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Title VI Complaints Filed with the Federal Education Department,
Dallas, Texas
Against Dallas Independent School District (DISD)
April 21, 2015 (Replacing those filed March 25, 2015)
Education is the great equalizerit should be used to level the
playing field, not grow inequality.
That means all students regardless of their race, zip code or
family income should have equal access to
education resources---whether its effective teaching,
challenging coursework, facilities with modern
technology or a safe school environment. Arne Duncan, October 1,
2014
Dallas ISD, through its policy of using a Title I comparability
formula based on teacher staffing, has
increased inequities in regular education funding of Dallas
public classrooms and disproportionately
negatively impacted at-risk, special education (SPED), Limited
English Proficiency (LEP), minority, and
low income students on its Title I neighborhood campuses. The
huge disparities in equal access,
accompanied by illegal supplanting of federal and state
compensatory education dollars and misuse of
High School Allotment funds, egregious lowering of regular
education funding, inequitable teacher and
principal staffing patterns, lack of comparability of student
services and safety on campuses, lack of
effective special education services, lack of access to certain
magnet school programs, discrimination in
hiring practices that directly impact equal protection
guarantees of students, lack of research-based
professional development and support for teachers in failing
schools, and unequal access to safe
schools, all document unconstitutional sourcing between Title I
and non-Title I schools and between
magnet and neighborhood campuses.
The harm to at-risk, SPED, LEP, and low income and minority
children in Dallas ISD was demonstrated by
a 58% increase at the end of the 2013-2014 school year of Dallas
ISD schools on the annual the Texas
PEG List of failing campuses and is demonstrated through campus
climate surveys demonstrating
inequities in safe schools. PEIMS documents detailing inequities
in funding and illegal supplanting of
state compensatory education funds as well as undocumented
levels of High School Allotment funding
are available on the Texas Education Agency (TEA) web site,
http://tea.texas.gov/financialstandardreports/ .
Teacher staffing patterns which dump the least qualified
teachers into the most vulnerable DISD schools
are available for public view on the MyDataPortal designed by
Dallas ISD, https://mydata.dallasisd.org/ .
In addition to inequitable funding patterns between magnets and
neighborhood schools and inequitable
distribution of experienced teachers, Dallas ISD central
staffing patterns demonstrate preferential
treatment for Teach for America and Broad candidates whose
resumes are thin compared to better
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qualified candidates who applied for central administrative
positions. These employment decisions
violate the equal protection rights of both job seekers and
students in Dallas ISD who are negatively
impacted by a lack of credentials and experience in central
administrative staff. In addition to hiring
preferences for non-credentialed candidates who lack campus
administrative experience, the current
Superintendent has kept many top level leadership positions
vacant, leading to a complete lack of
accountability for the Superintendent.
Inequities in access to comparable levels of principal
leadership for all students were demonstrated in
the last round of principal appraisals that identified only
principals in magnet, vanguard, and early
college campuses as the most effective according to the
Superintendents rubric. The use of a Teacher
Excellence Initiative (TEI) which ties annual teacher
compensation directly to easily-manipulated and
subjective spot observations and student test scores violates
the equal protection rights of students by
increasing high rates of teacher churn on the campuses of Dallas
ISDs lowest performing campuses.
Results of initial principal choices of teachers for
Distinguished rank demonstrate a bias in teacher
appraisal that consistently rewards teachers based on the
demographics of the students they teach. This
bias will be the source of increased compensation for teachers
based on their ability to move to the
most stable, high achieving campuses.
Finally, in a school district that is violating state law
regarding legal use of state compensatory education
funding and is grossly underfunding its Title I campuses, the
proposal for choice schools promises to
further segregate at-risk, LEP, and SPED students on failing
campuses while continuing lack of
appropriate resourcing to serve these students on their
neighborhood campuses. Dallas ISD has not
equitably and constitutionally resourced its existing campuses.
Opening choice schools in order to
further segregate high risk LEP, SPED, and poor students away
from the targeted middle class is
unconstitutional.
Complainants ask for immediate relief from both the serious
inequities in regular education funding on
Title I campuses and relief from discriminatory hiring patterns
which negatively impact student
achievement. Complainants also request federal investigations
into the lack of appropriate special
education services which directly impact campus safety and
racial disparities in student suspensions and
achievement. Complainants request support rather than overtly
punitive conduct toward teachers on
failing campuses rated Improvement Required, a suspension of the
current principal rating rubric, a
suspension of the Teacher Excellence Initiative, and a
suspension of discussion of choice schools until
gross, illegal and unconstitutional inequities in sourcing of
Dallas ISD campuses and students are
corrected.
Compared to Austin ISD and Irving ISD, both of which focused
local and state tax revenue on classroom
instruction, the number of failing schools in Dallas ISD grew
significantly in 2013-2014. Both Irving and
Austin decreased the number of IR, or failing schools, and
decreased their PEG list. This comparison
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suggests great harm to Dallas ISD students through the use of a
Title I comparability model that
actually decreased equity in financial sourcing of regular
education dollars.
I. Violation of Title I Comparability and Violation of Equal
Protection Guarantees Through Illegal and Unconstitutional
Supplanting of Title I Funds, State
Compensatory Education (SCE) Funds; Potential Misuse of State
High School
Allotment Funds; and Potential Misuse of Teacher Vacancies for
Revenue
Generation
"In recognition of the special educational needs of low-income
families and the impact that concentrations
of low-income families have on the ability of local educational
agencies to support adequate educational
programs, the Congress hereby declares it to be the policy of
the United States to provide financial
assistance... to local educational agencies serving areas with
concentrations of children from low-income
families to expand and improve their educational programs by
various means (including preschool
programs) which contribute to meeting the special educational
needs of educationally deprived children"
(Section 201, Elementary and Secondary School Act, 1965).
Dallas Independent School District (DISD) includes several
magnet school schools that are legacy
desegregation campuses created as a result of a federal
desegregation order beginning in the seventies
and ending in the late-nineties or early 2000. Magnet high
school programs located at Townview and
Booker T. Washington and inclusive of the TAG Elementary and
Middle School and vanguard campuses
no longer serve the purposes of desegregation. Added to these
magnet programs are Montessori
schools and single sex campuses of Irma Rangel and Barack Obama
serving grades 6-12.
Some of these choice campuses with heavy student filters for
entrance are rated as the best public
schools in the state of Texas and nation because of high
participation and pass rates on Advanced
Placement tests and other tests of academic achievement.
These elite campuses require either auditions or a student
screening process that include grades,
standardized test scores, interviews, and parent engagement.
Through this screening process, a small
percentage or in some cases no DISD Limited English Proficiency
(LEP) or students served with special
education services (SPED) are admitted to these campuses. The
choice campuses also admit a much
smaller percentage of at-risk students than failing secondary
campuses with up to 88% of students
defined as at-risk.
DISD neighborhood secondary schools rated as failing or
Improvement Required (IR) by the state of
Texas contain twice the district average of SPED students and
high percentages of LEP students whose
campuses receive much less in regular education funding intended
to provide the mandated state
curriculum and resources for that curriculum. While the campuses
receive additional special education
dollars and ESL dollars, students served by these supplemental
services for the most part are
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mainstreamed in regular education classes that in neighborhood
Dallas ISD schools are funded at much
lower levels of regular education dollars per student than
surrounding districts and magnet schools
within DISD.
This Title VI civil rights complaint has as its foundation
unequal student access to comparable learning
opportunities based students at-risk status, LEP status, and
special education services compared to
learning opportunities provided non-LEP, and non-SPED and low
percentages of at-risk students who
attend Dallas ISD magnet, Montessori, vanguard, choice, and
non-Title I campuses. These inequities in
access include violations of federal Title I comparability
statutes, violations of use of state compensatory
education monies, questionable use of a PEIMS code for High
School Allotment funding, and constant,
high teacher vacancies at low performing Dallas ISD schools.
