This is scandalous, my friends. University of Houston Distinguished Professor Alberto Rodriguez calls foul in the preparation of science educators in HISD and the response by the university is not only disappointing but also over the top by threatening this distinguished professor's tenure who is speaking truth to power. Check out this Click2Houston video where he expressed well the problem and the ethics behind his decision to discontinue sending pre-service teachers into the school district.

One doesn't have to dig too deeply into the news to learn just how punishing HISD Superintendent Mike Miles' scripted curriculum is on students and teachers. There have been protests about this. Check out the pages of Houston Community Voices for Public Education to get a solid accounting of what's up in what used to be HISD but which has been taken over by Miles' education management organization called the New Education System (NES)/Third Future Schools. Also check out this earlier blog post on the matter for more information: Welcome to the Houston's No longer Independent  School District. Bilingual Education and Special Education are also on the rocks. See People's Report of HISD takeover at State Board of Ed, as well as Support for Houston ISD’s Spanish speakers has dwindled under state-appointed leader, parents say. Considering the accumulating evidence, Professor Rodriguez is not at all out of line with respect to his assessment of Miles' science curriculum.

It's true to form in an authoritarian regime, regardless, that the school district's spokesman, Jose Irizarry, responds to this outing of the science curriculum by Dr. Rodriguez by deciding to gaslight the Houston community. He states that the curriculum amounts to "high-quality instruction and curriculum" when nothing could be further from the truth. Don't drink the Kool-aid, my friends. And let's protect tenure. This is exactly what tenure allows one to do, to talk back to the corporation and call out injustice. Schools should never be used to organize principal, teacher, and student disaffection and failure. 

Moreover, let's not participate in our own miseducation in our understanding of freedom. By this, I mean that we should not be comfortable with conditions like those called out by Dr. Rodriguez. We need to take back our power, beginning with advocating for a quality public education that honors our communities' and students' right to one. We must not become apathetic about this.

Along with the accreditation agencies that require quality, research-based best practices in the preparation of future educators, the Houston community would do well to stand solidly behind this professor. Too many people's lives and well-being are at stake, as is the future of our democracy.

-Angela Valenzuela

UH education professor suspends course in protest of HISD's rigid lessons

By Sam González KellyFeb 23, 2024

A University of Houston education professor stopped teaching his course last week in protest of his student teachers' placements in Houston ISD schools, where he said the "scripted curriculum" used in HISD classes made it impossible for them to complete their assignments. 

Alberto Rodriguez, a distinguished professor of science education at the University of Houston College of Education, informed students in his "Science in the Elementary School II" course of the decision in a Feb. 14 email.

"I regret to inform you that I am suspending my teaching of this course in protest of the impossible school placements to which some of you have been assigned," Rodriguez wrote. "I feel it is unethical and unprofessional for me to continue teaching this course when you have been placed in school settings that make it very challenging for you to complete field-based assignments as expected in the effective preparation of teachers." 

MORE ON HISD: Superintendent Miles announces major overhaul to tackle 'inefficiencies,' pay for NES expansion.

University of Houston spokeswoman Shawn Lindsey said the college immediately assigned another faculty member, who teaches the other section of the course, to Rodriguez's class, ensuring the course continued uninterrupted. Lindsey declined to say whether Rodriguez, who is tenured at the university, would face any disciplinary action, saying they do not comment on personnel matters. 

"As districts across the state and nation have moved to varying degrees of curriculum autonomy, our teacher education program works to ensure our student-teachers gain valuable, authentic classroom experiences," Lindsey said. "We teach our student-teachers to work within a district’s curriculum guidelines just as they would in the real world, and our student-teachers remain able to practice skills a successful teacher needs — such as keeping students engaged, checking for understanding and adapting as needed."

Students in the "Science in the Elementary School II" course, all of whom are seniors, receive student teaching assignments at schools in the Houston, Cypress-Fairbanks and Spring Branch school districts, which they rank in order of preference. 

