A reader sent the following comment. I can’t vouch for its authenticity but urge reporters in Dallas to do so:
A newly exposed DISD controversy involves claims that college readiness improved in 2012/13 under Mike Miles. This claim is on page 218 of the “Data Packet for 2013/14 Planning,” online at https://mydata.dallasisd.org/docs/CILT2014/DP1000.pdf . It shows the average ACT score as having gone from 17 to 18, numbers that for the first time in DISD history are rounded to whole numbers in all public reports for 2013. The more precise averages are 17.2 for 2012 and 17.6 for the 2013 ACT average.
On the same page 218, the normal average annual 17+% increase in minority students tested since 2007 suddenly decreased 23% from 2012 to 2013. The percentage of Black students taking the ACT decreased 20.9%, the Hispanic percentage decreased by 24%, but the White percentage increased 0.8%. It is obvious that any ACT improvement are only due to the 23% decrease in the minority student populations tested, populations that have a tragic history of low ACT scores.
Why has this significant decrease in minority students tested not been covered by the media? It has been known for over 3 months by DISD. It is setting back minority percentages tested over three years! It has not even been mentioned by DISD staff at any DISD Board meetings during these months.
Mike Miles came to Dallas with the advancements of ACT average scores being among his central claims to fame in Colorado. More and more it appears the 33% drop in senior enrollment in his Colorado District was a central factor in that gain. It now appears that DISD is already on the way to a 5% loss in senior class enrollment for the Class of 2014, the first such loss since 2006! Last years enrollment was a 30+ year record senior class enrollment!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What Mike Miles did in Colorado and Dallas, he learned in the kingdom of the Broad’s. There are precise techniques behind all of this. These techniques are explicit, teachable, transferable, dishonest and devastating to kids who must lose so that the MM’s and the entrepreneur foundations can win.
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Diane, Thought you and your readers would appreciate this regarding Commissioner King at a recent event. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Eiz406VAs&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DP_Eiz406VAs&app=desktop
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Watching this was very encouraging. And it seems the coward has cancelled future forums. It’s good to be the king.
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Let’s see, from 17.2 to 17.6 is a .4 increase in scores, and since the method is rounding to the nearest whole number, that’s a 0 point increase.
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So, Georgia is proposing that minimum requirements for meeting and exceeding of the CRCT be raised. I’ve seen the data; if the state raises the minimum, our number of students meeting/exceeding plummets. I wonder what kind of gaming will go on behind the scenes so that our numbers actually don’t change? How will new scoring of the test be manipulated? We’ll be able to proudly display how we’ve “raised the bar” when actually we’ve skillfully played a data game.
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CRCT????
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It’s difficult for me to believe that ordinary people in the general public still take these always over-hyped numbers seriously.
I still remember when the original “Bush Texas Miracle” collapsed under a factual review, after he sold it unchallenged for an entire Presidential campaign. Ever since I’ve been wary.
It doesn’t seem to matter. Every score release gets the same huge PR push, and then weeks later someone actually looks at it. This has been going on for more than a decade under ed reform. How long do you think it will take? Twenty years? Thirty?
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The “reformers” in Dallas will refute this data by saying that the decreases are merely the result of one or two high schools deciding to emphasize the SAT instead of the ACT.
Ok. But WHY did those high schools do that? Who told them to do it? And why were they told to do it? To set up a fake success for Miles?
Miles knew the tester numbers/minority percentages dropped significantly and he knew the results were based on rounded numbers for the first year and yet he still walked around crowing about his “achievement.”
That’s the kind of person he is.
I guess he didn’t expect the context to be exposed?
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It is time for Mike Miles to explain the discrepancies, in Colorado, also now in Dallas. Is this just a coincidence or intentional manipulation of the stats? Mike Miles, it is time for you to answer, why this is happening.
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