The outcomes of these questionable accounting practices and
refusal to adequately staff low performing
schools full of LEP, SPED, and at-risk students include huge
increases in the surplus fund of the District,
leading to claims of a Dallas Miracle which may have been the
basis of a contract extension for the
current Superintendent of Schools in 2014, availability of
funding for pet projects of the Superintendent,
and increased funds for increased layers of central
administrators, many of whom lack credentials or
previous experience in their roles.
The instructional outcomes for what amounts to a shell game of
financial inequity in Dallas ISD included
a 26% rise in failing schools, with most secondary schools
labeled failing remaining on the list of
Improvement Required Schools for consecutive years.
While Dallas ISD claims that it follows Title I comparability
guidelines through a teacher staffing system
and a Title I comparability system, the complainants will bring
pervasive evidence of intentional
inequitable levels of funding as measured by the amount of per
student regular education funding
available on Title I neighborhood campuses compared to magnet
and non-Title 1 campuses loaded with
not only non-comparable levels of regular education dollars, but
also unexplained levels of high school
allotment dollars. While complainants were initially concerned
about the huge gaps in regular education
funding between magnets and neighborhood schools and the gap
between non-Title I schools and low-
funded Title I schools, examination of state records of planned
and actual spending on campuses
pointed to possible illegal supplanting of Title I Part A State
Compensatory Education funds and possible
illegal supplanting of the line item code for High School
Allotment funds. The majority of the illegal
supplanting of State Compensatory Education dollars for regular
education dollars took place in the last
three years. There is documentation provided by state PEIMS
records of a possible $10 million dollars
supplanted out of state compensatory funds out of just five DISD
schools that showed the very lowest
levels of regular education funding. Other schools also showed a
pattern of illegal supplanting of SCE
funds.
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While there is evidence that High School Allotment funds had
been dispensed in the past in a manner
that violated Title I comparability laws, there is also now the
appearance of fraud in High School
Allotment funds that appear to be supplanting regular education
funds in an attempt to free millions in
regular education dollars for other purposes than classroom
instruction.
Parent and community member complaints have also surfaced that
regular education funding levels on
some neighborhood secondary high schools have fallen so low that
supplanting of Title I funds by using
those funds to provide core academic teachers is open knowledge.
This practice is a violation of federal
law:
It is expected that services provided within the district with
state and local funds will be made available
to all attendance areas to all children without discrimination.
The instructional and ancillary services
provided with State and local funds for children in project
areas should be comparable to those provided
for children in the non-project areas, particularly with respect
to class size, special services, and the
number and variety of personnel.
Title I funds, therefore, are not to be used to supplant State
and local funds which are already being
expended in the project areas or which would be expended in
those areas if the services in those areas
were comparable to those for non-project areas.1
Comparability statues were further refined in 2002:
The current statute, reauthorized in 2002, provides that a local
educational agency may receive [Title I
funds] only if State and local funds will be used in [Title I
schools] to provide services that, taken as a
whole, are at least comparable to services in [nonTitle I
schools] (ESEA Section 1120A(c); see Appendix
B for the full text of this section.2
The potential reasons for the illegal schemes to supplant
regular education funding with Title I Part A
SCE funds, with Title I funds, and with High School Allotment
funds might be related to central
administrators mission to not only grow the surplus fund of the
DISD to $500 million3, but also to fund
constant new and expensive initiatives such as Personalized
Learning that lack pedagogical models and
transparent budgets, the increased testing required for a
teacher merit pay system of the
Superintendent, the doubling of the number of academic coaches
and administrators in the District
along with above market pay for central administrators, and
costly high churn in central administrators,
teachers, and principals. On the revenue side, the District does
seem to reap some benefits from
exceptionally high teacher turnover since 416 teaching positions
were vacant on April 6, 2015. The
teacher salary schedule described in the 2014 annual budget also
defines the huge percentage of novice
1
https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/title-i/school-level-expenditures/school-level-expenditures.pdf
2
https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/title-i/school-level-expenditures/school-level-expenditures.pdf
3
http://www.dallasisd.org/cms/lib/TX01001475/Centricity/domain/78/2013-2014/cbrc_021714.pdf
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teachers in Dallas ISD as well as a pay scale that is below
market. Both of thesehigh percentages of
novice teachers and below market starting paygenerate higher
revenue in the District by cutting
teacher compensation but also cut equity for students in teacher
allocations since most of the teacher
churn seems generated by low performing campuses. The constant
churn on these low performing
campuses create schools filled with novice teachers.
In order to determine comparable funding resources for
comparable learning opportunities for all Dallas
ISD students, public records known as PEIMS (Public Education
Information Management System)
documents located on the web site of the Texas Education Agency
were examined. These PEIMS records
documenting actual per student spend on campuses are the
official records. Analysis of these records at
schools that were severely underfunded in 2013-2104 in regular
education dollars showed a pervasive
pattern of illegally supplanting Title I Part A SCE funds. This
illegal supplanting is not a function of
teacher salaries since campuses containing both high percentages
of novice teachers and normal levels
of experience were part of major supplanting of regular
education funds.
Using Regular Education Funds as Measures of Equity
When Channel 8 veteran, investigative reporter Brett Shipp
queried the DISD Superintendent, CFO, and
Trustee Mike Morath in March and April of 2015 regarding the
huge disparity in regular education funds
per student between non-Title I Lakewood Elementary and
extremely low income Stevens Park
Elementary, Trustee Morath clarified the District position by
explaining the regular education funds are
for regular students and many campuses in Dallas ISD didnt have
many regular students.
Trustee Morath only a year earlier led the attempted hostile
takeover of the Dallas Independent School
District in part to attempt to remove duly elected Trustees who
asked too many questions in Board
meetings. Those Trustees have also been targeted by the
Superintendent of Schools for harassment and
bullying.4 Unlike Trustee Morath, the targeted Trustees were
well aware that Regular Education funds
(from property taxes from DISD taxpayers) must fund the mandated
state curriculum for all students
outside special education students in the state of Texas.
From the analysis of PEIMS documents that present evidence of
possible widespread fraud in
supplemental funding, there is legitimate cause for concern that
Trustees were openly harassed by local
media5 who also colluded in the attempt to silence any Board
member who asked legitimate questions
about funding of pet projects of the Superintendent while
funding of DISD classrooms continued to
shrink. As will be seen in the analysis of PEIMS documents,
Trustees did not ask enough questions
regarding local expenditures of tax funds, perhaps because of
pushback from the Superintendent,
4
http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/education/2015/02/11/dallas-isd-probe-clears-nutall-of-
wrongdoing/23220245/ 5
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/06/whos_to_blame_for_all_those_to.php
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Trustees Morath and Solis, and local bloggers who were funded by
corporate interests interested in
removing voting rights from Dallas taxpayers6 or by advertising
revenue based on explicit sex content7.
Unlike Trustee Morath who again appeared in Austin during the
current state legislative session and
tried again to promote a charter model that removes elected
board members from asking questions
regarding the use of local taxpayer funds, professional
educators have no nomenclature for describing
any category known as regular students. Educators and certified
administrators know that regular
programming must be provided all students at every grade level
from the regular education funding per
student. In Dallas, these regular education funds are provided
by local property taxes. There is no
regular student taught from regular funds.
Since students across Dallas ISD campuses are so diverse with
some campuses serving extremely high
populations of LEP students, other campuses serving double the
district percentage of SPED students,
and some campuses focusing exclusively on Advanced Placement
courses provided through regular
education dollars, complainants chose to compare regular
education funding per student in order to
compare access for all students to the core curriculum required
by the state of Texas. The mandated
curriculum as well as enrichment in the form of Advanced
Placement courses and electives in the fine
arts are funded through local property taxes in Dallas ISD and
appear on the PEIMS records as PIC 11.