Rodriguez said the spread of highly structured lessons that may include word-for-word scripts for teachers is a "national issue" that is not isolated to HISD. But this semester, roughly a dozen students placed at HISD schools were complaining to him, sometimes in tears, that the rigid expectations imposed under state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles made it difficult for them to complete their assignments for his course.

 

Among other directives, Miles expects teachers to use timers during their lessons, engage in "multiple response strategies" roughly every four minutes and, at schools in his New Education System, administer daily quizzes, while school administrators and district officials go from room to room to monitor their work.

MORE ON NEW EDUCATION SYSTEM: HISD names 19 campuses joining New Education System for 2024-25 school year after opting in

One key assignment in Rodriguez's course involved developing a lesson plan for students to teach in March or April, which would go through a series of revisions in Rodriguez's course before being delivered to children. Rodriguez's students at HISD, however, told him they were unable to plan that far ahead because the lead classroom teachers themselves did not know what they would be teaching at that point — the "script" had not yet been posted online. 

Rodriguez said such constraints violated accreditation standards developed by the Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP) and the Texas State Board of Educator Certification (SBEC), both of which require education students to be able to effectively lesson plan, among other things.

"They are being placed in schools that are following a scripted curriculum that totally contradicts everything that we're talking about in class," Rodriguez said. "There's no way you can make science inclusive and relevant to all students — especially students of color or bilingual students — when you have a teacher that is not allowed to carry out their craft." 

Representatives for the AAQEP and the Texas Education Agency, which oversees the SBEC, did not return a request for comment. The University of Houston noted that its education program is fully accredited by both bodies. 

Houston ISD spokesman Jose Irizarry, in a statement, said district leaders are "pleased that UH has identified an experienced professor to take over the course so that student teachers can continue their work in our schools, where they are seeing how high-quality instruction and curriculum lead to academic growth and gains in student performance." 

Rodriguez said he approached College of Education Dean Catherine Horn, University Chancellor Renu Khator and Provost Diane Chase with his concerns, and that Horn was the only person to respond, arguing that the university could not control the actions of its partners and asking him to continue teaching the course and making arrangements for his students like everybody else. 

The response disappointed Rodriguez, who said he'd hoped the university might try to work with HISD to reach a compromise. 

"That doesn't sound like much of a partnership to me. Partners don't watch teachers being pushed off a cliff and then just kind of look the other way," Rodriguez said. "You try to engage in conversations with school district officials to provide space for our students to practice what they're learning in the classroom."

Horn deferred comment to the University of Houston press office.

"We have found that all of our district partners are willing to work with us so our teacher candidates can complete their certification requirements, including teaching lessons for formal observations," Lindsey said. "In cases where a student-teacher is concerned about their school experience, our faculty work with campus leadership to make adjustments or, in rare cases, move placements."

The professor's future with the university is uncertain. The science education course was the only one he taught this semester, and though he is still engaged in a variety of research projects at the university, he no longer has access to his class files on Canvas, the learning management software used by the University of Houston. 

"I don't know what the next step is on their side, but I'm going to continue pursuing this because I feel like I cannot just sit by as the new generation of teachers are not well prepared," Rodriguez said. 

By Sam González Kelly

Sam González Kelly is an education reporter for the Houston Chronicle covering the Houston Independent School District. He can be reached at sam.kelly@houstonchronicle.com.

A Chicago native, Sam joined the Chronicle in 2021 to cover marginalized communities after two years covering breaking news at the Chicago Sun-Times. Sam has a bachelor's degree from Pomona College.

This is a manufactured crisis. I get some parents' dissatisfaction with some public schools, but the takeover route is not at all advisable as you can read for yourself in this Texas Monthly post on the matter. Moreover, the research literature, in general, does not provide any solid evidence of consistent success when schools or districts are taken over (e.g., Morel, 2018).

Such decisions amount to "scorched earth" approaches with the communities getting objectified, treated like objects, that corporations like Third Futures Schools paternalistically think is best for the district's school children.

