Consultant: School Choice Report Not $100K of Work

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Consultant: School choice report not $100K of work THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS January 26, 2014 Sunday

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THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

January 26, 2014 Sunday

1 EDITION

Consultant: School choice report not $100K of work

BYLINE: TAWNELL D. HOBBS, STAFF WRITER

SECTION: METRO; Pg. B01

LENGTH: 895 words

Dallas ISD Superintendent Mike Miles last week defended a consulting firm's report on schooling options when asked if it was worth the $100,000 price tag.

But a day later, a consultant at Moak, Casey and Associates acknowledged their report for the district was lacking after The Dallas Morning News raised questions.

"We haven't done $100,000 worth of work," consultant Curtis Culwell said. "We have not fulfilled our contract."

Culwell presented highlights of the report on school choice at a school board briefing on Jan. 9. No one questioned the work at the time, and Culwell didn't tell the board it was incomplete, as he's saying now.

"They didn't ask me," he said Thursday.

Culwell told a reporter after the briefing that the report cost $100,000, as he stood with chief academic officer Ann Smisko.

But on Thursday he estimated that the report could be "50 percent or 60 percent" complete and his company is willing to do more work at the district's request. And if DISD declines, the district will only be billed for the work done, he said.

"We're just not here to take their money and go home," Culwell said. "We certainly feel like we can do more than this if they want us to."

School choice embraces nontraditional offerings, such as magnet schools and single-gender campuses, to give students more options. Trustees hoped the report would help them create a plan for doing so.

The 306-page report largely rehashes common knowledge - magnet schools in DISD are popular, for example - and summarizes data the district provided. The thick document is padded with DISD charts and maps, five research studies from other groups and printouts of two proposed Texas bills that never became law.

Miles was adamant that the report was satisfactory. He said it was helpful to get expert opinion from one of the state's most respected consulting firms.

"We had a scope of work for them that they did accomplish," he said Wednesday. "And we feel comfortable that they did good work for us."

But Culwell described the report as more of a general overview than was requested.

Culwell also played down that Moak, Casey has expertise in school choice and said it was the firm's first report on the subject. The Austin-based company, the only bidder for the school-choice study, specializes in school finance.

He said the DISD report was undertaken because he, as a former Garland ISD superintendent, has experience in the area. He seemed pleasantly surprised when told by a reporter that Miles believes the company delivered and is pleased with the report.

"I don't want to contradict Mike. We stand by our work, but we also know there's probably more that needs to be done," Culwell said.

The report did not delve into areas of budget, facility or transportation matters, as required under the deal, Culwell said. He also said site visits were not made of the district's programs and facilities, also required.

Many recommendations in the report have been mentioned in past school board meetings, such as the need for community input and assessment of facilities. Or the recommendations are overly simplistic, such as encouraging expansion of magnet programs. Such programs in DISD often have waiting lists.

"Those are all good recommendations that I didn't need a consultant to tell me," trustee Mike Morath said when asked for his thoughts on the report.

Michael MacNaughton, who closely follows DISD issues, said he was disappointed with the report. "We're just back to where we were 10 years ago with these recommendations."

Culwell said the scope changed after his conversations with district staff.

When they met Jan. 9, most trustees had not read the report. Trustee Carla Ranger asked Smisko about its cost, and Smisko said she believed it was a set amount at $100,000 but would need to verify.

Ranger asked if the report was all they would receive. Smisko replied that it is the main product, but she'd heard Culwell "mention that there might be a little more that we would want them to do."

Lew Blackburn, the board's first vice president, said Thursday that some trustees were disappointed with the report. Some had hoped it would help them develop a plan for reopening closed schools and improving existing campuses.

"From what I heard from the presentation, there's not a whole lot there to get us started," said Blackburn, who has advocated school choice in the district.

Board president Eric Cowan declined to comment until after he had read the report.

On Thursday, DISD spokesman Jon Dahlander said he spoke to Culwell that day and was told there was still work to be done on the report. Dahlander followed up by saying that Miles knew all along that the report was incomplete - although the superintendent had repeatedly defended the report on Wednesday, saying the firm had accomplished what was requested.

Miles also said Wednesday that the report will get the district thinking more clearly on issues surrounding school choice. He said Moak, Casey also planned to talk to trustees about their interests on the matter.

Considering that the firm mostly used DISD data for analysis in the report, why couldn't district staff have produced what was provided?

"I got people on my staff who are smart, that's true," Miles said. "If we sat down long and hard enough, we may come up with most of the stuff that was in the report. But there's no guarantee that we would. We're not experts."

LOAD-DATE: January 26, 2014

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper