DALLAS ISD

Posted by park @ 1:30 PM Thu, Feb 07, 2008

Thank you so much for this report. The data is going to be diluted in the future when retirements and the teacher shortage affect most schools.
While the public understands the importance of the coach in sports, the myth that low income parents are the basis of the achievement gap is alive and well.
If DISD would release where the lowest quadrant teachers (CIE) are concentrated in terms of schools, the public would have some insight on this issue. This would not release confidential teacher ratings if no names were attached to the data.
Some low-performing teachers are getting a free ride if they stay beneath the radar at a magnet school where overachieving kids make up for their shoddy performance.
The School Effectiveness Indices will tell part of the story, and the data is public. How about releasing the annual school results for the past 15 years?

Posted by Mandy @ 1:41 PM Thu, Feb 07, 2008

wow, I love it. They talk about wanting to give teachers bonuses and base their pay on student performance. They they have conference calls to discuss why noone wants to teach in low performing schools. Do they talk to themselves? Catch a clue!

Posted by Taxedout @ 3:27 PM Thu, Feb 07, 2008

Yes, thank you for this information. These poor, low performing schools are in such need of veteran teachers. CEI's and SEI's would help to tell the story. And Park is right about coaches. Sports teams lose consistently, team owners blame the coach (or fire them - a la Jerry Jones.) However, when students aren't learning blaming them or their parents is the easy thing when many times it is a whole combination of factors. Amazingly, when coaches become superintendents, no one gets fired not even for thievery, corruption, or cheating.

Posted by Momto3inDISD @ 4:07 PM Thu, Feb 07, 2008

This data is not comparing "apples to apples". The Learning Centers and magnet schools are not on an equal playing field and should not be compared with "general ed" schools. Also, some schools get a lot more Title 1 funding than others, some of which can be used on teacher's salaries and the rest on tutoring etc to improve performance. Until these inequalities in funding are taken into account, the data which purports to show that schools with higher poor and/or minority populations have lower paid teachers is not really reliable.

Posted by Tawnell Hobbs @ 4:12 PM Thu, Feb 07, 2008

Momto3inDISD, you make some good points.

Posted by Diane Birdwell @ 7:39 PM Thu, Feb 07, 2008

Oh God, if I hear one more time how teaching is like coaching, I will barf!

Uh, let's compare, shall we? How many "low-level" players does the Dallas Cowboys franchise have? Don't they go for the BEST players? Isn't Valley Ranch one of the BEST facilities in the world? Hmmm, so when the BEST players lose as a team, you can look at the coach.

Not so with teachers. "Park" and "Taxedout" must not be teachers, or they would know that CEI's do not reflect reality. I have posted about this before, but some people cling stubbornly to the idea that teachers--who see a kid for 45 minutes a day in high school, can negate ALL the negative influences at home, in the street and in culture. Gee, if ONLY I was that powerful! Then, none of my kids would be pregnant, on probation or truant. But since I ain't their momma, I do what I can while I teach World History.

Go ahead, look at my CEI's. I would print them here, but I don't know if I would be violating DISD policy by doing so, and I am already on a few "not-happy" lists around town as it is. Trust me, on paper, I look terrible until recently, when I got a principal who didn't place all the low level kids in my classes. But you ask around my building, ask my parents/students/ex-students, and you will hear how much I taught them in spite of all that goes on after school. They appreciated it. But THAT isn't on the CEI.

Kids in low income areas come into the building behind on day one. Kids whose parents do not speak English, or themselves dropped out in 10th grade, cannot help with Algebra II homework. I had one kid who used to stay after school every day to do his homework because it was so noisy in his house, he couldn't think--even in the bathroom, he said. His mother had taken in her sister's kids when she became a crack addict. There were 8-9 kids in the house. A three bedroom house. How often does that happen in Southlake?

Yea, it is only our fault how the kids learn. Sure, good one.

Posted by Kent Fischer @ 8:47 PM Thu, Feb 07, 2008

Park wrote: "The School Effectiveness Indices will tell part of the story, and the data is public. How about releasing the annual school results for the past 15 years?"

Stay tuned, Park. We're going to have a decade worth of those scores for you here on the blog shortly. We're in process of formatting the data.

Posted by park @ 10:30 PM Thu, Feb 07, 2008

Teachers and principals have the right to develop programmatic remedies on their campuses. These remedies should fit the students they teach and their special needs. After school programs would be an example; extending the class day or school year are other simple ways to buy more instructional time. Teachers should be paid for this extra time, but that is only the beginning. They should also be paid for rearranging the school day or year in any way that promotes a better learning environment and better results. Having prescriptive abilities regarding special student populations is part of being a professional. Having an internal locus of control is also necessary for accountability.
Having taught in DISD for 18 years, I don't buy into excuses that the neighborhood and demographics determine teacher effectiveness.
Brains, creativity, integrity, and the philosophy that the outcome is dependent on the teacher's ability, not the income level of the student, are consistently found in top quadrant teachers.