With appointed boards—as recently occurred in the Houston Independent School District, this taking over of previously-elected ones, a major outcome is a decrease of local control and an increase in corporate control that disempowers, rather than empowers our children and communities.

Higher test scores neither bring—nor will ever bring—comfort. They imply a sacrificing of teachers, books, culturally relevant curriculum, atop a hyper test focus and scripted curricula. This "reform" for HISD is punitive and lacks imagination and vision.

Oh yes, and all of this while lining the pockets of the education management charter companies like Third Future Schools, that voraciously seek to possess and control all formerly public schools. For more context and detail on this assertion, also read this in tandem with my earlier post, Support for Houston ISD’s Spanish speakers has dwindled under state-appointed leader, parents say.

HISD used to have one of the best bilingual and dual language education programs in the nation. An about-face on the matter is devastating.

This should both sadden and outrage all of us who like John Dewey, understood our nation's classrooms as laboratories for democracy. I do agree, as well, that this is an act of racial violence. It further reeks of colonial and capitalistic logics of violence and accumulation by dispossession.

-Angela Valenzuela

Reference

Morel, D. (2018). Takeover: Race, Education, and American Democracy. Oxford University Press.

Welcome to Houston’s No-Longer-Independent School District 

The Texas Education Agency just took over the state’s largest school system. Parents and teachers are furious. But some city leaders insist that, after decades of poor performance by HISD, disruption is necessary.  

By Michael Hardy

June 22, 2023

Mike Miles, the state-appointed superintendent of the Houston Independent School District, might be the most hated person in Harris County. At last week’s school board meeting—the first since Miles was officially hired—residents crowded HISD headquarters, in northwest Houston, to oppose the state’s takeover of the school district. One speaker compared Miles, who is the son of a Black father and a Japanese mother, to a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Another described the state’s recent seizure of HISD, which serves a student population that is 62 percent Hispanic and 22 percent Black—as an “act of racial violence.” Larry McKinzie, an educator and former State Board of Education candidate, appeared to make a physical threat against Miles: “Realize this: you’re safe at forty-four-hundred West Eighteenth”—the location of the board meeting—“but you’ll have to go back [home].” Not one of the 33 attendees who gave public comments had anything good to say about their new superintendent.  

It was hard to gauge Miles’s reaction to the criticism, because he spent the entire public-comment period in a back room, watching the meeting on TV. Arrayed around his empty chair on the dais were the nine members of the new HISD board of managers, recently appointed by Texas Education Agency (TEA) commissioner Mike Morath to replace Houston’s elected school board. The first public meeting, on June 8, had been disrupted by angry hecklers. In an apparent effort to keep order, the board allowed only 35 members of the public into last week’s meeting room, which can accommodate more than 300. The remaining 100 or so attendees were relegated to an overflow room. Several attempted to force their way into the main room, only to be turned back by armed police officers. One teacher who had registered to speak at the meeting was arrested for criminal trespassing and spent the night in jail. 

“This is supposed to be a public meeting, and the public is not in here,” said state representative Jolanda Jones, a former HISD trustee who was among the few allowed into the main hall. “You’re not going to get the support of the community, including myself and others, until you meaningfully include the public.” From Mayor Sylvester Turner on down, nearly every Houston official opposes the HISD takeover. “This process has been flawed and anti-democratic from the very beginning,” Turner said in a statement earlier this month. “There has been minimal community engagement and very little transparency.” 

The state has previously ousted elected school boards in seven districts, including in El Paso ISD in 2012 after a cheating scandal and in Beaumont ISD in 2014 due to financial mismanagement. But it has never assumed control of a district as sprawling and complex as Houston’s, the largest in the state and the eighth-largest in the country. HISD serves nearly 200,000 students spread across 274 schools, has a budget of $2.3 billion, and employs more than 10,000 teachers. In 2015 Harold Dutton, an iconoclastic Democratic state representative who represents northeast Houston and is a longtime critic of HISD, amended an education bill to allow the TEA to take over any school district with a campus that fails to meet state accountability standards for five consecutive years. In 2019, after HISD’s Wheatley High School triggered that provision, the TEA announced that it would appoint a board of managers to temporarily oversee HISD, citing Wheatley’s poor performance and allegations of board misconduct. “This intervention is needed to prevent imminent and substantial harm to the welfare of the district’s students or to the public interest,” Morath said at the time. 