The core curriculum and all academic electives, including those
now required for HB5 endorsements,
must have their source in regular education funds provided
through property taxes generated by Dallas
taxpayers. Title 1 and State Compensatory Education funds cannot
supplement, or replace, regular
education funding. In some high schools in Dallas ISD, it
appears that in the presence of special
education funds, regular education funds are cut dramatically
even though most special education
students in some schools will appear in regular education
classrooms.
By federal law and state law, all students must have equal
access to the required state curriculum and
the academic electives necessary to earn endorsements under HB5.
Career and Technical Education
(CTE) electives are paid for from state foundation funds. In
Dallas ISD, due to faulty and sometimes
fraudulent DISD funding patterns, some Title I campuses had
almost $2,000 less per student to use for
instruction in the state mandated curriculum. This huge
differential has a small relationship to teacher
experience on different campuses. Even the more extreme
differences in teacher experience levels
from campus to campus rarely account for more than 10% of the
regular expenditures differential
from campus to campus.
While some corporate education reform critics may term the focus
on regular education funding as
attempt at cherry picking a data point, the regular education
funds provided by Dallas taxpayers must
6
http://learningcurve.dmagazine.com/2015/02/18/to-suggest-the-coggins-report-vindicates-nutall-is-absurd/
7
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/06/whos_to_blame_for_all_those_to.php
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by law provide the state-mandated curriculum for all students
except those in special education. Since it
is impossible to determine the level of special education
services necessary for students by examining
campus special education funding, Title I comparability is
better determined by comparing the level of
funding provided for most students for the majority of their
school day which outside Career and
Technical electives is provided by regular education dollars.
State ESL funds supplement the regular
education funding for some students but are not a point of
comparability for magnets and other schools
that dont serve many or any LEP students. At the secondary
level, regular classroom teachers, funded
legally only through regular education dollars, also provide
instruction for both special education and
LEP students. Attempting to use ANY supplemental funding to
determine comparability across campuses
that have no SPED or LEP students because of discriminatory
filtering for acceptance provides a
convenient cover for violations of true Title I
comparability.
While some DISD high school students may be enrolled in Career
and Technical Education (CTE)
coursework, CTE consists of electives. CTE funding does not
measure comparability of resources in the
core curriculum.
This approach of focusing on regular education funds in
isolation from special student services, ESL
funds, compensatory education funds, and CTE funding provided by
state funding is an acceptable
framework for modeling Title I comparability:
When demonstrating compliance with the Title I comparability
requirement, a district may exclude state
and local funds expended for the following:
language instruction education programs;
excess state and local costs of providing services to children
with disabilities, as determined by the
school district; and
state or local supplemental programs in any school attendance
area or school that meet the intent and
purposes of Title I, Part A (Sections 1120A(c)(5) and
1120A(d)).8
In focusing on widely disparate levels of regular education
funding, illegal supplanting of Title I Part A
SCE funds is apparent in Dallas ISD campus funding along with
concerns regarding the supplanting of
Accelerated Education funds which are also SCE funds. Title I
Part A SCE funds should not be used in any
attempt at Title I comparability since these are supplementary
funds that cannot be used as regular
education funds.
8
https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/title-i/school-level-expenditures/school-level-expenditures.pdf
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These state compensatory education funds, appearing on PEIMS
documents as Title I Part A SCE funds
and as Accelerated Education may not supplant regular education
funding that by law must provide the
state foundation program in Texas.
While the Department of Education would not typically audit
state funding sources, the pervasive and
illegal use of these state funds to create a two-tier system of
public education within Dallas ISD meets
the federal purview as well as both blatant and subtle
violations of Title I comparability laws that have
as their basis supplanting of state compensatory education funds
and high school allotment funds. The
machinations used to supplant federal and state compensatory
funds appear so widespread for the last
three years and include so much state compensatory money, along
with possible misuse of high school
allotment funds to provide another avenue of supplanting regular
education dollars, that federal
assistance is needed to determine the scope of the illegal
activity as well as the scope of civil rights
violations of Dallas ISD students.
In addition, the deep cuts to teacher allotments on some
campuses may have provided excuses to use
Title I funds to buy core teachers. This practice is also
illegal, but appears to have been done in order to
have adequate numbers of teachers in light of a school district
that refused in many cases to adequately
resource its Title I campuses.
A. Supplanting of Regular Education Funds by Title I Part A SCE
Funds
Comparing regular education funding at the elementary, middle
and high school levels in Dallas ISD is an
accurate method of determining comparability of resources to
serve the majority of students for the
majority of their school days. While critics may believe huge
gaps in regular education funding are the
result of the percentage of veteran teachers on DISD magnet
campuses compared to low-rated
neighborhood campuses, the gaps were so large between some
non-Title I and Title I campuses that
teacher salaries could not provide an explanation for lack of
comparability. 9
Teacher experience was also dissimilar when comparisons of
extremely low-funded campuses were
compared with each other. One low-funded Title I campus compared
to another at almost the same
level of low funding (with heavy, possibly illegal supplanting
of SCE funds) showed widely varying levels
of teacher experience.
Instead of disparities in teacher experience, what became
apparent in examining the lowest-funded Title
I elementary campuses was the persistent misuse of Title I Part
A SCE funds over a three year period.
As Title I Part A SCE funds drastically increased, the level of
regular education funding decreased just as
9 See second chart on page at
http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2015/03/title-i-complaint-updates-worse-
numbers.html
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dramatically. As TEA spokesperson Debbie Ratcliffe responded
when the head of SCE funding at TEA was
queried about this funding relationship on DISD campuses with
the lowest level of regular education
funding, State Comp Ed funds are supplemental funds and shouldnt
be used to fund the basic
program. When reviewing the use of Comp Ed Funds PIC 11 is not
used.10
When the relationship between the sudden increase in use of SCE
funds and the sudden decrease in
regular education funds on some DISD campuses that are provided
on state PEIMS records PIC 11 is
examined, it is clear that massive supplanting of Title I Part A
SCE funds took place and dramatically
lowered the regular education funding available on some Title I
campuses over the last three years. The
amount of supplanting of regular education funds that took place
generated millions of dollars for other
purposes outside the instruction of Dallas ISD students.
In what are the two most extreme examples, the regular education
funding for A Maceo Smith High
Tech High and the Education Magnet at Townview were almost
eliminated and supplanted with massive
amounts of SCE funds. The Education Magnet was also used to pay
the utilities and food expenses for
several other magnets in what appears to be a fraudulent attempt
to circumvent Title I comparability at
those campuses.
SCE funds are transferred to Dallas ISD each year from the Texas
Education Agency based on the
percentage of DISD students in poverty. SCE funds that are
apportioned to Title I Part A SCE accompany
federal Title I monies in order to strengthen Title I programs.
These funds may not supplant the regular
education funding provided in DISD by local property taxes.
The purpose of the State Compensatory Education (SCE) program is
to supplement the regular or basic
education program with compensatory, intensive, and/or
accelerated instruction. The program
requires Texas public school districts and charter schools to
offer additional accelerated instruction to
each student who meets one or more statutory or locally-defined
eligibility criteria in order to reduce any
disparity in performance on assessment instruments administered
under Subchapter B, Chapter 39 TEC,
or disparity in the rates of high school completion between
students at risk of dropping out of school and
all other LEA students. 11
Instead, in the pattern discovered by huge inequities in regular
education funding, Title I Part A SCE
funds were illegally supplanting regular education dollars on
two magnet campuses and on several
elementary campuses serving high populations of LEP students.
Supplanting regular education funds
essentially nullified the benefit of these SCE funds in
supplementing the needs of campuses with high
percentages of low income students while removing millions in
regular education dollars that could now
10 Email on April 7, 2015 11
http://tea.texas.gov/Texas_Schools/Support_for_At-
isk_Schools_and_Students/State_Compensatory_Education/
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serve the purposes of special projects of central administrators
or feed the surplus fund whose size
became a bragging point for Dallas ISD central administrators
and several Board Trustees.
