title vi complaints filed against dallas isd

Title VI Complaints filed 4-21-15 (replacing those filed 3-25-15) against Dallas ISD Page 1 of 76

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


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


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


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.


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


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


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


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


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


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/


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/


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


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/


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.


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


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.


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


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=


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


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.


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.


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


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.


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.


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


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/


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.


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.


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


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.


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


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

title vi complaints filed against dallas isd

Documents

dallas isd page

education resources

safe schools

neighborhood schools

failing schools

federal education department

inequitable funding

lack of access