Posted by frustrated teacher @ 10:42 PM Thu, Feb 07, 2008

Good grief! Talk to those teachers in the lower grades, the ones that lay the foundation for all the years to come, about what they encounter every day in their classrooms. The majority of my kindergarten students enter school without knowing how to write their names, count, recognize ABC's or shapes, but according to my academically rigorous curriculum I am expected to start teaching them sight words so they can read the first few weeks of school. Can we say putting the cart before the horse? State law states that I am to have a 1:22 ratio in my classroom, however I have had 1:24 since October and have been told I might get a new student next week. I've also been told no new teacher will be hired to correct this overload (guess we don't want to spend the money on a teacher to lay the foundation since we can pay for it later in remedial programs when they can't pass TAKS). Best practices say that a 1:17/18 ratio is better in the early years to give quality instruction and lay the foundations for mastery and future learning. Many of our lower grade classes are over the limit and struggle daily to make a difficult situation better. Our superintendent is very good at stating his goals and what WE should do and how WE should get there. I just wish he'd spend a week in my classroom and show me how to get it all done--the small groups for all subjects, the one-on-one teaching and assessments. All I can say is the good teachers are leaving in droves and all that will be left are the poor teachers just there to draw a paycheck. What a sad day that will be.

Posted by Amy S @ 7:13 AM Fri, Feb 08, 2008

My children attended an elementary school that had relatively low teacher turnover over 6 years. Our school, majority poor, black and hispanic was over 400% over-enrolled for many years, and class sizes were regularly over the size limits. I don't think the teachers stayed because the kids were black, white or hispanic; rich or poor. They stayed because a small group of parents worked hard to let them know they were valued. We tried to make this more than a job, but a community in which they had everyone's respect. Sure there were lots of challenges with kids who's parents weren't invested in their education, but I like to think that having this "backup" from this core group of parents made a difference in how they felt about their work. Every school should have a strong PTA, but the reality is you can't force parents to get involved.

To the teachers above, I want to say "Thank You".

Posted by MizBennett @ 9:21 PM Fri, Feb 08, 2008

Dear Frustrated Teacher: I feel your pain.

Our kids are not all on the same page with regard to home training. If a child is spoken to at home with ignorance or intolerance or disregard, that child enters your classroom with a poor self image and total input from Cartoon Central.

You can tell the difference between the children whose parents have spoken to them as human beings and those who have been constantly reprimanded for causing inconvenience. It's hard for educators to make up for this kind of negligence.

I had a ninth grade student admit that she had a child. She said the baby was "bad." At 3 months? I told her it was important to talk to her baby and not just in baby talk and she said "Why, she don't know what I'm saying?" Come fall of 2013 that child will be in your class. She'll have a 20 year old mother and a 35 year old grandmother and a 49 year old great-grandmother. She will have learning issues that will put her at a disadvantage from the beginning. God help her if she has any learning differences on top of her obvious disadvantages.

I admire what you do every day. I wish all the children came to you nurtured and well fed and willing to learn.

Our educational system assumes that a child has some amount of previous learning to work with. Without that previous learning, an early childhood teacher is starting from scratch and there doesn't seem to be any room for that.

Perhaps there should be some kind of entry testing right at the very beginning to see WHAT page these children are on.

Until society is willing to look at education as beginning at home, teachers will be the scapegoat.

Posted by park @ 10:28 AM Mon, Feb 11, 2008

It would also be pertinent to find out how many minority/low income students are in schools that employ permanent subs rather than qualified, certified teachers, and how many of these subs are teaching in core areas.

Posted by Chris @ 11:34 AM Mon, Feb 11, 2008

Aren't Blacks and Hispanics running DISD?
Perhaps you should ask them why they are doing this to their own kids.

Posted by Tawnell Hobbs @ 1:00 PM Mon, Feb 11, 2008

Chris, who would you say is running DISD? The central office staff is majority white (at least it was when I last checked in June), and the school board is evenly split -- 3 white; 3 Hispanic; 3 black.

Posted by Anonymous Ones @ 7:11 PM Wed, Feb 13, 2008

Tawnell--

Check again on the racial ratios---along the TOP 20.

Are you sure?

Hinojosa, Miramontes, Flores, Torres, et al.

Posted by Tawnell Hobbs @ 7:49 PM Wed, Feb 13, 2008

Anonymous Ones, Good point. I'll look at the racial ratio among the top staffers, which I'd say are at executive director level and above, and get back to you. Stay tuned...