Comprehensive DISD High School Enrollment Stability 2016/17 and 2017/18

This chart was done as a thought exercise exploring data reflected when you look at the percentage of 9th grade enrollment reflected in 12th grade enrollment the same year.  This chart was done in preparing to watch all high schools this year as the full every year letter writing will be attempted in each high school with the School Time Capsule Project.

Carter is a new high school with this being their first year to write letters.  South Oak Cliff, Sunset, and Pinkston have been writing letters for several years.

This chart seems to indicate very strong progress for Sunset and SOC in gaining student enrollment stability.  It also shows great progress at Carter but no letters were written there last year. Now to see what happens this year as 4 times as many students write letters, and also write to their parents and other relatives at all 4 schools.

Questions to rewrite and ask again. Miguel Solis never answered them 5 years ago.

On November 6, 2013 a total of 10 questions were posted at 

http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2013/11/questions-for-miguel-solis-transparency.html and were presented to Miguel Solis again.  He had just been elected as a trustee, but during is election he would not answer these questions. 

He never responded to these critical questions. Many of the issues the questions addressed continue today in 2018/19 in different forms. Teacher turnover hit the highest levels in DISD history 5 years ago as the achievement gap between DISD and the rest of Texas grew two full percentage points to 11 full percentage points in 2013/14, the largest gap in 5 years at that time and the largest growth in the gap since the two point growth between 2001/02 and 2002/03. This tragic backtracking on achievement is visible in the first chart below:

The chart below reflects both student achievement in lessening the Dallas ISD/Texas Student Achievement Gap and the most recent largest explosion of the Achievement Gap that happened between 2012/13 and 2013/14:

These questions need to be re-written for 2018/19.  The issues are still critical to DISD success.
-------- Questions from the 11-3-2013 posting linked above ---------------------

To support transparency the following questions  were sent to Miguel Solis on 10-22-13 and never answered.  Miguel is now the official DISD Trustee for District 8.  Answers to these questions are much more important now.  Will Mr. Solis achieve the transparency he often spoke about?  

Here are updated questions.  They use new data available since the election including the painful documentation of 531 fewer seniors in the Class of 2014 compared with the Class of 2013: 

1)      Before he was hired in Dallas ISD there is no evidence that Mr. Miles was asked about the 26% drop in high school enrollment during the 6 years he was superintendent over Harrison School District Two in Colorado Springs.  During a time when elementary enrollment rose over 20% in Harrison, indicating families were moving into the district, this loss of high school enrollment is an exceptionally dangerous sign.  Does this loss bother you?  What does it mean to you?  Can you secure, or did you ever receive an answer from Mr. Miles as to what happened in Harrison to cause this student loss?   Are you comfortable with his answers?   Would you allow such a loss to happen in DISD?

2)     Mr. Miles is known for a policy of not allowing students to move to the next grade unless they can do the work well.   That policy, strictly interpreted with no extra help for students, would eliminate low scoring students, encourage students to transfer out, and encourage higher testing students to remain. Hundreds of students left Harrison and transferred to District 11 to the north where ACT averages then went down.  Is graduation a priority for you, or are higher average ACT scores a priority?  In what solutions to this issue would you place your energy?

3)     The majority of the above mentioned loss was to seniors.  The Harrison District senior class lost 33% of their enrollment during the 6 years Mike Miles was superintendent.  Now in Dallas, during Mike Miles second year in DISD, the senior class has lost 531 students compared to last year’s enrollment, 6% loss. Does this loss bother you?  What accountability would you require from Mr. Miles if such senior enrollment loss continues?

4)     Mike Miles’ behavior necessitated a $100,000 investigation exposing many unethical actions by him against DISD policy, and against the board itself.  You have probably read that investigation.  What discipline would you have required as a board member?

5)     Mike Miles has alienated some of the most respected and accomplished leading education professionals in DISD.  It has resulted in many of them leaving their critical leadership positions as reflected in this article:http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/08/three-of-our-four-annointed-super-principals-have-been-drummed-out-of-disd.html/   Does this leave you comfortable about his leadership style?   What issues do you see?

6)     Mike Miles has had monumental difficulty in hiring and keeping staff who work closest to him in spite of the exceptionally high salaries he has given them:http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/05/when-will-disds-revolving-door-end.html/ .   What is your opinion of this turnover?  What issues does it present that you can identify?

7)     Mike Miles has paid some of the closest staff he had conflicts with to keep quiet. Are you comfortable with that?   What actions would you take, if any, to allow the board to freely speak with all such departing staff? http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2013/09/coggins-report-did-dallas-isd-superintendent-mike-miles-buy-former-communication-chiefs-silence.html/

8)    Miguel, you have said you support transparency.   Would you vote to require DISD to have the same level of transparency regarding teacher positions filled, and vacancies, as we now enjoy with student enrollment? (I am thinking of the enrollment listings athttps://mydata.dallasisd.org/SL/SD/ENROLLMENT/Enrollment.jsp?SLN=1000)    That is, would you require that within the next working day every new vacancy would be public and listed online by school as well as totaled for the entire district?   This would allow the public to know exactly how many classrooms in their local school are not filled on any day with a full-time (not substitute) certified teacher for those students and subjects, as required by law. How concerned are you about the record number of over 1,700 staff who have already left DISD these first 16 months of Mr. Miles tenure? http://keranews.org/post/more-disd-teachers-resigned-year-last-and-some-say-mike-miles-why.

