{"id":465740,"date":"2026-10-14T12:18:32","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T12:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/465740\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T12:18:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T12:18:32","slug":"update-from-ben-mackey-writing-as-a-silver-bullet-skill-forms-district-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/465740\/","title":{"rendered":"Update from Ben Mackey: Writing as a \u201csilver bullet\u201d skill forms district strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Writing<\/a><\/p>\n

Writing accounts for nearly 20% of the total score on all RLA tests. Photo courtesy of Dallas ISD.<\/p>\n

Dallas ISD District 7 monthly update<\/p>\n

Happy fall, District 7! The State Fair of Texas has kicked off, which means it\u2019s officially fall. Hopefully you\u2019ll get a chance to grab a corny dog and enjoy the weather. Below you\u2019ll find this month\u2019s summary of what\u2019s happening in Dallas ISD.<\/p>\n

Dallas ISD District 7 monthly update:<\/p>\n

Bond 2026 kicks off with campus design charrettes:<\/a> Dallas ISD held its first BIG Design Charrette for the $6.2 billion Bond 2026 Program, bringing together principals, staff, and families from 12 campuses across the district to help shape their future facilities alongside our architects and district leaders. This is just the first step in bringing the bond that voters approved to life.<\/p>\n

Track the Bond 2026 dashboard:<\/a> Dallas ISD launched a new online dashboard where families and community members can search their campus, review planned improvements, and track project status as bond work gets underway. I encourage everyone to check it out and see what\u2019s coming to their school.<\/p>\n

New classroom screen time guidelines:<\/a> New daily limits on screen time in the classroom have rolled out across the district. The goal is to make sure technology enhances, rather than replaces, strong teacher-led instruction. Thanks to all the parents who reached out and gave feedback about this topic.<\/p>\n

September board meetings debrief<\/p>\n

Dallas ISD held its regular board briefing and meeting. I\u2019ve highlighted a few key items below:<\/p>\n

Beginning-of-year diagnostic results show encouraging early gains:<\/a> At the board briefing, the superintendent shared this year\u2019s beginning-of-year diagnostic results, which showed real, if modest, improvement over last year. Districtwide, the share of kindergarten through eighth-grade students meeting grade level in math grew from 14% to 16%, while reading ticked up from 30% to 31% with meaningful gains for our Black, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged students in both subjects. I\u2019m encouraged by the trend, but I\u2019ll be watching our kindergarten through second-grade reading numbers closely, since that group saw a slight dip compared to last year even as our middle schoolers in grades sixth through eighth made notable gains.<\/p>\n

A coherent writing strategy:<\/a> The superintendent also laid out a new districtwide writing strategy, built on the idea that writing is a \u201csilver bullet\u201d skill that makes up nearly 20% of the score on STAAR Reading\/Language Arts tests now and the same skill tested on the SAT, AP, IB, and TSIA2 exams down the road. The plan includes new kindergarten through second-grade sentence-level writing instruction, targeted grammar lessons, cross-curricular writing in science and social studies, and a leadership training matrix to get our principals and instructional leaders aligned this fall. I\u2019m glad to see the district treating writing as a kindergarten through 12th grade priority instead of an afterthought.<\/p>\n

Goal 5 (College, Career, and Military Readiness) exceeds target:<\/a> Dallas ISD\u2019s Class of 2025 graduates hit a 94.5% college, career, or military readiness (CCMR) rate \u2014 far surpassing our 80% target. Our students also cleared our goals for dual credit hours earned (22.4% vs. a 22% target) and personal financial literacy course completion (20.4% vs. just a 5% target). One number I\u2019m watching closely is stricter CCMR criteria that take effect for the Class of 2027 because our estimated rate would be closer to 83%. That\u2019s still strong, but it\u2019s a reminder that the bar is rising and we need to keep pushing to stay ahead of it.<\/p>\n

As always, please reach out if you have thoughts, ideas, questions, concerns or just want to say hello.<\/p>\n

Upcoming Events<\/p>\n

Tuesday, Nov. 3: Teacher workday and Election Day (no school)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ben Mackey<\/p>\n

As always, please reach out to me if you have thoughts, ideas, questions, concerns, or simply want to say hello. Just reach out to me\u00a0at BenMackey@dallasisd.org<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Best,
Ben Mackey<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Writing accounts for nearly 20% of the total score on all RLA tests. Photo courtesy of Dallas ISD.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[15213,150237,16321,150238,150239,150240,158624,150241,76252,158625,102925,150242,158626,102,104,11521,150243,150244,150245,150246,150247,150248,150249,103,158627,150250,6513,150251,150252,150253,150254,158628,158526,158629,158630,150255,24040,158631,158632,32191,158538,150261,143052,158633,25538,158634,158635,150263,4100,150265],"class_list":["post-465740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-2026-bond","tag-adaptive-swim","tag-ap","tag-average-salaries","tag-ben-mackey","tag-board-recaps","tag-bond-2026-dashboard","tag-budget-planning-for-2026-2027","tag-career-readiness","tag-classroom-screen-time-guidelines","tag-college-prep","tag-connectivity-issues","tag-cross-curricular-writing","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-isd","tag-dallas-isd-board","tag-dallas-isd-board-of-trustees","tag-dallas-isd-bond-overview","tag-dallas-isd-budget","tag-dallas-isd-district-7","tag-dallas-isd-graduation","tag-dallas-isd-seniors","tag-dallas-news","tag-districtwide-writing-strategy","tag-early-grades","tag-election-day","tag-financial-aid-applications","tag-five-district-pools","tag-functional-living-skills-programs","tag-garza-echs-engineering-students","tag-goal-5","tag-ib","tag-leadership-training-matrix","tag-military-readiness","tag-moises-e-molina-high-school-improvements","tag-sat","tag-second-grade-sentence-level-writing-instruction","tag-september-board-meetings-debrief","tag-sponsored-post","tag-staar-reading-language-arts-tests","tag-student-technology","tag-sunset-high-school","tag-targeted-grammar-lessons","tag-tax-rate","tag-teacher-workday","tag-tsia2-exams","tag-universal-pre-k","tag-university-of-texas","tag-urban-school-district"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}