Dallas Independent School District is a Joke

I don’t live in the boundaries of DISD, but it is by far the largest school district in our metroplex area, so it gets all of the media coverage. And for good reason. They are clueless. I have lived in the area for less than three years, and in that amount of time, these stories have come to light:

• Credit Card Fiasco – DISD employees were allowed to use district credit cards for pretty much anything, unchecked. Employees were not required to provide receipts, get approval for purchases, and broke contracts the district had with certain vendors. Click the link. You will be astonished.
• Boys Basketball Team Forfeits 2005 & 2006 State Championship – After getting caught changing grades for ineligable athletes, the 2006 championship was stripped from South Oak Cliff High School. Apparently their 2007 title is also in question.
• Giving Employees Fake Social Security Numbers – When hiring people from other countries, DISD couldn’t wait for them to be issued their social security number, so the district gave them fake ones and even ran background checks using the fake numbers. An “independent investigation” found no wrongdoing.
• $64 Million Disappears – A lot of the good articles on this are archived in member-restricted news sites. But I remember this when it happened, and believe that the number was revised to $84 million. The way the stories read, the district was reviewing end-of-year finances and realized they had overspent $84 million. Ooops. I guess an $84 million hole is kind of difficult to spot coming from a long way off.
• Cage fighting – Enough said.
  
• A Policy to Pad Students’ Grades – Read on.

Believe it or not, there is more, but I’m tired of trying to hunt down the links and stories right now. Education, the future of America.