Three years ago, the Dallas Independent School District hired Mike Miles as its superintendent. Miles, a military man, had been trained by the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy. When he arrived, he set a series of targets that he expected to reach as a result of his leadership. One was to see a significant increase in test scores in three years. He declared that he would drive change by bold leadership.
The test scores were just released for Dallas. They are flat. Some declined.
Miles has removed many principals; teacher turnover has soared under his leadership.
STAAR test results released Friday by Dallas ISD offer little evidence of systemic progress under the leadership of Superintendent Mike Miles.
Compared with last year, the passing rate dropped for eight of 11 exams in grades three through eight. On three exams, passing rates increased by 1 or 2 percentage points. The results are for tests taken in English.
Similarly, compared with results from 2012 — the school year before Miles arrived — a higher percentage of students failed this year in eight of 11 exams.
Miles and his supporters had promised broad academic gains and said that this year’s results — the third State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exams under his leadership — would prove his reform efforts had taken hold. But if STAAR is a good measure of achievement, those gains haven’t materialized despite numerous changes in the district.
Miles, however, expressed optimism about the latest scores in a written statement Friday.
“The results indicate progress and stability in most of the exams compared with the previous year. … The modest gains of our STAAR results this year confirm how I have been describing our last three years of work: That our staff has been focused on establishing the foundation on which we can build,” said Miles, who came to DISD in July 2012.
Well, this is a new definition of progress. It is called “progress and stability” and “establishing the foundation.” Of course, there is always next year. Or the one after that one.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
May he hold himself accountable and do the honorable military thing and resign!
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Or “May he hold himself accountable and do the honorable Japanese military thing and . . .!
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The sad thing is that. here in Dallas, he fired many effective principals and replaced them with his cronies. He gave those principals a year to “prove” themselves, and they were more successful than he has been-by far-but he fired them.
Welcome to the land of reform: if you fail as a “leader” then you are creating a “foundation” of “stability”, but test scores much higher than those got some excellent principals fired…
Miles is such a fraud. No clothes for that emperor. Just low standards for himself.
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The Dallas Morning News has resorted to sad, but true grim humor
http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2015/05/staar-results-dallas-texas-generalissimo-francisco-franco-and-saturday-night-live.html/
STAAR results, Dallas, Texas, Generalissimo Francisco Franco and Saturday Night Live
http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2015/05/putting-a-smiley-face-on-sad-staar-results-is-no-way-to-run-a-school-district.html/
Putting a smiley face on sad STAAR results is no way to run a school district
Other related articles can be found here
http://trueschoolreform.org/2015/04/recent-articles-and-postings/
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http://trueschoolreform.org/2015/03/destructive-reform-mike-miles-style/
This is what happens when veteran teachers are “non-renewed,” replaced by inexperienced TFA’s. This is what happens when disruptive “reform” is implemented. Billy Earl Dade Middle School is named after a great teacher and educator. Located in the heart of Sunny South Dallas, on the corner of Malcolm X and Grand. This is the result of Mike Miles, and the business community of Dallas, destructive reforms.
http://carlaranger.blogspot.com/2009/08/dr-billy-earl-dade-was-icon-in.html
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Dance of the Broad lemons.
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How many ways can you say Denver public schools?
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This kind of reminds me of George Bush and mission accomplished. They propagandize what will happen, then it doesn’t happen and they celebrate their accomplishments. And people believe and support them. It’s like bizarro land where lies are truth and truth is a lie. It’s like the world is upside down with the wise and good being reviled and the stupid and idiots being celebrated.
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I wrote this awhile ago, but some things never change
“Loopy Reform”
Möbius loop
Escher stair
Bottom is top
Cheat is fair
Up is down
Back is fore
Round and round
Reformer lore
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julie: please pardon the presumptious editing but sentence #4 has too many words.
Brevity is the soul of wit. And wisdom.
“It’s like bizarro land where lies are truth and truth is a lie.”
Excise “like”…
¿😳?
From the beginning of the entry in Wikipedia for “Bizarro World”:
[start]
The Bizarro World (also known as htraE, which is “Earth” spelled backwards) is a planet in the DC comics universe. Introduced in the early 1960s, htraE is a cube-shaped planet, home to Bizarro and companions, all of whom were initially Bizarro versions of Superman, Lois Lane and their children and, later, other Bizarros including Batzarro, the World’s Worst Detective.
In popular culture “Bizarro World” has come to mean a situation or setting which is weirdly inverted or opposite to expectations.
[end]
Just below, in a section entitled “History”:
[start]
In the Bizarro world of “htraE” (“Earth” spelled backwards), society is ruled by the Bizarro Code which states “Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!” In one episode, for example, a salesman is doing a brisk trade selling Bizarro bonds: “Guaranteed to lose money for you”. Later, the mayor appoints Bizarro No. 1 to investigate a crime, “Because you are stupider than the entire Bizarro police force put together”. This is intended and taken as a great compliment.
