Hmmm, wonder if the anti-Miles crowd thinks he's also responsible for Ebola? They seem to think he's capable of most every evil. (DMN Staff Photo)
The editorial board’s annual scorecard on DISD Supt. Mile Miles published yesterday; we gave him an overall grade of B-, up slightly from last year’s C+.
Judging by the 50+ online comments left so far, most all of our digital readers think 1) Miles is full of it and 2) we are full of it. While I doubt any of those who left comments will change their point of view, I sure hope they don’t reflect the overall view of the city. If they do, we should just throw in the towel and accept mediocrity for public school children in Dallas.
Regular readers know that our editorial board has, in individual editorials throughout Miles’ tenure, supported his initiatives, from pay-for-performance to additional pre-K efforts. We also think he has the right vision for the district. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that we gave him an A- in that portion of the report card.
As far as those who think we should have flunked him (an F, rather than the C- we gave him) on the data-driven portion, we considered doing just that. But given that most of his initiatives have had one academic year — or less — to take hold, a C- seemed fairer.
My opinion is that basing 50 percent of his overall grade — this early in his tenure — is pretty tough grading.
I expected a portion of readers to think we had gone too easy on him. I’m more surprised that we’ve heard crickets in regard to whether anyone thinks we either got it right or graded the superintendent too harshly.
Those we have heard from responded along these lines (taken from one of the most recent posts); italic inserts are mine:
For or a data-driven superintendent to receive any kind of a passing grade with downward trending data numbers [all the data is not trending downward] is an insult to the people who make up the groups that are invested in Dallas ISD. That would be the taxpayers, the students and families, and the teachers themselves who are the real educators.
When a man who is a loose cannon with the power and authority to make education an ‘at will’ profession, the following items get tossed in the waste bin: Experience, community connections, belief in the job to be done, and most of all — secure and safe surroundings for the children who do NOT respond positively to disruption and turmoil —- those items having been the hallmark of Mr Miles’ tenure. A sarcastic ‘thanks’ for getting it wrong for the children and right for business. [I don't know how "business" benefits from a poorly educated workforce]
What I don’t hear from the commenters is — if Miles is so wrong — what should we be doing instead.
I’ve watched this school district get steadily worse on behalf of the children it is supposed to be educating since 1980. All that “experience, community connections, belief in the job to be done” that Miles supposedly is tossing aside hasn’t seemed to have helped our kids. Bluntly, it’s caused most anyone who can find a way to NOT put their children in DISD to take that option.
That doesn’t mean great teachers haven’t been waging a valiant and successful fight in pockets all over the Dallas district for years. But overall, DISD has struggled, just like all urban districts that have just rocked on with the status quo have struggled. While so many folks have all their energy focused on hating on Mike Miles, I hope he and his team keep focusing on classroom improvements. The last thing this district needs is for the status quo crowd to run off a superintendent just because he won’t play by their rules.