Houston leaders overwhelmingly opposed the takeover, citing HISD’s overall B rating from the state and strong financial position. In 2019 the district sued the state, delaying the takeover for four years. The legal battle ended in January, when the Texas Supreme Court—whose nine members are all Republicans—sided with the TEA. 

On June 1, the TEA formally seized control of HISD. Governor Greg Abbott, who appointed Morath (as well as five state Supreme Court justices), called the decision “unfortunate” but necessary. “There has been a longtime failure by HISD, and the victims of that failure are the students,” Abbott declared. HISD superintendent Millard House II, who had been on the job for two years, was replaced by Miles, a former Dallas ISD superintendent and the founder of Third Future Schools, a network of public charter schools. The elected trustees were replaced by a board of managers picked by the TEA. While racially diverse, the board members mostly live in affluent areas of Houston west of downtown, far from the schools in northeast Houston targeted by Miles’s reforms. 

Those reforms will be sweeping and immediate. For his first year, Miles will target the feeder systems of three chronically underperforming high schools: Kashmere, North Forest, and Wheatley. A total of 29 elementary, middle, and high schools—all serving low-income, predominantly minority student populations—will be reorganized according to Miles’s “New Education System,” a package of reforms he implemented at Dallas ISD and his Third Future schools. In coming years, Miles plans to expand this system to more campuses. (Miles’s tenure in Dallas was polarizing. Supporters claim he made extraordinary improvements, while critics say he alienated the community and that academic gains proved short-lived.)

In recent interviews with local media, Miles has described the key components of the New Education System: higher teacher pay ($85,000 starting salaries, compared to around $61,500 for the coming school year), bonuses for the best teachers, a curriculum focused on reading and math, and a strict disciplinary regime enforced by cameras in every classroom. Unruly students will be removed from class and placed in a separate room, where they can follow along by video. Miles has said that librarians will likely be eliminated—because, in his view, their job consists only of “checking out books,” as he told the Houston Chronicle editorial board. Magnet programs may be scaled back, although schools will retain extracurricular activities, including sports. Miles did not respond to an interview request for this story. 

To implement these reforms, the superintendent is requiring every teacher in the 29 schools to reapply for their job. (Employees who aren’t rehired can move elsewhere in HISD.) That hasn’t gone over well with teachers or parents, many of whom have protested the looming reorganization. At last week’s board meeting, parents pleaded with Miles not to fire their children’s favorite teachers. “We want to keep every single teacher and staff member at our school, along with the classes and programs that they teach,” said Melissa Yarborough, whose children attend Pugh Elementary, one of the 29 schools being overhauled. “We are not just data on your spreadsheets. We’re a community that you’re tearing apart.” 

Karina Quesada, a mother and former teacher, challenged board members to put their own children in a New Education System school. “If it’s good enough for other people’s kids, it’s good enough for your kids,” she said. Sarah Rivlin, who teaches at Northside High School, urged the board to keep librarians. “A librarian put the right books in my hands and turned me into a reader, setting me up for success,” she said. “That’s what you want for your own children, isn’t it?” 

Miles does have defenders in Houston. Cary Wright is the CEO of Good Reason Houston, a  nonprofit group supported by some prominent Houston business leaders that partners with HISD schools to improve student outcomes. Citing low scores on the state-required STAAR tests at some HISD campuses, the organization has lobbied for sweeping reforms. “We’ve been very impressed by the urgency that [Miles] has demonstrated so far,” Wright said. “He seems to be taking an approach that’s based on the idea of equity, the idea of finding the strongest educators in the entire district and moving them to the campuses that have the greatest number of students with unmet needs."