[end]
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_World
Your friendly neighborhood KrazyTA. Always glad to lend a hand…
😎
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This reality needs to be covered by the media. On Newshour May 26, there
was a discussion of Common Core but not based on reporting that shows
the failure of test driven instruction. Diane Ravitch should be invited to be
part of the discussion of Newshour and NY Times and Wall Street Journal to
refute the reformers false claims and–not only with Miles– frauds.
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Flat test scores represent “stability”?
Wouldn’t want test scores going up or it might destabilize the whole system.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
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The reformers do this all the time. Whenever results fail to match up with their vision they immediately go Orwellian doublespeak or they claim that schools are more than just test scores. (I agree with the second but it’s disingenuous when these same reformers used low test scores as their impetus for the reforms.)
While I am among the many who believe that test scores are not very meaningful, Miles made it his explicit goal to improve the scores. (Which apparently means better schools?) He failed to do so. He fired administrators for such a failure, therefore, he should resign. If he were his boss, he would have been fired already.
As a teacher with state test scores influencing my rating, I sure hope the first three years don’t count because I am creating a foundation of stability. (By the way, the endless churn in these schools suggests anything but stability. Just as declining test scores are most certainly not progress, except as defined by Miles and his ilk.)
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Why is the public consistently ignored by ed reformers? This is from 2014 and complaints date back to 2012:
“Dorsey Martensen looked forward to her 6-year-old son coming home from kindergarten art class this year with adorable paintings and drawings. But instead, her son has been asked to attend after-school art tutoring at Rosemont Primary School to learn colors, shapes and lines — to prepare for a district exam.
Starting this school year, Superintendent Mike Miles ordered “Assessment of Course Performance” exams in elementary school electives, including music, art and physical education.
Martensen was among about 100 parents and teachers who met at Kessler Park United Methodist Church to voice concerns about Miles and the direction of the school district. All but two speakers agreed that Miles is driving off great teachers, implementing bad policies and making families consider leaving the district. The overall sentiment: Miles must go.”
“Teachers told Cowan that great educators have fled for suburban districts in unprecedented rates. DISD has more than 2,400 new teachers this year — about a quarter of the entire teaching staff. An elementary school teacher said four teachers at her Pleasant Grove school have already quit this year.”
Maybe they need to hold one of those star-studded conventions they’re so fond of and learn what the word “public” means in “public schools”. They can seat a roundtable of experts.
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/headlines/20141120-dallas-isd-teachers-and-parents-demand-removal-of-mike-miles.ece
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This is another example of the delusional thinking in the reform movement where nothing is gained, but neighborhood schools are lost. Yet, the “reformers” march on spinning their web of lies. As for public input, they avoid it at all costs. Democracy is so inconvenient when there’s a cash cow to milk.
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I mean, come on:
“This was mid-June. Miles wouldn’t officially start until July 1. But he’d already made several hires at Central, as the rank and file refer to DISD’s administrative building on Ross Avenue. One hire in particular, communications chief Jennifer Sprague, had tongues wagging. The 31-year-old had performed the same job for Miles in Colorado Springs, at Harrison School District Two, where she earned $86,652. He brought her to Dallas for $185,000. Reporters wanted to ask him about the move (and maybe get some face time, in case there were any future openings at Central). So, with a board retreat already scheduled for later that day, Miles called a press conference at 7:30 on a Saturday morning.”
They don’t even hire locally? Are the deliberately trying not to know anything about any of these places they parachute into?
http://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2012/august/the-bizarre-claims-of-dallas-isd-superintendent-mike-miles
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They’re the carpetbaggers of the education world.
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. . . or the one after that, or the one after that til kingdom come.
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What a shame. Public schools will now advertise to compete with charter schools advertising.
Money that was intended to go to education will now be siphoned off to media companies and marketing firms.
http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/05/27/51983/lausd-board-considers-better-marketing-as-it-tackl/
Ed reformers must be so proud. All the adults get a cut of the student dollar now! The dream fulfilled- public education as one more commercial product- a contracted service rather than a public good.
I feel sorry for the next generation. They will be marketed to and monetized every minute of every day, no matter where they go.
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Yep. Can’t wait for the future. Here is your new textbook, retail $500 dollars, but since your district belongs to the preferred provider network, you get it for the reduced rate of $200 a copy.
Get ready for the cost of education to double, once the market gets a hold of it and shakes it. Between defense, medicine, education, and energy, and all of the middle men that the miracle of the market has in store, prepare for austerity ahead.
