Since the arrival of Superintendent Mike Miles a year ago, the Dallas Independent School District has been in constant turmoil.
Of course, Miles wanted it that way, as he is a Broad-trained superintendent and he apparently believes that disruption is good.
He started off with ambitious goals, some of which seemed wildly unrealistic, including a goal that by 2015, 75% of the staff and 70% of the community would agree with his vision for the district.
In his year on the job, seven of his top staff resigned, and nearly 1,000 teachers quit. Just this month, another 300 resigned.
The district sent letters out to 150 other school districts urging them not to hire the teachers who left DISD, trying to get them permanently blackballed from teaching in Texas.
Miles is under investigation for interfering with bidding for contracts and with internal audits.
To add to his problems, some of the city’s business leaders have expressed no confidence in his “disruptive” leadership style.
And now he has announced that his wife and son are moving back to Colorado to get away from the negative press about him.
A reader of the blog sent this private email to me:
“Not only is Miles under investigation for corruption, cronyism, and contract bid rigging, now, after leading DISD as a little dictator with a management style characterized by morale crushing fear, intimidation, and bullying, he is demanding that other Texas school districts not hire the DISD teachers he has run off. DISD plans to report those teachers to the Texas Education Agency for them to be sanctioned which effects their certification.Miles has worked tirelessly to make the lives of DISD teachers so miserable that no one in their right mind would want to stay at DISD, Anyone with a better option would be a fool not to take it after experiencing Broad Foundation management. These efforts are designed to replace veteran teachers with low salary TFAs. Miles is reviled and hated by ALL teachers. None of his ‘reforms’ help kids. Miles’ reforms were designed specifically to dump additional work on teachers while doing nothing for kids in order to intimidate and exhaust teachers with the goal of running them off. More teachers were run off than expected leaving DISD with an extreme teacher exodus making fall classes untenable. Miles is toxic, his reforms are cancerous. He drove away so many teachers that now DISD is in a precarious situation with school starting in less than a month and no teachers to staff the classrooms. The sooner this guy goes along with his reforms the sooner DISD can get back to the work of educating kids.”
This is THE consistent pattern of the Broad Foundation super bugs sent out to infect USA public schools. They are supremely incompetent at the actual day-to-day job of schooling, insulting, destructive and have been taught that empty, pie-in-the-sky rhetoric is the substitute for competence. They believe the false advertising they were brainwashed with at Broad. This entity deserves its own, full-time investigative journalist and 2015 seems to be the magic number for many of their “graduates”. Might it be that the foundation believes it will have helped finish off all free, public schools by 2015? Their version of The Rapture?
Not one of them is any good. Not a single solitary one, regardless of whether they have had any teaching or public school administration experience.
They are trained to kill the public school system in the United States.
Eli Broad is yet another person who has way too much money and too little time on his hands.
I meant Broad has way too much money and too MUCH time on his hands.
Did he go too or just send his family away? I read this yesterday but it appeared he was sticking around.
His wife and son are moving back to Colorado; Miles is staying.
It’s beyond bizarre.
His family is so committed to the children in DISD that they will live off our taxes…in another state?
Either that or they are getting divorced and he just blamed the Dallas press rather than tell the truth. Classy.
He has truly been a disaster. He was audited in December and is under investigation now. Monthly resignations of his own hires. 3000 teachers rumored to have quit (teachers report double-digit resignations at most schools in the district). 60 principals replaced. To avoid lawsuits, principals were demoted to assistant principal but given the higher principal-level salary.
Hi Diane, I’m still trying to figure out your vision or reasons for you writing what you do. Do you really hate the charter movement? Do you really hate Michelle Rhee? Can you define Public Education?
Anyway, I say hurrah to Superintendent Mike Miles, he has the guts to put it on the line – no risk, no reward. The foot-draggers are losing ground, those who want little to no change. They would rather have the little one-room school house back again and to (arrogantly) double their pay because they carry a teaching license.
Dick Velner – Parent, Teacher and Curriculum Principal
If you really are a teacher, I pity your students.
Hi Dienne, thanks for the vote of confidence. Join my efforts with RSM (Russian School of Mathematics) and maybe you could learn something.
I think we will take a pass here Dick. You appear to be a legend in your own mind.
