Let’s review for a moment. You may recall the concern last winter when it was announced that Woodrow Wilson High had not performed up to standards for two consecutive years and was to be "reconstituted". This is standard, legally required procedure. The most extreme case has been with Spruce High School, which was closed altogether and its students redistributed throughout the District. That’s at the heart of our school accountability programs: If you don’t get it right, you get to do something else, maybe somewhere else. And it starts after two under-performing years. Two strikes, not three, and you’re out.
There is no equivalent mandate for district administration. Lets recall the P-card disaster and now the financial crisis facing the District. Looks like two strikes to me, which also leads me to think that’s where the real changes are needed.
See, I was a skeptic. I used to hear all the calls for more money, especially more teachers, and thought what they really needed was to do a better job with what they had. While there is still legitimacy to that concern, it has become apparent to me that Dallas ISD was not at a classroom staffing level where that was the problem. Now we can see that the DISD hired more teachers, albeit unbudgeted, and overall District performance has improved noticeably. It appears that we have been below an important student/teacher threshold. Now witht he budget crisis looming, the Administration seeks to undo those gains. I think not.
We should not lose sight of what the Dallas ISD exists to do; educate children. All kinds of children. That happens almost exclusively between student and teacher. Period. Management and support functions, while important, are secondary. It is here that the reductions and the changes should be made, not the classroom.
Let’s try that approach. If cuts are required, let’s limit them to secondary, support and administrative functions. We know what happens when there aren’t enough teachers, and we don’t like it. Let’s find out what happens when there are fewer managers and levels of administration.
