All i ever hear about is how new teachers, old teachers, and administration alike all say don't teach for DISD.

Why?

It might have something to do with poor administration and an $84 million budget deficit. But that's just off the top of my head.

A lot of their schools underperform and I think even one had to be closed due to low scores. They have a terrible management and I am sure many are upset by the fact that all their dollars go into the magnets while the regular education schools are left fishing for scraps.

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by the fact that all their dollars go into the magnets while the regular education schools are left fishing for scraps.

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The Observer just ran an article debunking this myth a few months ago.

http://www.dallasobserver.com/2009-05-21/news/magnetic-subtraction

80% of the magnet schools in Dallas are BELOW the average per student expenditure for the district.


As to the OP, the people that run the district are completely corrupt and inept. You have the credit card scandal from a few years ago. You have the "Oops we missed several million in our budget after a massive hiring wave" incident. The list goes on and on.

Like most districts, it depends on the school you land in. Some are great to teach at. Others are awful.

[This message has been edited by NoACDamnit (edited 7/22/2009 8:31p).]

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You have the "Oops we missed several million in our budget after a massive hiring wave" incident.

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You forgot about the part where they laid off 700+ teachers to try to make up the shortfall, then decided they didn't have enough teachers and held a Job Fair to re-fill positions a few months later.

Way, way back in the day (I graduated from Kimball High School in 1960), DISD was well run, teachers were first rate, and problems were taken care of promptly and efficiently. Then, along came "social experiment busing" and rearranging everything to suit the Courts. White flight ensued and, today, you have the shell of what used to be a viable, thriving district. It is very sad. I only hope that other districts in the area do not decline as fast or as far as DISD has.

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the people that run the district are completely corrupt and inept

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this explains everything. also reflective of city hall and why the dallas residents have not risen against this, I do not know.

[This message has been edited by WorthAg95 (edited 7/22/2009 9:20p).]

DISD is more concerned about race than educating kids. In my opinion, this is problem #1.

agmike is white.

It's not necessarily the schools. It's the parents. Socioeconomic factors don't help. Woodrow Wilson and Lake Highlands seem fine. Others?

Lake Highlands is not a DISD School, it is Richardson. Other decent DISD high schools are W.T. White and Hillcrest. The rest, eh.

DISD schools are the $uck. Just look at statistics.

Generally public schools arent any good because of several reasons. Everyone in administration is an ex-educator and knows nothing about business.

The ACLU has taken all discipline out of the schools. Public schools teach to the lowest common denominator. Kids arent taught up they are taught down.

My wife went to WT White and we have an old family friend who has taught there for over 30 years. She said that the students are horrible and most of the teachers arent any good.

Things like this happen:

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The Dallas school district has not yet said that cheating occurred at Lang Middle School, but test scores released Wednesday make it clear that the math scores submitted for the school's eighth-graders this spring were wildly inflated.

And upon releasing the very different TAKS scores, the district also announced Wednesday that an additional "security breach" has been discovered among seventh-grade writing results at Lang.

About 400 eighth-graders were called back to school this summer to retake the math test after district officials discovered "irregularities" in their results.

The first time, 79.5 percent of the students supposedly passed their state math exams. But in the retest, only 43.7 passed. The drop was even steeper in the percentage of students thought to be "commended," meaning they got enough answers correct to be considered college-ready by state standards – 62.8 percent plummeted to 3.8 percent.

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http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/072209dnmettaks.67e09325.html

Here's a controversial answer, but accurate as far as I'm concerned:

The district is comprised mostly of poor lazy families who had no business having kids to begin with. The kids have no parental support, thus they fail from day one. Because of this, no competent teacher or administrator wants to work in the DISD.... the "white flight" to the suburbs killed DISD decades ago.



[This message has been edited by chick79 (edited 7/23/2009 7:54a).]

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the people that run the district are completely corrupt and inept

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+1. These people care more about race and lining their own pockets than educating children.

Oh and I wouldn't want anything to do with W.T. White, it is one of the schools have major problems with queso.

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The district is comprised mostly of poor lazy families who had no business having kids to begin with. The kids have no parental support, thus they fail from day one. Because of this, no competent teacher or administrator wants to work in the DISD.... the "white flight" to the suburbs killed DISD decades ago.

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Also +1. Confirmed by a close friend who left south Dallas to do something with herself because she hated how the majority of people lived off of welfare on purpose and let their kids run in the streets without any REAL parenting involved.

The school district is bad because no one wants to parent their kids and take an active part in their kid's lives. Therefore, these kids with no role models come to these schools and take their fury out on the teachers and fellow students. It's sad really.