In fact, the surplus fund, which may have millions of dollars of
what should have been regular education
funds intended for classroom instruction, now became so large in
such a short time that it could now
serve the purpose of a bond program to expand available space at
Lakewood Elementary School
according to Dallas ISD central administrators who developed a
Bridge Plan to finance bond
improvements without the approval of Dallas ISD voters.
The districts financial strength has given us flexibility to
make the best use of our reserves by serving as
a sort of collateral to access funding programs, said Terry.
Having a stronger financial position allows
us to start addressing some of our pressing facilities needs
now, rather than waiting for our next bond
program. Our efforts during the last few years to be fiscally
responsible are paying off for our schools.12
Lakewood Elementary School, a non-Title I school with one of the
highest levels of regular education
funding in Dallas ISD, was the beneficiary of the high level of
funding of the surplus fund when
Lakewood was awarded the district money for a new wing out of a
Bridge Plan that included monies
from the historically high DISD surplus fund in March, 2015.
While many Title I schools had worse
problems than Lakewood in terms of overcrowding and decades of
the use of portables to house
overcrowded students, Lakewood parents rallied around the
Superintendent and were awarded a new
wing in addition to the higher regular education dollars in the
planned budget for 2014-2015 ($5200 per
student) according the PEIMS records for planned campus budgets
for Dallas ISD. The level of regular
education funding per student at Lakewood compared to non-Title
I elementary schools in Dallas is
unexplainable.
At least one Trustee questioned the award of surplus fund money
used as bond money for Lakewood:
Some parents, mostly from Lakewood Elementary School, applauded
and cheered after trustees took the
wee-hour vote. Lakewood is scheduled to receive $12.6 million
for an addition and renovations.
Several trustees voiced concern with the plan especially about
the amount provided for Lakewoods
improvements believing it left out some of the neediest schools.
I dont believe theres equity in it,
trustee Elizabeth Jones said.13
Lakewood Elementary had been compared just days earlier in a
WFAA Channel 8 news investigative
report comparing the high level of regular education funding for
Lakewood students, an elementary
12https://thehub.dallasisd.org/2014/12/25/dallas-isd-poised-to-receive-latest-external-audit/
13
http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2015/03/dallas-isd-trustees-approve-129-5-million-improvement-plan-
after-lengthy-discussion-negotiation.html/
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campus with the lowest level of elementary school poverty and
highest percentage of white students in
the Dallas ISD.
Using a comparability formula for instructional resources that
subtracts Stevens Parks Pre-K program
and bilingual funding, along with its remarkably high
supplanting of regular education dollars, Lakewood
was allotted a total of $5056 in classroom instructional dollars
compared to a total of $3479 for Stevens
Park, a high poverty, high LEP elementary school south of I30.
The source of differentials in regular
education dollars between these two schools cannot be explained
by the high number of veteran
teachers on the campus of Lakewood compared to Stevens Park,
formerly an IR campus.14
Source of the Increased Size of the District Surplus Fund
None of the corporate reform Trustees Morath or Solis, or Dallas
media, questioned the fact that the
surplus fund of Dallas Independent School District, a district
with one of the highest student poverty
rates in the state, had grown so substantially during a time of
state cuts to the foundation program. The
same school year that Skyline High School was so underfunded
that Skyline had to use almost an extra
million dollars from the High School Allotment fund to keep its
doors open (funds whose source are not
apparent from public records since the state did not award DISD
the amount of High School Allotment
funds that were channeled through that PEIMS code), the
Superintendent and central staff were loudly
proclaiming their happiness with the financial state of the
District on the taxpayer-financed Hub
intended to be a public relations vehicle for the
Superintendent:
Dallas ISD closed the 2013-14 school year with a record amount
in its fund balance: $342 million, up from
$37 million in 2007-08. A rising fund balance and consecutive
clean audits signal that the financial issues
experienced by the district six years ago are history. Dallas
ISD is stewarding taxpayers money wisely.
We have taken major steps forward during the last few years to
improve our financial condition and
operation, said Mike Miles, superintendent of schools. Our
financial team has done an outstanding job
in putting in place strong internal controls that align with
state practices. The teams careful
management of district resources has put us in position to be in
the best financial condition in school
district history.
14 See second chart on page at
http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2015/03/title-i-complaint-updates-
worse-numbers.html
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Indeed, in many corporate education reform circles in Dallas,
this feat of rapidly increasing the surplus
fund was known as The Dallas Miracle.15 One blogger, financed by
the group who advocated a
mayoral takeover of Dallas ISD, called for an extension of
Superintendent Mike Miles contract.16
With the support of the President of the Dallas School Board,
Miguel Solis, (a former employee of the
Superintendent and employee of Ken Barth) and without the
available student achievement data
showing a 26% increase in the number of Dallas failing schools,
the Superintendent received an early
contract renewal in July of 2014, perhaps due mainly to the
Dallas Miracle.
When the annual PEG list of failing schools in addition to the
added high schools rated Improvement
Required were released to the public after the renewal of the
Superintendents contract, the list had
grown substantially. Indeed almost a third of DISDs campuses are
on the Public Education Grant (PEG)
list of campuses rated lowest in the state, but this increase in
failures was never correlated to the high
number of middle and high school campuses that were severely
underfunded during the years leading
to the Dallas Miracle.
As shown below, Dallas middle schools and high schools on the
Improvement Required list were
severely underfunded compared with Title I campuses in bordering
school districts with the same level
of revenue and compared to Austin ISD which funded its IR
campuses with almost double the resources
available to Dallas IR campuses.
Perhaps as a result of a floor on regular education funding
before the addition of supplementary
funding, both Irving ISD and Austin ISD saw a decrease in
schools on the annual PEG list of 2015-2106.
Austin ISD in particular used a high regular education floor
before adding heavy amounts of state and
federal compensatory education dollars to its failing campuses
and spent almost double the amount on
its IR schools that Dallas ISD allotted during the same
period.
15 https://thehub.dallasisd.org/2014/11/26/88/ 16
http://learningcurve.dmagazine.com/2014/06/25/the-dallas-miracle-how-data-show-mike-miles-deserves-a-
new-contract/
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Dallas ISD schools that were underfunded are some of the lowest
rated schools in the entire state of
Texas and the chart above includes the total campus spend for
each school. After the 2012-2013 school
year with Browne one of the lowest rated IR middle schools in
the state, Dallas ISD cut its total
expenditures funding even more, to $6162 per student in its
planned PEIMS budget for 2013-2014 with
a regular education funding of only $3631 per student.
Frisco ISD has no Title I campuses, but it is apparent from the
low funding provided Dallas ISD middle
schools that students would have been provided more dollars for
classroom instruction if they were able
to move to a school district with a focus on instructional
excellence and equity rather than a district
whose Trustees and the media were focused on building a huge
surplus fund from possible illegal
skimming of classroom dollars from the campuses of low income
LEP students.
Spruce High School, with its constant failing ratings, teacher
churn, and principal churn, had $2300 less
dollars in regular education funds before adding compensatory
education dollars than did Frisco High
School. Frisco High School students also had the advantage of
CTE classes in every category available at
a district Career Center. Austin ISD awarded its failing IR LBJ
High School $2,000 more in regular
education funds than did Dallas ISD for Spruce High School.
For Brown Middle School, rated one of the worst and lowest
performing in the state of Texas, to be
provided a total student funding of $6392 while a middle school
in Frisco receives a thousand dollars
more per student is inexplicable.
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Hector Garcia is also an Improvement Required middle school in
Dallas ISD and it is also underfunded.
DESA is a magnet middle school in Dallas ISD, and as such,
receives more funding than failing middle
schools loaded with huge percentages of SPED students.
Austin ISD put an increased floor of regular education spending
on its failing campuses and added
thousands to the floor to almost double the funding available on
Dallas ISD failing campuses.