9)     In 2013, when reported at the end of July, DISD did not officially notify the board that, for the first time in DISD history, the proportion of DISD students taking college entrance exams went down.  The percentage of DISD Minority students taking the ACT exam fell by over 23% while that percentage was virtually unchanged for the SAT exam.   Does it bother you that Mike Miles did not point out these reductions in the student population tested to the Board?  Does it bother you that instead, through reports given, he claimed very questionable and unjustifiable student progress with higher average grades reported for the ACT? 

10) In 2013 Mike Miles decreased the public transparency relative to the average ACT scores reported to the public.  Historically they had been reported to the first place after the decimal point.  In 2013, due probably to the 23% decrease in the minority percentage tested, the scores increase from 17.2 to 17.6.   Then for the first time in history these results were reported to the nearest whole number only.   The result was that it appeared the scores went from 17 to 18 instead of  the 4/10 of one point improvement that actually happened.  Does that reduction in transparency bother you?  What do you think explains this? What would you have done if you were on the Board when such reporting was attempted with no clarification of the changes?   Nothing?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The responses of Miguel Solis to these questions will be posted here if and when they are received. They were submitted to him again in 2019.  (Note: as of January 11, 2019 Miguel Solis has continued in his refusal to answer or even discuss these questions.)

Flip Texas State and Local Tax Rates for Prosperity

Challenges to this math and thinking are welcomed! It is certain Texas tax revenue would increase and spendable income would increase significantly for that segment of the population who would spend it almost immediately, the poor who need the essentials for life.

Hidden U.S. and Dallas History - Slavery & Segregation

Those who grew up in the 1950's know how "equality" has been since 1954. Was it the same "equality" that led 70,000 White-non-Hispanic students to leave Dallas ISD from 1965 to 1977, the first 12 years of 45 years of Dallas ISD White Flight?

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.

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

The 1969/70 DISD full enrollment of 173,799 students became the largest annual enrollment in DISD History! 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 DISD 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! It was estimated at far over 10,000 students.

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.

White Flight ended in 2009 when White enrollment hit 7,207. From 1964/65 to 2008/09 over 120,000 White students had left Dallas ISD to achieve the lowest DISD White enrollment in over 120 years. In 2010 White enrollment went up, for the first time in 45 years, to 7,232.

Kennedy Memorial Mystery in 1872 Dallas Map

Below is part of a well distributed 1872 map of Dallas that shows the Commerce St. Bridge. In the second full block east of where the Trinity was then located you find an image that seems to resemble the current Kennedy Memorial. It is on the north side of Commerce Street, just like the Kennedy Memorial location today.  This 1872 map is from http://www.glo.texas.gov/history/archives/map-store/index.cfm#item/89080

This larger view below, of the 1872 map above, shows the name Commerce St. to the East end of Commerce Street. If you look closely you can see that Market Street is actually the 2nd street, an additional block east from this strange building shell. 

The Kennedy Memorial is on Northwest corner of Market & Commerce as you can see in the image below. The Old Red Courthouse is on the location of the shell of a building from the 1872 map above. It was the unfinished new Dallas County Courthouse shell started in 1871 after the remains of the old courthouse were torn down.  After the walls were built with $40,000 Dallas County allocated, they ran out of money.  They did not get the money needed to finish this new courthouse building until the 1874 Legislature allocated the needed funds. See this Dallas Courthouse history at http://www.texasescapes.com/DallasTexas/Dallas-County-Courthouse-Dallas-Texas.htm#1872

On this page http://www.humanrightsdallasmaps.com/items/show/2 is this photo below indicating it was the 1852 Dallas County courthouse.  That is not correct.   

It cannot be correct that this is the 1852 Dallas County Courthouse.  In 1852 Dallas County had less than 1,000 population and could never have afforded a two story couthouse.  This image may be the 1873 image of the Courthouse mentioned above left without a roof and onlywalls for over 2 years until Dallas could secure money from the Texas Legislature to finish the building.  

Dallas has a fascinating history!

Dallas ISD Young Women's STEAM Academy at Balch Springs Middle School is the best! But some magnets have below average SEI scores!

Dallas ISD Young Women's STEAM Academy at Balch Springs Middle School is the best! It holds two very distinct records.

First, for the past 3 years it had the highest School Effectiveness Indices(SEI) scores of all 33 DISD middle schools for two of these three years.  That third year it had the second highest SEI.

Second, for the past two years it received the least funding per student of all DISD middle schools.

DISD has much to be proud of.  This school leads the way due to the fact that less than 2% of the students are White-non-Hispanic, beyond that it reflects DISD demographics well, and due to the reality of an Economically Disadvantaged percentage of students that is 4 percentage points higher than the rest of DISD.