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It erodes credibility of the public entity, because the minute schools are competing based on who has the better advertising campaigns, the lies and exaggerations about the schools will start.
Charters are already doing it, with the “100% graduation!” lie where they neglect to mention they lost the bottom half of the cohort between 7th and 12th grade. Arne Duncan repeats this lie, which means he’s completely innumerate or knows it’s misleading but repeats it anyway.
It will just be one more area where we’ll all be played for suckers.
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Here you go, latest marketing pitch from the Education Industry Association…established 1990. I have been tracking EIA for a while but this is brand new.
Johns Hopkins University School of Education, is a platinum member of EIA, a fee of $6500 a year for most, but the Dean of Johns Hopkins University School of Education, David W. Andrews is also serving on the Board of EIA and selling, I kid you not, the reputation of the university.
For a “discounted rate” EIA members can purchase a “Design Review” of use in marketing their for-profit products or services. Each paid-for review offers that EIA member a “Johns Hopkins University Certificate for Completion of a Successful Design Review.” The reviews are conducted by “a team” at Johns Hopkins School of Education (JHU,SED.)
Here is part of the pitch to EIA members:
“Can you imagine walking into a Superintendent’s office armed with a positive outcome report by none other than the Johns Hopkins School of Education?! Do you think your competitors will have this feather in their cap? The answer is a resounding NO! Picture your new marketing campaign that features your positive outcome with the Johns Hopkins School of Education! And most importantly, imagine what you will learn about your own product or service and the best ways to continually improve in order to produce the best educational outcomes for your students.” …. Even a small investment of a few thousand dollars, you can have the Johns Hopkins seal of approval attached to your company.” “Again, imagine having that ammunition during your next district meeting!”
Here are the five “packages” of services an EIA member can purchase, each with a Johns Hopkins University School of Education seal of approval. Note that these reviews and studies have are being are marketed as approvals, as documenting “your positive outcome,” and as “ammunition” for your sales. A positive bias and endorsement is all but guaranteed for these so-called reviews and studies. I have edited the product/service description that follow.
$3,500-$5,000. Instructional Design Review: Includes a rubric-based assessment of the logic of your business model, its theoretical framework, use of evidenced-based strategies, analyses of your customers in addition to an assessment of your instructional objectives, pedagogy, and delivery/user support.
$10,000-$13,000. Short-Cycle Evaluation Study: Especially for ed-tech products, includes a 10 to 15 week pilot of the product with feedback about its potential effectiveness for a scale-up and suggested improvements based on observations, surveys, and interviews with teachers and students.
$15,000-$20,000. Case Study: A small, rigorous, intensive descriptive study of customer satisfaction with your educational curriculum, program and/or services with data from observations, interviews, and surveys of customers (e.g., teachers, students, parents, etc.)
$20,000-$35,000. Efficacy Study: A study of your program/offerings with a focus on how they operate and the educational outcomes they produce based on try-outs in pilot schools or in small-scale treatment-control group comparisons.
$38,000-up. Effectiveness Study: A large-scale study of the outcomes of your program based on one or more rigorous “quasi”-experimental studies (non-randomized) or randomized controlled trials.
The Dean of the JHU School of Education, David Andrews, and his colleagues are scheduled to drum-up some business at this EIA’s summer EDVentures conference in Orlando, July 15 –17.
The mission and vision statements of the Johns Hopkins School of Education, established in 2007, say the School has become “a national leader in education reform through research and teaching. Its mission is to support and advance the quality of education and human services for the continuous development of children, youth and adults.
The “Vision” statement says the school “will lead the world in attracting the most talented and diverse individuals into the fields of education, counseling, and public safety. The Division of Public Safety Leadership ”cultivates and sustains viable communities through educational programs that foster the ethical, social, and intellectual development of current and future public safety officials.“
It is useful to remember that Johns Hopkins University in about 3 miles, 15 minutes by car, from the site of the April 27 shooting and riots around 1700 N. Broadway in Baltimore, Maryland. Since April 27, Baltimore has had a surge in shootings.
I wonder if the School of Education Dean as well as his faculty, students, and grad students are engaged with the Baltimore community, especially when counseling and public safety are added to the school’s mission statement and the promise—no, the “guarantee”– that ALL will work on “educational improvement and community well-being.” ….and no less important it seems, promoting themselves as friends who can add a dab of evidence-based credibility to products and services for members of the Education Industry Association.
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Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Know nots who know not they know not but are absolutely certain they know when given power, terrible consequences ensue.
None so blind as those who will not see.
Scholarship, enlightened understanding? Forget that. “We have the philosophy that works”. That that philosophy has no basis on factual information matters not. Don’t confuse me with facts. My mind has already been made up.
Already we see the humongous results of such thinking and this is destroying not only our country but our planet.