As a result, Austin ISD is making progress in lowering the
number of its PEG list campuses while those on
the PEG list in Dallas ISD continue to increase.
It is hard to believe that stripping adequate and necessary
resources from these schools was not a
strategy to increase the surplus fund in Dallas ISD. Frisco ISD
and Austin ISD were undergoing the same
pain from state budget cuts as was Dallas ISD, yet their regular
education dollars were not removed
from their schools. Dallas ISD in its 2013-2014 budget pulled an
additional $15.7 million dollars off its
campuses even though DISD has historically contained some of the
worst schools in the state,
especially at the secondary level and even though DISD schools
have a slow rate of leaving IR status.
In viewing the following chart illustrating gross supplanting of
state compensatory funds through the
PEIMS code for Title I Part A SCE funds, it is apparent that
millions in regular education funding were
illegally supplanted with SCE funds over a period of three
years.
This supplanting creates several problems. Title I Part A SCE
funds should never be used in any Title I
comparability formula since these funds may never be used to
supplant regular education funding.
Regular education funding must be adequate on its own, with
addition of special education funds, to
provide instruction in the state-mandated curriculum for all
students. Instead, over a period of three
years, Dallas ISD removed millions in regular education funds
that may have then made their way to the
surplus fund.
Second, these schools were deprived of supplementary funding on
top of the regular education dollars
provided by local taxpayers because of massive supplanting of
SCE funds.
When taxpayers from Lakewood Elementary peruse PEIMS records,
they may see no disparities. In fact,
Steven Park appears to have more programming money per student
than Lakewood. This is untrue.
Lakewood does not have a Pre-K program and Lakewood should not
be receiving SCE funds, and the
SCE funding for Stevens Park cannot be used for comparability
for access to the regular education
program at any school. Removing the funding for Pre-K and SCE
funds shows a huge discrepancy in
funding with the non-Title I campus favored by its high,
unexplained District allocation.
The Dallas Miracle seems to have been based on the removal of
constitutional guarantees of
adequacy and equity in funding the campuses of Dallas ISD where
the lowest rated schools filled with
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SPED, LEP, and at-risk students had not only the necessary
funding removed, but constitutional
guarantees of equal protection compared to magnet schools and
schools of choice and non-Title I
schools.
This same Dallas Miracle earned awards for the CFO of Dallas ISD
and was the basis of an early
contract renewal for the Superintendent of Schools, yet not one
financial officer or central administrator
who had to have been well aware of the gross supplanting of
regular education dollars has ever
contacted local, state, or federal officials regarding what the
PEIMS records clearly indicate: fraud in the
use of SCE funds. Even after a Channel 8 investigation into the
lowered regular education funding of
Stevens Park, the Superintendent, CFO, nor District financial
analysts have apprised the public of
potential fraud in SCE funding.
Instead, Trustees are annually given budget slides that
presented a picture of comparability of spend
and staffing across campuses in Dallas ISD. At $2,000 per
student difference in regular education
funding, it is not possible for comparable access to occur
across Dallas ISD campuses.
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Regular education dollars saved were computed by using the
2014-2015 regular education amounts for
each school as the baseline that could have been used regular
education funding for 2011-2012 through
2013-2014. Millions of dollars of regular education funds were
supplanted from only 5 schools.
The use of Accelerated Education SCE dollars is problematic at
High Tech High since it is a magnet that
filters students for admission and DISD high schools actually
full of at-risk students did not receive this
funding. It may be that federal School Improvement Grants (SIG)
were the actual source of these million
dollar grants, and if so, these funds were not supposed to serve
the purpose of regular funds for the
instructional program. SIG monies may not supplant regular
education funds but PEIMS records indicate
that may have occurred in $20 million worth of SIG grants
awarded HG Spruce, Roosevelt, North Dallas,
and High Tech High. In each case, regular education funds
dropped when large sums in Accelerated
Education appeared. In the case of Spruce, regular education
funding dropped to only $2200 a student
which is unheard of at the high school level. No high school in
Texas full of at-risk students can be
operated on $2200 in regular education funds without supplanting
from other funds.
B. Creating Inequities and Supplanting with the High School
Allotment Funds
In a similar scenario to the sudden appearance of millions of
dollars of Title 1 Part A SCE funds appearing
to crowd out regular education dollars on some DISD campuses in
the last few years, the High School
Allotment fund was used to backdoor classroom instructional
funds into certain magnet and choice
schools, a trend that intensified under the current
administration. Three thousand dollars per student
were added at the TAG magnet at Townview while TAGs per student
cost of utilities and maintenance
disappeared, perhaps reappearing at the Education Magnet.
These violations in Title I comparability are also gross
violations of Equal Protection guarantees of most
neighborhood high schools that did not receive special treatment
in the form of $3000 per student in
high school allotment funds.
Since the magnets for the most part do not admit SPED or LEP
students who are heavily segregated in IR
high schools, the back door supplanting of regular education
funds with large sums of funding from the
High School Allotment are violations of Equal Protection
guarantees for high school LEP and SPED as well
as at-risk students in DISD who did not have the availability of
those funds on their campuses in addition
to the higher funding in regular education dollars afforded
magnet campuses.
This violation of Title 1 comparability formulas flew under the
radar at TAG as did similar violations at
the School of Engineering Magnet. These violations of Title 1
comparability also appear to have taken
place at Obama, Rangel, and some other of the high school
magnets, but in the extremes that occurred,
it appears that the scheme to supplant state or federal funds
for regular education funding was growing
from the successes already encountered by supplanting large sums
of Title I Part A SCE funds in place of
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regular education monies. As this supplanting grew, millions of
dollars in regular education funds could
have been moved to grow the historically large surplus fund.
As demonstrated below, under the current Administration, the
High School Allotment planned and
actual expenditures for 2012-2013 to the planned expenditures
for 2014-2105 took a very strange turn
in that state funds that had traditionally ranged from $9.4
million in expenditures suddenly exploded to
$17.5 million in 2013-2014 with planned expenditures of $23
million in 2014-2015 according to PEIMS
records of planned budgets for 2014-2015.
It is impossible for actual state funding for the High School
Allotment to grow in this manner without a
doubling of the number of high school students in Dallas ISD. A
quick look at the DISD web portal,
MyDataPortal, shows that the high school population of Dallas
public schools did not double during this
time, but the funds of $275 provided by the state of Texas for
every DISD high school student (based on
Average Daily Attendance) that appeared in the High School
Allotment fund for Dallas ISD was on its way
to gigantic increases.
A check of the TEA portal for state foundation funding
describing enrollment and ADA along with the
state figures for Dallas ISD high school allotment shows a total
for High School Allotment of $9,590,144
on November 17, 2014.17 How this fund grew on its own inside
Dallas ISD is not explained in terms of
what monies from what source were added to it and why those
funds were used to cover the entire
instructional program of the Early Colleges, an accounting trick
that could have added $4.3 million to the
surplus fund or any other project deemed important by central
administration.
17https://wfspcprdap1b16.tea.state.tx.us/Fsp/Reports/CrystalReportViewer.aspx?rpt=6&year=2014&run=12602&c
dn=
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These unexplained increases in High School Allotment were used
to back-door instructional funds to
magnets and to cover the entire instructional expenditures of
the Early Colleges in 2013-2104.
These increases in the total funds that appeared in the High
School Allotment budget added insignificant
amounts to two failing high schools, Lincoln and Pinkston, but
raised the amount of classroom monies
available to the magnets and Early Colleges significantly.
