A bit over a year ago, I wrote about the arrival of a new superintendent in Dallas. Mike Miles is a man with a military background who is a graduate of the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy. What could go wrong?
He had a long list of goals, for example:
“By 2020, he says, the graduation rate will be up to 90% from the 2010 rate of 75%.
By 2020, SAT scores will jump by 30%, and 60% of students will achieve at least a 21 on the ACT.
80% of students will be workplace ready, as determined by assessments created by the business and nonprofit communities.
He will create a new leadership academy to train principals in one year, based on what sounds like NYC’s unsuccessful one.
Teachers will be observed up to ten times a year, and these observations will factor into a pay-for-performance plan.
All classroom doors must be open all the times. so that teachers may be observed at any time, without warning.
Principals will have one year “to demonstrate that they have the capacity and what it takes to lead change and to improve the quality of instruction.”
Miles did not say how he intends to measure whether principals have this capacity.
By August 2015:
“At least 75 percent of the staff and 70 percent of community members agree or strongly agree with the direction of the district.
At least 80 percent of all classroom teachers and 100 percent of principals are placed on a pay-for-performance evaluation system.At least 60 percent of teachers on the pay-for-performance evaluation system and 75 percent of principals agree that the system is “fair, accurate and rigorous.”
But things did go wrong.
A reader sent this commentary. If you live in Dallas and you have a different perspective, let me know.
The reader writes:
A year later, and what has Dallas seen?
1. Bloodletting has extended to principals. Board formally fired two principals, both popular with teachers and students.
2. Board no longer supports Miles. Budget meetings last week were nasty. Board was very unhappy with $4 million spent for a “principals academy.” Board members realize that their favorite principals are in Miles’s crosshairs, and they realize there is probably no good reason for that.
3. Miles’s staff has been wracked with dissent. His hand-picked “cabinet” of seven or eight top aides has fallen apart, with some positions turning over three times in a year, with experienced and respected pro administrators leaving abruptly, and with one indicted in the Atlanta cheating scandals. The TFA hire hasn’t worked out.
4. Texas has turned on teachers AND administrators.
5. Dallas ISD has what looks like zero swat in Austin, with the legislature refusing to restore death-dealing cuts to education from a year ago.
6. Test results and fair measures of student performance seem to have stalled.
7. Summer school had to scale back. Teachers refused to work for extra money because they fear arbitrary evaluations, which continue during summer school classes.
If there is a single, clear educational advance in Dallas, can someone point it out to us?
Alas, our wishes of good luck were all the teachers got.
