The Things You Learn Using Comptroller's Financial Allocation Study for Texas Site

• Things are definitely not scaling well for Dallas. Compare it with the Richardson ISD, something like a fifth of its size and spending around $700 less per pupil, but with twice as many stars.

• Texas' low scores overall on SATs show that public education is a disaster. In spite of trillions of dollars thrown at this govt monstrosity, progress has stalled. Any improvement is merely due to lowering standards and every teacher--especially in DISD--knows it. The SAT truth is why our kids will graduate from private schools; only there will they get a chance to avoid TAKS-focused, SAT-killing TEA curriculum. We need vouchers so all families can try to find a private school that meets THEIR child's needs, not the needs of trustees and corrupt, incompetent bureaucrats. Believe me, you give every child a voucher for $8K and you will a sudden blooming of $8K-a-year private schools competing with each other to serve your child. Enough with sending our money to Austin and DC to be laundered and recv'g crap in return.

• Bill, Since you don't take into account "leavers", social promotions, ect. ad nauseum, and since DISD has said they mis-entered student codes in 2009-2010. Lets look at you numbers another way...simple percentage of diplomas given vs. total enrollment. 1996-97 3.47% 1997-98 3.59% 1998-99 3.44% 1999-00 3.63% 2000-01 3.72% 2001-02 3.99% 2002-03 4.10% 2003-04 4.41% 2004-05 4.32% 2005-06 3.93% 2006-07 3.69% 2007-08 3.87% 2008-09 4.06% For an average of 3.86% over the last 13 years. In other words, any "trends" you tease out of your data is really nothing more than statistical noise over time.

• ONLY AFTER THERE WERE DIRE CONSEQUENCES DID DISD DO ANYTHING ABOUT DROPOUTS. Only after they could no longer cheat because a digital trail was available did they do ANYTHING about dropouts. Only after the feds threatened to close their dropout factories did they take any action. This has nothing to do with Hinojosa. These schools couldn't make AYP. The other little gem you refuse to disclose is that DISD is still cheating on its dropout disclosure. They are using home schooling and private schools as leaver codes when kids from the worst schools are not leaving to go to private school and they are not being home schooled. Hinojosa made it clear that ninth graders were to be promoted. So the ninth grade class is magically smaller. Schools like Pinkston that are allowed to cheat had 50% of their juniors fail TAKS and magically had a bumper crop of grads the next year. Impossible--totally impossible. You are looking at outcomes that DON'T REFLECT LEARNING. SAT scores haven't gone up. Remediation rates at community colleges and universities haven't gone down. All you keep harping on is that kids walked out the door with a high school diploma from the worst school district in the state. What do you think that is worth when they enter DCCCD and can't read? What is it worth when they try to get a job and can't do arithmetic? Promoting them out of the school district to keep the feds from closing schools isn't any victory. It's the same charade. The comprehensive high schools in Dallas have less than a 50% on-time completion rate, even with allowing cheating to get the students through their exit exams. You don't teach in any low performing high school and you don't know what is going on. This is common knowledge.

• Addendum to "Fun Fact" given above: the percentage of total DISD enrollment in pre-K to 5th grade was 55.2% in 1996-97 and only changed to 55.6% in 2010-11. A much more interesting "Fun Fact" is that in the 1996-97 school year the official 9th grade enrollment represented 39.4% of total high school enrollment. Then that percentage, as of 2010-11 enrollment, has falled dramatically to only 29.5% of the total high school enrollment. That is significant! Why is it not being reported on? Remember, this percentage in a perfect world should be 25%. But, due to failures and student repeating the 9th grade, it was 14.4% higher in 1996-97. Dropouts after 9th grade add to that higher percentage and is now a much more significant factor in that number than 14 years ago. The tremendous progress that DISD is making in lowering the dropout rate is better reflected in these changes in 9th grade enrollment that any other predictor now available. Those numbers will be seen in DISD graduation numbers within 4 years.

• I am a DISD teacher and, like many other DISD teachers, a private school parent. The trustees are the problem. Money pours in and they spend it like drunken sailors. Break this district up. No one but the administrators and bureaucrats are getting what they need--and by no one I mean 150,000 innocent kids. Our private school is HEAVEN. Great teachers (and I can spot good teachers since I am a teacher), responsive administrators, excellent facilities, and a culture of excellence. The cost? About $4,000 more than what DISD allots per kid. The trustees waste that $4,000 per child on a monthly basis. And in private, we have NO TAKS TESTING THAT EXISTS MERELY TO BENEFIT THE TESTING COMPANY AND SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS. Dallas voters are getting what they pay attention to. If you saw your overcrowded school running out of food, readmitting drug-selling thugs, and TAKS drilling kids into a stupor, you'd pay for private, too.

• Noticed that DISD is spending around 3% more per year than is budgeted (around $40 million) and has been doing so for the last 5 years. In general this is a result of simple cost of living increases that are never budgeted (food, electricity, maintenance, etc.) Hinojosa is guessing a shortfall from the state of between $67 million and $132 million. Adding in the additional $40 million DISD is really looking at between $107 million and $172 million short. Me back-of-the-napkin guesstimate is between $150M and $265M. Any bets?

• The most important finding from the study is that there is no economic benefit for kids in allowing urban districts to increase their size. No economy of scale here--proven beyond a doubt. Therefore, there is no reason not to break up Dallas ISD into at least 4 or 5 districts. No reason for sane people, anyway. For all those central administrators hauling in $150-250K, the kids can suffer while they haul in the dough. Irving's demographics are very close to Dallas, so demographics aren't driving the low performing train. The central administrative staff and the poor excuse for trustees own that honor. The citizens of Dallas have everything to gain and nothing to lose by breaking up the district.

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