The purposes of the High School Allotment are clear.18
Purpose:
The High School Allotment (HSA) was created by the Texas
Legislature in 2006 to:
prepare underachieving students to enter institutions of higher
education
encourage students to pursue advanced academic opportunities
provide opportunities for students to take academically rigorous
courses
align secondary and postsecondary curriculum and
expectations
support other promising high school completion and success
initiatives in Grades 6-12 approved
by the commissioner of education
Allowable Uses of HSA Funds
Districts may use funds for campus-level or district-wide
initiatives for students in grades 6-12. Allowable
uses include:
professional development for teachers providing instruction in
advanced academic courses such
as Advanced Placement (AP)
hiring of additional teachers to allow for smaller class sizes
in critical content areas
fees for students taking dual credit classes and ACT/SAT
tests
academic support, such as AVID and AP strategies, to support
at-risk students in challenging
courses
credit recovery programs
activities supporting college readiness and awareness, including
transportation for college visits
18
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None of the stated purposes of the High School Allotment would
have gerrymandered the lowest
performing high schools out of their fair share of High School
Allotment funds, nor do the stated
purposes for the money include increasing disparities between
magnet campuses that have few or no
LEP or SPED students and IR campuses with double the district
percentages of these students.
Dallas ISD central budget administrators violated the civil
rights of LEP and SPED and at-risk students
through a pervasive pattern of loading high school campuses with
few of these students with huge
additions of instructional resources and funding while
eliminating equal learning opportunities on
neighborhood campuses that received much less than their fair
share of High School Allotment funds
and serve high percentages of LEP, SPED, and at-risk
students.
The High School Allotment was never intended to be a method of
circumventing Title I comparability
formulas, but that appears to be the purpose when adding $3,000
a student to a magnet school, a fact
not reported to the Board of Trustees in annual budget overviews
describing comparable spends per
student on Dallas ISD campuses.
In addition to this blatant civil rights violation of Equal
Protection, there appears to be yet another
example of inequities in funding providing a red flag for DISD
financial protocols that seem to remove
regular education funding from Dallas classrooms for other
purposes. That district financial personnel
were not aware of the fact that the High School Allotment fund
contained increasingly huge sums that
were not the result of state monies is not believable, yet no
one has come forward to explain the
misdirected funds or their source other than to state than $19
million in high school allotment funds
would have to be recoded. Funds that were misallocated cannot be
simply recoded.
No Board agenda has contained any mention of communicating this
fact with the Board of Trustees
along with a statement regarding how these funds were
misdirected or their source.
The Dallas high schools with lower than their equitable
allotment of High School Allotment funds had no
method of expanding Advanced Placement course offerings or
offering a wider scope of academic
electives to meet the endorsement requirements of House Bill
5.
In addition to losing out on millions in High School Allotment
funds, these Title I neighborhood high
schools are underfunded compared to surrounding traditional
public school districts bordering Dallas
ISD. Students in these underfunded high schools that also had
their equitable share of High School
Allotment funds removed did not have comparable educational
services on their campuses compared to
the learning opportunities available on the magnet school
campuses that were loaded up with High
School Allotment funds.
These magnets have a broader array of Advanced Placement
courses, the most experienced AP
teachers, and much more funding per student in order to decrease
class sizes.
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Advanced Placement scores, outside increased pass rates for
native Speakers of Spanish in Advanced
Placement Spanish classes, remain extremely low when compared to
student success at the magnet
schools.
Of the sometimes grossly underfunded campuses listed above, four
high schools were rated
Improvement Required in the last round of state accountability
ratings. As will be seen in the next
section of this Title VI complaint, many high schools in Dallas
ISD were and are extremely underfunded
in the regular education funds provided them by the District. In
addition, many campuses are under
extreme pressure with high levels of teacher openings that are
not being filled in a timely manner, and
these understaffed schools are seldom magnet schools that do not
serve LEP, SPED, or substantial
numbers of at-risk students.
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High schools that must meet the requirements of House Bill 5
have no sources of LEGALLY funding the
increased requirements in the academic core in order for all
DISD high school students to have a chance
at pursuing endorsements that require academic electives beyond
the requirements for graduation.
With the low levels of regular education funding for Dallas
neighborhood high schools, the high school
allotment is the only source of funding enrichments.
Supplemental state compensatory education and
Title I funds are intended to supplement the required state
curriculum, not replace it.
The neighborhood high schools that were donor schools to the
magnets have no options in
programming because of inequities in funding by Dallas ISD.
That opportunity is not spread equitably or adequately among
Dallas comprehensive high schools and
results in another Equal Protection violation for the donor
schools who had their fair share of high
school allotment dollars removed and sent mainly to magnet and
Early Colleges who do not accept LEP,
SPED, or high numbers of at-risk students.
Skyline High School was one of the lowest funded high schools in
the state in 2013-2014 at only $2500
per student in regular education funding. Skylines strange
increase in high school allotment funds
seems to be an attempt to provide the school with necessary
operating capital, not enrichment
activities. Since it would have been difficult to actually pull
almost a million dollars in high school
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allotment funds away from only 20 other neighborhood high
schools, it appears in the example of
Skyline that these funds were being used to keep regular
education dollars off the books by bypassing
the regular education funds. The actual source of this extra
million dollars at Skyline is unknown since
the Dallas ISD High School Allotment fund contains funds double
the amount received from the state of
Texas.
While Skyline operates both as a magnet and neighborhood school,
neighboring Allen ISD has a high
school of comparable size that was funded in regular education
funds at $3387, or $887 more per
student than Skyline in 2013-2014. Even $800 more in regular
education funding for Skyline would have
cost Dallas ISD $3.7 million in regular education funding.
Instead, Dallas ISD used what should have been state-provided
high school allotment funds in tandem
with state compensatory education funds to dramatically lower
its regular education funding of Skyline.
Other than the year HG Spruce used either a SIG grant or
Accelerated Education funds to lower its
regular education spending to $2200 per student, these low rates
of regular education dollars are
extremely rare.
Making comparison to non-Title I schools also points out a major
weakness in using Total Program
Operating Expenditures for comparability purposes when comparing
a Title I school to a non-Title I
school. Skyline received $3.5 million in Title I Part A SCE
funds. This $3.5 million in SCE funds accounts
for much of Skylines classroom operating funds, leaving the
question of how a major urban high school
was able to deliver the state mandated curriculum and any
academic electives on $2500 a student.
Skyline was running almost half its instructional funding off
high school allotment dollars and SCE
supplementary funding. Neither of these funds was intended for
these purposes, yet they freed up
around $3.5 million that was spent in Allen, Texas at its major
high school on its classroom instruction
funded through regular program dollars.
For the magnets, huge allotments of high school allotment funds
were used to bolster extremely high
amounts of regular education funding. These high school
allotment additions were not used to compute
Title I comparability.
In the examples of the Early Colleges in actual spending in
2013-2104, there is no known reason to
remove almost all regular education funding from these campuses
and supplant with high school
allotment funds other than the use of regular education funds
for some other purpose than classroom
instruction. The other purposes could include the growth of the
surplus fund, above market salaries for
the growing layers of central management, or pet projects of the
Superintendent such as the Leadership
Academy.
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In the examples of SCE supplanting added to a possible $19
million in recoding High School
Allotment funds, $31 million in SCE and High School Allotment
funds may have been illegally used to
create $31 million in regular education dollars.
As will be seen the disparities in regular education funding of
Title I Dallas ISD campuses compared to
surrounding school districts presented another avenue of
skimming regular education dollars either
for the surplus fund, pet projects, or bloated central
administration.
Aside from legal issues in misuse of funds, disparities in
comparable access for LEP, SPED, and at-risk
students increased due to The Dallas Miracle which was used as
the reason for early renewal of the
Superintendents contract.
C. Supplanting Title I Funds: Allocating Federal Dollars for
Core Academic Teachers
Over the past years, due in part to state foundation cuts,
Dallas ISD has cut around 350 high school
teachers from its campuses. In addition, by April of 2015, DISD
listed more than 400 classroom teacher
vacancies which were concentrated on some of the Districts
lowest performing campuses in addition
to the cuts that had already removed permanent teaching
positions.