Anna Eastman, who served as an HISD trustee from 2010 to 2018, praised Miles’s proposals to replace librarians with more teachers and use cameras to help identify misbehaving students. “I did think it was pretty cool that if a kid has to leave the classroom for a disciplinary reason that they’ll get to continue watching what’s happening instructionally on Zoom,” she told me. “Because when you remove a kid from the classroom, they lose out on learning time.” 

To Wright and Eastman, the New Education System represents a much-needed disruption of the status quo. Less than half of current HISD second and third graders are reading at grade level, and just one of out five HISD graduates will go on to complete a two- or four-year college degree. For some veteran HISD educators, though, Miles’s plan is all too familiar. From 2010 to 2013, former superintendent Terry Grier spent more than $60 million to radically transform twenty of the district’s worst-performing schools. The program, known as Apollo 20, included performance-based teacher pay, extra testing, and intense discipline. Test scores temporarily improved at the targeted schools, but many students transferred to different campuses, reportedly because of the high-stress environment. 

The effect on teacher morale was devastating. Shilpa Sarang, who taught English and English as a second language at an Apollo 20 high school in southwest Houston, wept as she recalled the “dehumanization” she experienced from administrators. “I would get written up for everything, like if I had left a highlighter on the floor,” she said. One of her colleagues confessed to fantasizing about deliberately crashing her car so she’d have an excuse not to come to school. The New Education System  “is exactly the same program that happened under Apollo Twenty,” said Ruth Kravetz, a retired HISD teacher and cofounder of Community Voices for Public Education, which opposes the state takeover. “That led to plummeting enrollment at the Apollo schools, no reading gains, and no sustained math gains.” Among the 29 schools included on Miles’s list are several that previously went through Apollo 20. 

Erin Baumgartner, director of the Houston Education Research Consortium at Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research, said that Miles’s reforms will have to take into consideration the harsh reality of life for many students. Nearly 80 percent of HISD students are eligible to participate in the federal free and reduced-price lunch program; 37 percent are English-language learners. “We expect education to fix everything,” Baumgartner said. “Some kids, unfortunately, show up at school hungry, or haven’t had a place to sleep, or clean clothes. We expect schools to manage all of that. But supporting students takes a whole community effort."

Following the heated public comments at last week’s board meeting, Miles finally emerged from his back room, wearing a checked sports jacket and a broad grin. He introduced his top staff, then presided over a two-hour budget workshop conducted around a set of massive conference tables that occupied half the room. The protesters slowly drifted away; by the time the meeting adjourned, virtually the only people left in the building were reporters and police officers. At a brief, late-night press conference, a reporter asked Miles why he didn’t show up for the public comments. “It’s the board’s meeting, and the focus should be on the board, and questions to the board,” he replied, explaining that he had already met with three thousand HISD teachers, parents, and employees in his first few weeks on the job. “I am answering lots of questions,” he said. “I will face any music.” 

Corrections, June 28, 2023: A previous version of this article reported that the state had ousted school boards in fifteen other districts. It has done so in seven others. The article also reported that every employee of a school in Houston ISD will have to reapply for their job, including janitors. Only academic staff will have to.

It's horrible to learn that under Superintendent Mike Miles' leadership—after his and the Texas Education Agency's (TEA) takeover of Houston Independent School District (HISD)—children "are receiving no instruction or assistance in Spanish at all." Stated differently, their civil right to bilingual education is getting denied. I imagine that this will play out in court at some future point, as the damage is predictable and already evident. Special education has also been decimated (see People's Report of HISD takeover at State Board of Ed). Miles' curriculum is fully mandated and it is destroying teachers' morale.

When HISD Superintendent stated—in reference to his own teachers and community members—at a Texas Tribune Festival event in Austin last September, “If they don't want to work in that kind of culture, they need to make the decisions that's right for them,” geez, how dismissive can a public school leader be?!!!