I am sure that your children are not taught by inexperienced teachers with 5 weeks of training are they? I’m sure
your children are not affected
by the disruption and “change” that you are so enamored with. I am sure that you want your children taught by experienced teachers who know what they are doing and who are happy and feel professionally satisfied. So if you want to call those who are fighting to make sure that public education is stable, with experienced licensed teachers foot draggers, then so be it. We will drag our feet and stand in the mud to prevent all children including our own from becoming test taking robots taught by wide eyes temps.
According to their website, it would appear that RSM is a for-profit private after school enrichment math program for parents willing to pay for it. I think Dick is selling a product, so not really sure what he’s adding to the conversation regarding public school management, since that does not appear to be what he does.
Mike Miles is the only person trying to double his pay. He already makes $300,000 and wants a $200,000 bonus.
You sound like an uninformed oddball, so I’m not surprised you support Miles.
How does your Russian School of Math methodology compare to the math standards put forth in CCSS? Why does your experience with RSM cause you to attack the whole of public education? What has Mike Miles done to improve or institute improvements in math curriculum that causes you to support him? What would you do or are you doing to improve the quality of instruction (in all subjects) in schools? Thanks
Dickvelner, read this blog, read my books, learn my vision. What is yours?
: Hi, Diane. I read your blog, I have looked at your other writings but your vision is not my vision.
I am too busy with RSM to challenge others as to their thinking or actions. I read others – for great thinkers I follow, one is Milton Friedman.
Dick Velner – Parent, Teacher and Curriculum Principal
Dick Velner, I understand you are a very busy man. You shouldn’t waste your time reading my blog. Just read Milton Friedman. He will keep you happy. And you won’t want to read the series of posts I have coming up next week by a Chilean education expert on the damage wrought by Milton Friedman’s ideas in Chile.
Diane,
you rock!
Milton Friedman was the economic theorist followed by the Augusto Pinochet military regime in Chile for decades. He is one of the leading theorists for corporate education reform, starting The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice in 1996.
http://tinyurl.com/leuswte
Also see:
Who Was Milton Friedman? by Paul Krugman (I know, Mr. Veiner, Paul Krugman is not part of your universe)
http://tinyurl.com/7f6gflg
Of course he was one of the key figures profiled in Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine.”
Evil, evil man and total crackpot.
Remember, ole Miltie came up with the voucher scam for schools as a way to get around Brown v. Board of Education. The crackpot came up with this in the mid-1950s.
Thanks Philaken, I could not have said any better myself. Not all educators think alike. I know my convictions.
I see that you are a curriculum principal. Are you a certified teacher or principal? Have you ever taught in a real (not RSM) classroom? I assume that you condone this re Mr. Miles: “He is demanding that other Texas school districts not hire the DISD teachers he has run off. DISD plans to report those teachers to the Texas Education Agency for them to be sanctioned, which effects their certification”. The word “vendetta” seems appropriate for his actions.
Teachers in a climate of administrative bullying know that speaking out against changes that are not good for students is risky, but still they do it. Usually it is the best, most dedicated teachers who speak out because they are the ones who most understand what experimental changes mean in the classroom. They are the ones who have the most investment in their students and classes. Labeling these teachers as “afraid of change” or “old school” or “negative” or “standing in the way of change and progress” is a well-known bullying tactic designed to shut them up. Good teachers do not blindly follow anyone.
If you did more research, you’d know that Rhee had far more awareness of, and involvement in, the D.C. mess than has yet become general knowledge. Charters divert limited public tax dollars away from public schools to schools run for private profits.
Lastly, since DISD teachers never asked to have their pay “doubled”, it’s pathetic that you have to resort to fictional charges. However, it it not surprising given that so many of the current reformers’ statements have no actual basis in fact, but are rather served up to fuel their bought-and-paid-for echo chamber
Diane, as an education historian, obviously sees the big picture of the reform agenda better than you do. Read up on her long professional career. Who are you to question her?
Your first name sums it up!
Oh Jane…you read my mind. You don’t know how many times that thought has flown through my mind. Brave girl.
Miles, before coming to Dallas, had a shady $7000/day consulting deal in Paterson, New Jersey – a state-run district – while he was still working full-time in Colorado:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2012/04/living-large-at-nj-doe.html
Who gave him the deal? Well, the state commissioner is Chris Cerf, another Broadie.