While state cuts were partially restored and increased property
values began increasing per student
revenue over the last few years in Dallas ISD, neighborhood high
school campuses have not witnessed
the return of teachers to many high school campuses that had
extreme cuts in faculty.
In addition to being short 30 teachers or more from past years,
campuses such as Sunset High School
also received much less in total programming dollars than
comparable high schools in districts bordering
Dallas ISD. Underfunding middle and high school campuses were
not results of being a property poor
school district. Dallas ISD is a property rich district with
comparable per student revenue to Highland
Park ISD.
Reports from community members serving on Site Based Decision
Committees document the use of
Title I funds to compensate academic core teachers because of
the severe underfunding of campuses.
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This is a violation of Title I statutes and a violation of the
Equal Protection Guarantees of students on
underfunded campuses.
D. Using Teacher Vacancies for Revenue Generation for The Dallas
Miracle
Since the state cuts in 2011, there have been persistent reports
that Dallas ISDs central administration
intended to lower teacher compensation by removing any
compensation benefit for veteran teachers
along with removing the percentage of veteran teachers. Reports
from the meetings between central
administration and the Citizens Budget Committee document
concerns that Dallas ISD veteran teachers
were overpaid and too numerous.
In a disingenuous manner, teacher pay in Dallas ISD was
benchmarked against teacher compensation in
Richardson ISD and Garland ISD with no context of the lower
student revenue in these two districts
compared to Dallas ISD, nor was actual teacher workload compared
between the two districts.
Richardson ISD teachers at that time had a daily load of
students that was much lower than Dallas ISD
teacher loads.
Slides prepared for the Citizens Budget Review Committee for the
2014 Budget showed that since 2006,
Dallas ISD had offloaded almost 800 teachers and was spending by
2013-2104 less than the state
average on instruction in a district with one of the highest
rates of student poverty in Texas in a city with
the highest rate of child poverty in the nation.
The current Superintendents administration magnified the drift
toward taking instructional dollars from
the classroom when regular education dollars for campuses with
high risk students were lowered and
supplanted with state compensatory education dollars and high
school allotment funds.
When the current Superintendent was hired, starting pay for
teachers in Dallas ISD was lowered while
the salaries paid the Cabinet members recruited by Miles had no
ceiling or market comparables. One
marketing recruit from the Superintendents former district was
given a $100,000 raise to relocate to
Dallas ISD and was gone after a year. Other cabinet recruits
were extended the same favors while Chiefs
who stayed apparently determined their own raises by simply
e-mailing the Superintendent.19 Raises
handed out to the top central administrators averaged increases
in compensation of 14%.
As journalist Matthew Haag reported, Another hallmark of Miles
tenure in Dallas ISD has been his
reliance on young, inexperienced employees in top administrative
jobs. Six DISD employees age 30 or
19
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20141027-record-number-of-dallas-isd-administrators-make-
more-than-100000-analysis-shows.ece
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younger make more than $100,000; no one that age made that much
under former Superintendent
Michael Hinojosa.
In comparison, the average teacher salary in Dallas ISD was
lowered due to what many considered to be
pressure to remove veteran teachers through bullying and
non-renewals and the illegal preferential
hiring patterns of Teach for America recruits. The
Superintendent made remarks to the media
concerning a preference for fresh and young teachers.20 Fresh
and young TFA teachers did reach
critical mass during Miles tenure at failing schools such as
Dade Middle School where chaos reigned
most of the 2014-2105 school year and where in violation of NCLB
statutes, the failing minority school
with an exceptionally high percentage of special education
students was staffed with a majority of
inexperienced TFA teachers.
In preparing the 2014-2015 budget, the current administration
had skewed teacher salaries to a point
that 45.85% of Dallas ISD teachers were at $49,000 or below.
That translated into almost half the
teaching force of Dallas ISD making much less than the starting
salary for a teaching candidate with a
bachelors degree in Irving ISD at $51,000 in 2014-2105, a salary
which also included free health
insurance. In April of 2015, when Dallas ISD teaching vacancies
hit 416, Irving ISD, a much smaller
district, 22% the size if DISD, had less than 10 teaching
vacancies. If Irving has the same proportion of
vacancies as DISD they would have had 92 vacancies, over 900%
more than they actually have!
The previous two Chiefs of Human Capital had no former
experience in their roles as head of Human
Capital before being recruited to Dallas ISD through the Teach
for America pipeline that affords illegal
and unconstitutional preferential hiring to present and former
TFA recruits. Former TFA Carmen Deville
resigned with a compensation package after being caught in a
texting scandal that demonstrated
numerous violations in employment practices.
While the current Superintendent of DISD made huge claims to
having solved the problem of teacher
vacancies that were severe during his first two years in office,
those claims seem to have no substance
when looking at the actual openings that were available when the
former head of HR possibly over hired
the wrong type of teachers at the beginning of the school year,
leading to a $6 million dollar mistake
with no accountability.
By April of 2015, Miles administration had the same issue that
has been problematic since the hiring of
former TFA Charles Glover who spent the first summer with the
District recruiting Cabinet members
rather than teachers. Many failing and vulnerable schools had
double digit openings that were never
filled during Miles first year.
20
http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2012/10/some-credibility-issues-with-mike-miles-disd-
superintendent.html/
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Title VI Complaints filed 4-21-15 (replacing those filed
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The current school year has the same issues with the highest
teacher vacancies occurring in schools full
of SPED, LEP, and at-risk students compared with few vacancies
at magnets that filter out LEP and SPED
students.
Major inequities are clear in funding patterns that
intentionally seem to limit the regular education
dollars assigned neighborhood high schools in Dallas ISD.
Indeed, whether there are even adequate
dollars on the campuses of low-rated, comprehensive high schools
in Dallas ISD in order to remove high
schools and middle schools from IR lists could be
questioned.
The fact that TAG and Science and Engineering received thousands
of dollars per student in High School
Allotment funds on top of high regular education dollars
eliminates any comparability between the
magnets with low percentages of LEP and SPED students and IR
schools with averages higher than
district percentages of LEP, SPED, and at-risk students.
High numbers of teacher vacancies are common in Dallas ISD
outside the magnet and vanguard schools
which seldom have more than a couple of vacancies during the
school year.
The following chart defines the campuses with the highest number
of classroom vacancies as of April 6,
2015.
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Title VI Complaints filed 4-21-15 (replacing those filed
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As with funding disparities between Title I and non-Title
schools and between neighborhood and
comprehensive schools, teacher vacancies are disproportionately
a feature of IR schools and schools on
the PEG list.
These disparities in providing classroom teachers to schools
with high LEP, SPED, and at-risk student
populations is another violation of the Equal Protection rights
of these students.
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Title VI Complaints filed 4-21-15 (replacing those filed
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The extremely high rate of teacher vacancies at failing schools
disproportionately impacts LEP, SPED,
and at-risk students, depriving these students of comparable
learning opportunities when compared
to magnet and choice schools in Dallas ISD and depriving
students of the Equal Protection guarantees
given them through the United States Constitution. This pattern
of extremely high teacher vacancies
at vulnerable schools has been persistent through the tenure of
the current Superintendent.
That these high vacancies can generate revenue for the surplus
fund is not in question and may be
documented through District records. That these high vacancies
lower learning opportunities is
apparent when vacancies are compared between high risk schools
and the magnet and choice schools.
Summary
Questions regarding equity and large differentials in campus
funding between neighborhood and
magnet Dallas ISD schools were the original concerns of
complainants whose children attend
underfunded high schools or middle schools or who are community
members in neighborhoods with
underfunded schools. Few Dallas ISD Trustees seem capable of
asking substantive questions regarding
equity of classroom funding in Dallas ISD, perhaps due to a
climate of retaliation by the Superintendent
against those Trustees who question The Dallas Miracle or its
source of funding during a period of
state cuts to public education. Indeed, parents in Dallas ISD
cannot even ask questions about District
directives without retaliation against a proven principal for
not shutting down the First Amendment
rights of parents.21
The Editorial Board of The Dallas Morning News, along with
bloggers sponsored by those who support a
hostile takeover of public schools and alternative media funded
through salacious advertising,
performed no analysis of the sources of funding of The Dallas
Miracle. The huge increase in surplus
funds of Dallas ISD went totally unquestioned except for a few
Board members who are regularly
demonized in most local media and are targeted by reform PACS,
including those of the Dallas Mayor
and Ken Barth whose own child attended a magnet with the highest
level of regular education funding.