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Way, way back in the day (I graduated from Kimball High School in 1960), DISD was well run, teachers were first rate, and problems were taken care of promptly and efficiently. Then, along came "social experiment busing" and rearranging everything to suit the Courts. White flight ensued and, today, you have the shell of what used to be a viable, thriving district. It is very sad. I only hope that other districts in the area do not decline as fast or as far as DISD has.

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Someone had to be honest. I think most agree with this if they admit it

I was in Dallas schools until 6th grade. We moved from Dallas to Allen and the change was night and day. In Dallas we had one computer lab with Apple IIs in it. 3 months later when I moved to Allen we had at least 2 modern computers in each classroom. Computers won't teach people things themselves, but it really says how far behind Dallas is/was in funding for the future.

I was fortunate to have several VERY good teachers in Dallas (Nathan Adams Elementary) who made a large impact on my educational life. I had one teacher who went above and beyond with her weekends, nights, and pocketbook to make sure that we had the best experience possible with some clubs we were in. From what I've read on this thread, that seems to be the exception. It makes sense that a teacher who really wants the job would want to teach in a district that gives them a chance to succeed.

As a side issue, I remember that in the 5th grade we had two teachers that most kids would alternate between for different subjects, and another teacher that taught mostly the black and hispanic kids in her class all day long. I'm not sure if it was meant to be a racially divided thing or if it was socioeconomic or what, but looking back it was interesting.

I'm confident that I would not have had the same drive to succeed in College and beyond if I had not been fortunate enough to move to a school district that had more students who really wanted to be there.

Wow...some real honesty on this thread. Can't say I disagree.

I wouldn't want to send kids to most schools in Dallas, some are ok/good for elementary but those are in atypical Dallas neighborhoods.

The renewal of older urban neighborhoods and the desire of many to live closer to downtown is creating an opportunity to take back our schools. It will take people with courage and patience to invest in DISD by putting their kids there and taking the system back one school at a time. But we cannot just dismiss the district as failed, regardless of wether you have kids or not, DISD is a key part of the success of Dallas

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The renewal of older urban neighborhoods and the desire of many to live closer to downtown is creating an opportunity to take back our schools. It will take people with courage and patience to invest in DISD by putting their kids there and taking the system back one school at a time.

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Sadly, most people who live downtown have no kids or if they do, they are sending them to private schools..... the true gem in DISD is the Booker T. Washington Elementary downtown....

DISD's problems would be solved if there were wholesale changes at the top -- from the School Board to the Superintendent, to all the senior officials. Corruption has been rampant for quite some time and seems to be entrenched. Unless, and until, the "culture" is changed from "what's in it for me?" to "What's really good for the community"" then it will continue to decline. And, as Chick says, most people who live in the downtown or newly urban upscale neighborhoods send their kids to private schools.

The problem with having courage and patience is this is their childrens' future in which they are testing. It's hard to be the first one to "stick it out" when your child might be at risk.

Booker T. Washington is the Arts and Music magnet high school, not an elementary school.

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also reflective of city hall and why the dallas residents have not risen against this, I do not know.

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City Hall does not run the schools--the school district runs the schools. It's important to note that Dallas has always had at least one badly-run government at a time. If it's not the school district, it's the county or city governments that are acting crazy. Sad, but as long as my trash gets picked up I don't really care.

I'll be the first to admit that it's easy for me to have this attitude because I live in Stonewall's area. We pitch in to help the school, even though we don't have kids there--that makes a big difference in the long run.

You are exactly right. Parental involvement really makes a difference, no matter what school it is. I was always very active with my kids' schools. The teachers remarked to me on more than one occasion how much better it is when parents really care enough to see that their kids get the best. Part of DISD's problems stem from the fact that the parents either won't or can't give a rat's you-know-what about their kids' education. They are either single parents who have to work all the time in order to keep body and soul together, or they plain just don't care.

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The renewal of older urban neighborhoods and the desire of many to live closer to downtown is creating an opportunity to take back our schools. It will take people with courage and patience to invest in DISD by putting their kids there and taking the system back one school at a time. But we cannot just dismiss the district as failed, regardless of wether you have kids or not, DISD is a key part of the success of Dallas

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We are really hoping this is the case for us although we are fortunate to be in an area that has some of the best elementary and middle schools along with one of the better high schools in DISD...Lakewood Elementary, Stonewall Jackson and Woodrow Wilson.

We plan on going public all the way barring some massive downturn at Woodrow in the next 16-17 years.

We had a really good friend who substituted at Woodrow a few years ago (before he became disabled and could not teach any longer). He said the reason that school was good was because the parents kept in close touch with the teachers and were concerned enough to make sure their kids knew that there was a "partnership" involved there.

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City Hall does not run the schools--the school district runs the schools.

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Yes, I know. I was making an entirely separate point.