These guys know how to take care of each other.
Thanks for your questions, GT. As I read Diane’s blog I’m continually hit with recurring themes. Whether it’s Mike Miles, Michelle Rhee or others, it’s always the “other guy” who’s messing up lives.
My philosophy to students at RSM is to think independently, go the Road Less Traveled. Those blaming “others” have a poor me attitude. The curriculum at RSM is 4 of the major 6 components of IB. I let others take care of science and fine arts.
Dick Velner – Parent, Teacher and Curriculum Principal
I have no idea how your constant harping on RSM contributes to this conversation.
Meanwhile, isn’t Texas a Right to Work state? How can Miles blackball these teachers by threatening their work and certification? In a Right to Work state, these people have a right to move on anytime they want to, which is the ONLY time I’ve seen a Right to Work situation actually be useful.
“I am too busy with RSM to challenge others as to their thinking or actions.” ~ Dick Velner, 28 minutes after making this post challenging others as to their thinking or actions.
Big on bloviating…low on stamina…poor Dick.
Are you just pushing RMS? How can you compare an after-school enrichment program with all day public school?
Cee Mor, your homework or research is lacking. RSM (East coast) is an after-school tutoring program started 10 years ago by some very dedicated Russian engineers who came to the USA only to find a very poor public education system. I am from Minneapolis.
Yes, because Russian education and society are something to be emulated.
I was just reading in my AP Human Geography text in preparation for class soon. In talking about economic development, Russia is now considered a developing (not developed) nation, and its government is back to being a dictatorship.
Dick, it looks like you forgot to renew your website domain. http://curriculumprincipal.com/ However, from your LinkedIn profile, it looks like you were never actually a teacher… http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dick-velner/6/169/270
This echoes too much of what’s happening in Chicago – pushing out veteran master teachers and replacing them with TFAs (and their 5 weeks of training).
http://www.floridatoday.com/VideoNetwork/2568015988001/Superintendent-Binggeli-reacts-to-school-grades
Higher scores but lower letter grades – Why doesn’t this superintendent demand an investigation?
This is all about the privatizing of public education to make tax payer dollars available for corporate profit. They appoint business oriented people with little or no education background (but an interest in getting rich) to carry out this agenda.
No one in public education is for the status quo. The gross underfunding of public education due to political interests has only gotten worse with corporate education reform.
For the role of the Broad Foundation in the attack on public education see:
Who is Eli Broad and why is he trying to destroy public education?
http://www.defendpubliceducation.net/
This guy sounds just like the superintendent in Los Angeles. Does this superintendent school carbon copy all their graduates? They all seem like ethically and intellectually challenged losers. Bad policies than hurt students and communities can not be hidden or ignored.
One of CO’s former governors become “stupid”intendent of LA schools. OY! He was the one who wrote to Dean’s of Colleges of Education in CO, specifying literacy texts for college courses on HIS APPROVED and UNAPPROVED listing. OMG…how arrogant. Wonder what perks he got and who was behind this move of his?
I sincerely hope that the other school districts that the DISD teachers are applying to work in have enough sense to ignore the letters sent out by DISD. I also sincerely hope that the investigations on Miles prove fruitful and that he is held accountable. The fact that his family went back to Colorado speaks volumes.
Mike Miles also serves on the Board of Directors for the National Center for Teacher Quality (NCTQ).
Busy man….
Does the school board appoint the superintendent in Dallas? If so, why isn’t the board terminating his contract? Doesn’t the board have to answer to the voters?
They are bought and paid for by corporate interests. That’s who they answer to.
Superintendent Dansby from FWISD makes Miles look not that bad. Unlike miles, Dansby demotes good directors and principals, hires and promotes his friends and routinely bullies anyone who does not stand up to him. Dansby has the union and board in his back pocket and acts with complete immunity. Dansby needs to be investigated for corruption, abuse of power, and intimidation of employees.
Wow! He runs them off, which was his goal, and now wants to prevent them from working elsewhere? WOW!
He’s run off waaay more than he bargained for and the stable, non-Broad suburbs are hiring thanks to Boomers retiring. Now he’s facing a shortage of teachers. Veterans are fleeing and new teachers won’t go near DISD because of Miles.
