the wealthiest citizens of the south who were the major architects of the Civil War. That justification for the war disappeared after the war. “States’ Rights” were fabricated as the central cause. This happened in spite of the ample historical documentation, most recently recorded in the 2015 book “The Myth of the Lost Cause: Why the South Fought the Civil War and Why the North Won,” by Edward H. Bonekemper III.

There is little doubt that this sudden appearance of Confederate names and monuments across the south, especially during the final 30 years before “separate but equal” was declared illegal, was only another method used by those fighting to keep “separate but equal” required by law. What else would explain this 30-year focus on the resurrection of Confederate names and memorials, then suddenly it was stopped?

The Sons of Confederate Veterans Convention this week is an opportunity to revisit critical U.S. History.  If there is agreement as to the true main causes of the Civil War, we will have taken a first step toward a peaceful resolution of the agony now being faced in our streets.  It is no accident that those who are fighting against groups such as Black Lives Matter are also groups who erect monuments like this:

Here is a review of “The Myth of the Lost Cause” that helps shed light on this history that is part of today’s battle.

== review from https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Lost-Cause-South-Fought/dp/1621574547 ===

A July 5th Washington Post article this year quoted Patricia Hardy, a member of the State Board of Education in Texas, as stating that slavery was a “side issue to the Civil War. There would be those who would say the reason for the Civil War was over slavery. No. It was over states’ rights.”

Ms. Hardy should read Ed Bonekemper’s latest book, "The Myth of the Lost Cause." In this, his sixth Civil War book, which is perhaps his finest, Mr. Bonekemper uses his gifts as both an historian and a lawyer to shred revisionist history that has tried to sanitize the reasons Southern states seceded from the Union. Mr. Bonekemper’s research is thorough; his arguments are compelling. The high percentage of slaves compared with the total population in the seceding states (57 percent in South Carolina) and the high percentage of slave-holding families in those states (49 percent in Mississippi) are strong indicators of the importance of slavery in the decisions of these states to leave the Union. The reader is provided with the actual language from the declarations at the state secession conventions. Mississippi got right to the point: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery.” At that time, the issue of states’ rights was not on the agenda of the seceding states; Southerners were dissatisfied instead with the Northern exercise of their states’ rights – failing to return fugitive slaves in accordance with the Constitution and Federal law! Additionally, the South’s rejection of the use of slaves as soldiers and the South’s failure to promise to end slavery to gain the diplomatic support of Britain and France demonstrated that the independence of the Confederacy was a lessor priority than the preservation of slavery. It is clear that the only states’ right the Southern states were interested in was the right to maintain slavery.

I agree with one reviewer’s assessment that the first 95 pages alone are worth the price of the book. After refuting the states’ rights myth, the author refutes other popularly held beliefs: (1) the Confederacy had no chance to win the war; (2) Robert E. Lee was one of history’s greatest generals; (3) General Longstreet, not Lee, was responsible for the Confederacy’s loss at Gettysburg; (4) Ulysses S. Grant was a “butcher” who won the war with superior numbers and brutality; and (5) the North won because it waged total war against the South. Mr. Bonekemper explains that the allegation that the North won by waging total war is a myth, because it fails to distinguish between “hard war,” which involves the destruction of enemy armies and property, and “total war,” which adds the deliberate and systematic killing and rape of civilians. As the author demonstrates, unlimited, large-scale attacks on civilians are absent from the Civil War.

There are two reviewers who inexplicably gave this extraordinary book only one star. One reviewer said that the book was intentionally deceptive, but he failed to say in what way. He further claimed that the author omitted important facts, but he failed to clarify what these were. It is questionable whether this reviewer even read the book, and I find his unsupported conclusions to be a disservice to potential readers. Although the second one-star reviewer did provide specific objections, they were either irrelevant to the author’s points or they were factually incorrect. The reviewer states that only 10 percent of whites were wealthy enough to own slaves, even though a chart is provided showing that the percentage of slave-owning families in the 11 states that seceded ranged from 25 to 49, with the average being 31. Moreover, Mr. Bonekemper points out that fear of Negro equality by Southern whites who were not slave owners helped to reinforce the institution of slavery. This is an exceptional book, well written and meticulously researched, and should be read by all who want to truly understand the history of the Civil War. I challenge the State Board of Education in Texas it to make "The Myth of the Lost Cause" part of its curriculum.

The Myth of the Lost Cause by Edward H. Bonekemper, III

Title VI Complaint against Dallas ISD, Executive Summary

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

Addendum, on the day this blog was posted, June 3, 2015, the Channel 8 evening news had a very detailed 5 minute coverage of this complaint and what it represented.  20 days later Mike Miles resigned.  He understood that superintendents have been sent to federal prisons for years due to such activity as is documented above.  The case was never completed by the U.S. Department of education until September of 2017.  See that 9 page letter at
 http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2017/09/government-response-to-4-21-15.html  It clearly affirms the complaint issues and invalidates NONE of them while saying other entities must complete those investigations.

Bill Betzen
bbetzen@aol.com

"Home rule" must be replaced with Parent Rule

As is documented in posts during March 2014, a gathering of wealthy donors has funded an attempt to take control over the Dallas Independent School District away from the parents in DISD.  The best way to fight such an attempt is to form a Parent Rule Coalition to fight the so-called "home rule" efforts to take over control of DISD by some wealthy out of district residents.

This page will attempt to collect information about this battle as it evolves.  The above link has connections to most of the data to date.   You may always google "home rule" and "Dallas ISD" for the past week to see recent events.

Parents rule!

Bill Betzen
bbetzen@aol.com