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Chiara: in reference to your comment of 5-27-2015, 12:00 PM—ah, the mathematical magic performed by rheephormsters is a miracle too…
Rheeally!
😱
Up until the day John Deasy was Supt. of LAUSD he did amazing things! Except, er, it was possible only by subjecting the school district’s numbers & stats to EIT [EnhancedInterrogationTechniques].
For example, right near the end of his interregnum he got him a big increase in graduation rates! 12%! Except when [following the data analysis techniques of THE WIZARD OF OZ] one looks behind the curtain—read my comments on this blog*, with excerpts from the LATIMES, how a 12% graduation rate was really a 2% graduation rate when you leave out Mr. Michael J Petrilli’s “non-strivers” and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s “uneducables.” [LATIMES of 10-03-2015 written by Howard Blume, plus an excerpt from the LATIMES editorial board of the same day].
[*10-4-2014, “Los Angeles: Miraculous Increase in Graduation Rate!”]
Do the leaders and profiteers and enablers of the self-proclaimed “new civil rights of our time” ever learn from their mistakes? Are they capable of self-correction? Do they have it in them to do the right thing?
From recent editorial of the LATIMES entitled “California students shouldn’t get placed in fake classes”—
[start excerpts]
When it was revealed that students at Jefferson High School in South Los Angeles and other schools were being assigned to “classes” in which nothing was actually taught, many people wondered how this could happen. Isn’t it against the law to stick kids in fake classes and deprive them of basic educational opportunities?
In a word: Nope.
…
The fake classes at Jefferson were ultimately blamed on a new scheduling system, and the Los Angeles Unified School District was ordered by a Superior Court judge to fix it for the current school year. That won’t protect future students or those in other districts, or address problems at L.A. Unified not caused by the scheduling system. Indeed, civil rights groups sued the state, citing the use of noneducation classes in three districts: L.A. Unified, Compton and Oakland. If this lawsuit prevails, however, it would apply only to the schools named in the lawsuit.
[end excerpts]
Link: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-fake-classes-20150526-story.html
So for a little perspective: the fake classes are part of John Deasy’s legacy as is the “new scheduling system”; while Deasy was playing at being the Supt. of the second largest school district in the USA, the LATIMES defended him extremely vigorously and reflexively from any and all criticism, equating the newspaper’s educational policies with every word and deed of Deasy; the LATIMES also almost completely suspended investigative journalism so as to hide his predictably catastrophic experiment in rheephorm that has done great harm to the LAUSD and public education; and leaving other matters aside, worst of all—
The LATIMES editorial board won’t own up to any of this being in great part their responsibility because on their watch they refused to keep watch on what Deasy was doing—willfully closing their eyes as if they were setting policy for anything else but a newspaper!
Self-correction? When it counted and when it counts, the LATIMES editorial board—like rheephormistas everywhere—can’t be counted on.
Or as the rheephormistas themselves like to say, they’re no accounts.
Skewered by their own terminological petards.
And it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.
😎
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Thanks Krazy for reminding us all about Deasy’s contrived graduation rate stats…in keeping with his multiple moments of mendacity.
And so dear TA, how do you feel about Glendale hiring the Deasy/Broadie who failed LAUSD so miserably, as their new Supt.?
What kind of BoE does Glendale have to make such a cavalier (e.g. stupid) decision? For at least the last decade, this city has had one of the most dangerous European crime gangs in the nation. Wonder if any of them sit on the Board and coalesce with the Broad Academy?
It is a game of musical chairs with Eli ALWAYS winning the throne.
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The Broad Academy has unleashed their “graduates” on mostly urban districts all over the country, bringing the mantra of “creative disruption” to the hapless teachers and students. In LAUSD, Broad graduate Deasy left behind a garbage pile we will be cleaning up for years. So why do school boards hire these guys???I sometimes believe the goal is to destroy all credibility for public schools, and than let the privatizers sail on in.
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I am one of the thousands of former Dallas ISD teachers who has watched this disaster unfold in Dallas over the last three years. We have lost over 6,000 teachers out of the 10,000 DISD teacher Corps that existed when Miles arrived for work in July of 2012. They have mostly been replaced with inexperienced graduates.
Miles continued a painful tradition of secrecy and not sharing information with the public that has severely handicapped the ability of the public to see the damage that is being done. I will be addressing that curtain behind which massive damage continues to be inflicted on our Dallas public schools at today’s DISD Board meeting. The battle continues!
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bbetzen, it it so vital that you speak the truth and continue the battle. Please let us know what transpires. I am a parent from another Broad-infected district. Our superintendent has been more subtle in his actions but after four years most aspects of the agenda are in action. He is leaving for greener pastures while his star is still on the rise but he is leaving behind an heir apparent who is also Broad.
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