In Texas, there is a policy that says if you “break” your contract 45 calendar days before the start of school, you can lose your certificate for a year or so if the Texas Ed Agency in Austin chooses to impose that penalty.
This is almost never, ever enforced and can easily be gotten around. As a matter of fact, DISD had no problem several years ago RIF’fing teachers and breaking contracts, so I’m not sure why DISD is whining now.
The reformers have treated teachers so badly for so long they now have no teachers. Even the charters can’t find teachers.
Diane,
Thank you for everything you are doing. The Broad battle is coming to MNPS, Metro Nashville Schools. Two weeks ago in the Tennessean, Chris Barbic’s name was mentioned as a candidate for replacing Jesse Register as the super.. MNPS parents and teachers need to know all of the information about all of the problems the Broad graduates have provided to their districts. I want to be proactive now. Register’s tenure ends 2015. As you know Elisa Kim, TFA grad was elected to the school board so one puzzle piece is in place to put Barbic there. Please do a Blog that mentions Chicago, Philly, Dallas, and everywhere else these promoters of crony capitalism are deforming public education.
Thank you,
Future parent of a MNPS student and a friend and ally to teachers
Isn’t that illegal to try to blacklist these teachers? He is keeping them from finding gainful employment! The attack on workers continues.
Miles doesn’t care about legality. He also thinks he’s smarter than everyone who attempts to hold him accountable as he is a master at snowing an issue in order to slip away before investigation reveals the truth. He has a tall stack of pending lawsuits waiting for him in Colorado. His “improvement” of HSD2 came by manipulation of how reports were written and distributed, not real measurement of student progress. In reality students of HSD2 made no progress under his reign of terror, but annual teacher attrition averaged 30-40% of the entire district faculty. It would have been higher if there was a sufficient number of other jobs available for those who wanted to leave.
Miles did this same thing at Harrison in Colorado Springs. Destroyed teachers careers for simple disagreement with his dictatorial, constantly shifting ideas. I was one- a Juilliard trained musician who he never heard perform, or my students perform. Neither did his hand-picked principal who never attended a concert, and observed just one rehearsal. I was the polar opposite of everything Miles demonstrates. I attempted to represent the HSD2 teachers, but the week I assumed that role, Miles and his cronies began a relentless assault that eventually achieved his goal and silenced me. The allegation of his attempt to destroy released DISD teachers’ careers may stem from exodus of veteran teachers from HSD2, and a nearby superintendent in a nearby district who called Miles “the best recruiting tool my district ever had” for the quality ex-HSD2 personnel they picked up. I hope DISD realizes the mistake made and can regroup. It will take many years for HSD2 to recover from Miles’ inflicted damage.
Listen to my band and judge for yourself. Miles robbed them of their spring concert, so their parents never heard what they accomplished, dismissing me five days before the concert was scheduled. These were audio recordings made of rehearsals in class for student critique. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mKc6RbqvjI
Thank you for this blog. I am a disd teacher and what you have written about the Broad candidates I have experienced first hand with Mike Miles The last year was horrible. Teachers had to hide their true teaching so they would not be put on a growth plan. Teachers were expected to put on a dog and pony show every time someone walked into the room. Sad year for the kids Everything you have heard about what is happening in dallas is true but it only touches the surface. This is a full assault on public education and no one sees it. Some of the board members have interests in the charter school Dallas closed a number of schools last year. Just waiting to see them turned into charter schools. You are right about the business leaders. They are fully aware of what is going on and try to keep it hushed up. It’s all about the money.
that is true. When he worked with district 2 teachers had to put on a show and sadly students noticed the difference and were afraid to ask questions in order not to embarrass their teacher. some students would help recognize what they have learned. Also the hand picked principal in their school were worst than being in the military and if you wouldnt agree with what there agenda was you were in the black list. He also influence in demoting great assistant principals and firing teachers just becasue. I think Mike miles should recieve a taste of his own medicine for all the wrong that he has done to teachers, principals, assistant principals, parents and to our students future. Think about it. This is no longer about public or charter schools this is something more powerful. We are talking about our kids, students all over the world. Thing is that in many states teachers are not allowed to strike. are we going to wait until its too late
i was a student and i lost an extraordinary spanish teacher that she cared for us just because Mike Miles and that principal fired a lot of great teachers the reason ?