All of the above data is available on the Dallas ISD Data Portal at https://mydata.dallasisd.org/

Sadly there are middle school magnets that are far below average with their SEI scores and continue below for years in a row.  One is consistently majority White and below 50 SEI for the third year in a row.  It is recommended all parents study a schools history of SEI scores.  Look at the longitudinal scores: https://mydata.dallasisd.org/docs/SEI/SEI1718/201718_LONGITUDINAL_SEI_REPORT.pdf

Salary Differences Increase 9-fold in 3 years between Teachers in low vs high income schools.

In 2015/16 the difference between teacher salaries in the about 91% of DISD schools with above 70% of students being from high poverty homes, and the about 9% of schools with less than 70% of students being from high poverty homes, was $423. At that time some explained this difference as being due to the higher tenured teachers in these lower poverty schools.
Since 2015 teacher raises have been calculated under the Teacher Excellence Initiative (TEI is explained and defined at https://tei.dallasisd.org/ ). By the 2017/18 school year this average teacher salary difference between the 20 "rich" schools and the 210+ "poor" schools had exploded over 9-fold to $3,953.
Is that what TEI is supposed to do?
The data used in this study was the average teacher salary for every DISD school over the most recent 3 school years: 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2017/18. This data verified a massive 9 fold greater increase over these three school years in the difference in salary between the teachers who teach in the 20 DISD schools with less than 70% of students from economically disabled homes, i.e. the highest percentage of higher income students in 2017/18, and the teachers in the 216 schools with over 70% of children suffering from being "economically disabled."
We are looking at average teacher salaries in 2017/18 in the 20 DISD schools with below 70% of students in poverty compared with the income increases for the teachers who teach in the other 216 higher poverty schools, schools with above 70% of children living in poverty.
In 2015/16 there were 19 schools with economically disabled student percentages below 70%. The difference between those 19 schools and the remaining 216 with higher levels of poverty was $423 in 2015/16. In 2017/18, under TEI, this difference had exploded over 9-fold to $3,953!
Here is a link to the spreadsheet file with three worksheets, one for each of the three school years with all 236 DISD schools listed in order by the percentage of students at each school classified as economically disabled. The order was from the lowest percentage to the highest. Then I used only the first 20 "richest" schools for the 2015/16 and 2017/18 years to calculate the figures I posted above. Here is the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y4vYXOKkDHkBmval2AP6Eal5KiugVNiYPn037u--Bfs/edit?usp=sharing.
It has the DISD mean teacher salaries by school for the past three years and was received in an open records request. Other observations are welcomed and encouraged!
Dallas is being told that the most talented teachers must be in the most needy and difficult schools. That is not happening under TEI based on this data! If DISD wants to defend their claims on TEI, why are they not being more transparent with raw data by school so as to prove their points?
Here is the 2017/18 distribution of mean salaries by school in Dallas in the first page of the 7 page spreadsheet ordered by poverty that was used. It shows the "rich" schools, the schools with the lowest percentages of economically disabled students that are the ones getting the "best" teachers as defined by TEI. (Or should we say that these 20 schools have the best students with the most advantages who help teachers look better?)

Page 1 of 7 pages of Dallas ISD 2017/18 Mean Teacher Salaries by School with Salary Average above/below 70% student Poverty

Young Women's STEAM Academy at Balch Springs Middle School remains consistently the middle school with the highest School Effectiveness Indices (SEI) scores over the past 3 years in spite of 91.5% of students being economically disabled. Knowing this exceptionally high achievement, it was very good to see that the average teachers salary there has gone up $5,316 over the past three years. They have certainly earned it.

The sad news is that teachers at Young Women's STEAM Academy are still over $3,500 below the average teacher salary in the 9 "richest" Dallas ISD schools with below 50% of students with economic disabilities.

NONE of these 9 "richest" schools have an SEI average over the past 2 years that is better than the Young Women's STEAM Academy! Townview TAG was close, but most of these 9 "richest" schools are many points lower! Yet, the teachers in these 9 schools on average received $3,500 more in salary in 2017/18 than the teachers in this significantly higher SEI, 99% minority, 91.5% economically disabled school in Pleasant Grove.

(Note: the Townview Science and Engineering Magnet, not among the 9 "richest," justifiably has the highest salaries. They also have the highest SEI scores in all of DISD by over 4 points every year!!)

DISD still has a very long way to go to perfect the TEI system, if that is possible! The bottom line is that if DISD is comfortable in the claims they are making regarding racial and economic equity, why are they not being more consistently transparent? Here is transparency that has been requested but is not yet available from DISD, and many other people may have additional data that should be added to such transparency requests. See https://billbetzen.blogspot.com/2018/10/what-is-school-transparency.html Transparency that would help parents is discussed at https://billbetzen.blogspot.com/2018/10/finding-best-dallas-isd-schools.html A more detailed listing of data items is at https://billbetzen.blogspot.com/2018/04/dallas-isd-tax-increase-demands.html