When questioned by veteran, investigative Channel 8 journalist,
Brett Shipp, about the huge regular
education funding disparities on Dallas ISD campuses, Trustee
Mike Morath decided to speak in place of
the Superintendent and CFO and used the explanation that regular
funds are for regular students. This
explanation by a Board member, who has repeatedly sought to
remove duly elected Board members
who ask questions about the budget, is both laughable and
shocking in its inaccuracy.
21
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/headlines/20150416-disd-tells-popular-oak-cliff-principal-she-
wont-be-back-next-year.ece
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Title VI Complaints filed 4-21-15 (replacing those filed
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In this climate of fear of retaliation by a Superintendent who
has twice been found to be the source of
retaliatory actions against duly elected Board members, few DISD
Trustees also questioned gross
campus funding disparities that negatively impact SPED, LEP, and
at-risk students disproportionately.
These disparities are unconstitutional and some have as their
source potential illegal use of public funds.
Yet, no public discussion by the Board of Trustees took place
regarding the increasingly high level of the
surplus fund while low performing campuses lacked basic teacher
staffing and low performing campuses
churned through teachers and principals during the entire three
years of the current administration.
Trustees were told these actions were all part of Broad-driven
disruptive reform and the
Superintendent of Schools continued to be awarded financing for
various pet projects that mostly failed
to accomplish results. The Dallas Mayor, along with his
Education PACs, continued to support the
Superintendent and Board members who support disruptive
reform.
Indeed, the Superintendent, aided by the President of the Board,
Miguel Solis, may have profited by the
gross disparities in funding and illegal use of SCE funds that
potentially grew The Dallas Miracle and
the surplus fund of Dallas ISD. The Superintendent was given an
early contract renewal with a disregard
for increases in failing campuses. The sole motivation for the
early contract renewal seems to have been
the unquestioned size of the DISD surplus fund. School Board
President Solis called the Board to a
meeting in July, 2014, when the District was closed in order to
renew the Superintendents contract. By
August 2014 the failing schools would have been public
knowledge. Solis demanded the Board renew in
July 2014 before the increase in Improvement Required (IR)
schools became public even though the
District had the test scores from the State documenting this
achievement disaster.
Trustee Miguel Solis also led the machinations that allowed the
Superintendent to receive a bonus
perhaps based on high school credit recovery fraud in September,
2014. This credit recovery fraud was
the basis of increased graduation rates.
President Solis also violated the law by not reconvening the
Board in public session after the closed
session held on the Superintendents appraisal.
Closer examination and analysis of the level of Dallas ISD
regular education funding, by law the only legal
funding for the state mandated curriculum for all students
outside those served by special education,
appears to be capricious and arbitrary and unrelated to
requirements for Title I comparability in services
before the addition of any supplemental state or federal funds.
The absence of visible special education
support for students mainstreamed into regular education classes
is included in this Title VI complaint in
a different section. While special education funds do legally
supplement regular education funds in all IR
secondary schools that are loaded with high percentages of
special education students, low levels of
regular education funding impact all students on IR secondary
campuses including SPED, LEP and at-
risk student since these students take the majority of their
coursework in regular education
classrooms.
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Title VI Complaints filed 4-21-15 (replacing those filed
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An examination of regular education funding on Title I,
non-Title I, and magnet campuses uncovered
severe, potentially illegal violations of state compensatory
education funding that is Title I Part A SCE
funding intended to accompany and strengthen Title I funding.
SCE funds were also misused on several
other campuses in order to generate millions in extra regular
education funds.
State statutes prohibit the use of these funds to supplant
regular education dollars.
SCE costs may supplement the costs of the regular education
program and may be used for costs of
programs and/or services that are supplemental to the regular
education program and are designed for
students at risk of dropping out of school. LEAs are prohibited
from using FSP compensatory education
resource allocations for students at risk of dropping out of
school to supplant resource allocations for the
regular education program. The term regular education program
applies to basic instructional services to
which all eligible students are entitled.22
Ironically, the planned budgets for high school campuses in
Dallas ISD for 2014-2015 as recorded in state
PEIMS records show no Accelerated Instruction funding that was
mandated by House Bill 5 for all high
school students who failed any End of Course exam required by
the state.
Because complainants also had concerns regarding the use of High
School Allotment funds, an
examination of the removal of funds from high schools with high
levels of poverty and the transfer of
these funds to magnet schools with high levels of regular
education funding was analyzed. In the
analysis, it became clear that the High School Allotment funds
contained many more dollars than were
available from state funding and seemed to be being used to
totally supplant regular education dollars
at the Early Colleges while granting magnet schools immense
instructional dollars compared to
neighborhood and IR high schools. This was the second instance
of what appears to be substantial fraud
in sourcing campuses in Dallas ISD.
The third potential area of illegal activity is the use of Title
I funds to compensate core academic
teachers because the level of regular education funding has
fallen so low on some campuses that
supplanting with federal dollars seems to be the only
choice.
Finally, hundreds of teacher vacancies since the arrival of the
current Superintendent seem to be a
revenue generating feature for the surplus fund and other pet
projects. That a school district would
allow 416 vacancies, mostly in low performing urban schools in
the spring of the school year, is a
violation of the equal protection rights of these students with
no teachers. These same students are the
victims of record-high churn rates in principals and teachers
that seem to be part of the Broad-designed
disruptive reform of the present Superintendent.
22 http://www.esc20.net/users/0039/docs/CompedV14[1].pdf
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Title VI Complaints filed 4-21-15 (replacing those filed
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The Dallas Miracle, correlated to the extension of the
Superintendents contract in a move led by
Board President Miguel Solis, is relevant to unconstitutional
violations of Equal Protection rights of DISD
SPED, LEP, and at-risk students whose campuses were underfunded
and who lacked equal protection in
the staffing of classroom teachers as evidenced by the 416
teacher vacancies in the spring of 2015.
These vacancies disproportionately impacted IR schools and
neighborhood schools that do not filter out
at-risk, LEP, and SPED students.
Violations of comparability necessary for Title I comparability
are also raised through an analysis of
teacher vacancies, high churn, and regular education funding
patterns which decreased class size on
campuses with few or none SPED and LEP students while negatively
impacting the campuses with high
percentages of these students.
Academic Harm to Students Dallas Miracle
1. Dallas ISD has 43 schools on the Improvement Required list
from the Texas Education Agency
(TEA). There is no cutoff standard on passing STAAR scores under
the current rating system. The
current system identifies the worst schools in the state for IR
status. Most significantly, DISD has
three schools on the list that have been identified for four
consecutive years23 when only 5
schools in the state have been identified for that distinction
and the majority of IR schools in
Texas only maintain IR status for only one year. Pinkston,
Roosevelt, and TW Browne Middle
School have three consecutive years of IR status, yet TW Browne
was one of the lowest-funded
middle schools in Dallas ISD.
2. Only 6383 high school students in Dallas ISD Class of 2015
would have attended the normal
spring 2015 graduation if the state of Texas had maintained its
standard of requiring the passage
of five End of Course exams and if the current dates had been
maintained for receipt of the final
EOC testing return dates.
3. Attrition in high school students has climbed in the 2015
senior cohort with potential higher
dropout rates and lower on time completion rates, yet needed
funds for Accelerated Instruction
at the high school level were not present on PEIMS reports
indicating a lack of planning for
following HB5 which required first priority for high school
st