Plus, Miles is not only being racist against Spanish-speaking children and hostile to the public, but also anti-public education itself. With his own words and arrogance, he demonstrates how his agenda falls squarely in line with the privatizers like Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and many in the Texas Republican leadership that represent urban areas as opposed to those representing rural areas that have solidly voted against vouchers.

As a public, we all need to care about HISD. A first start is to listen to the
People's Report of HISD takeover at State Board of Ed. Their testimonies begin at  1:09:00 (full testimony) on the meter with a shorter version taking place here. This is a clear attempt to dismantle public education in Houston. 

The testimonies further point to how democracy is literally at risk given that there is no one in government to whom they can appeal this decision. As Commissioner Morath himself has been inaccessible to these parents, teachers, and this community, they had no choice but to testify at the Texas State Board of Education that says it has no jurisdictional power over the matter. Even the legal advisor at the Texas SBOE didn't know where to direct those that testified.

It's all so surreal. Do listen at least to the shortened version of the testimonies on Youtube. 

It's not just an invasion, but an ambush. And the children suffer.

-Angela Valenzuela

Support for Houston ISD’s Spanish speakers has dwindled under state-appointed leader, parents say

For one reading class, Superintendent Mike Miles said instruction would focus on English, even if it meant risking state funding for dual-language programs. Parents say it goes further than that, adding that their kids are receiving no assistance in Spanish at all.

BY BRIAN LOPEZ

OCT. 3, 20235 AM CENTRAL

Celina Manzano takes her children to school at Pugh Elementary School in East Houston on Monday, Oct. 2, 2023.

For Celina Manzano, Pugh Elementary School in East Houston is no longer the welcoming place it used to be.

Manzano’s family mostly speaks Spanish, so her son Maycol’s teachers used to provide them with translations of his homework and make time for her to ask questions. But under the leadership of the state’s recently appointed superintendent, most of those teachers left after they were required to reapply for their jobs.

Accommodations for Spanish speakers are practically gone, Manzano said. Maycol, who started second grade this year, has told her he doesn’t want to go to school anymore.

It’s been over a month since the Houston Independent School District started its first school year after the state ousted its democratically elected school board and replaced the district’s previous leader with Superintendent Mike Miles. Since then, complaints have been piling up among Spanish-speaking families, who say they are not getting the support they need. In Houston ISD, about 36% of students are either bilingual or English learners.

The state’s takeover of the district was in response to years of poor academic outcomes at a single campus. Under Miles’ tenure, Pugh Elementary and more than 80 other campuses now operate under his “New Education System,” which he describes as an “innovative staffing model that puts the focus on classroom instruction and improved student outcomes.”

Classes used to be half in English and half in Spanish in dual-language schools like Pugh. Miles previously said that dual-language education would continue and even expand under the NES model, but parents say that support for Spanish speakers has dwindled.

Mike Miles, the state-appointed superintendent of Houston ISD, discusses public education in Texas' largest city at The Texas Tribune Festival in Austin on Sept. 23, 2023. Eddie Gaspar/Texas Tribune

Credit:

In particular, the new “Science of Reading” class — based on psychology and neuroscience research on how children learn to read and the skills they need to do so — is taught only in English.

“You cannot read well if you can’t decode, and you cannot decode if you don’t do it in English,” Miles said at a community meeting in July where he explained his approach to families. “So we’re gonna do the science of reading, decoding and language comprehension in English, and then we will supplement [many English learners’ native] language, Spanish.”

Miles told The Houston Chronicle last month he would try to keep reading instruction as close as possible to the 50-50 model, but his priority would be teaching children the science of reading, even if the uneven split means losing funding. State law requires dual-language programs to divide instruction equally between English and an English learner’s native language.

Miles did not respond to an interview request or emailed questions.

Parents say the changes have gone further than that, noting that this school year their kids are receiving no instruction or assistance in Spanish at all.

Marta Quinteros said her 8-year-old son Angel struggles to speak and understand English, and she feels like the district isn’t doing enough to support her son like last year.

Quinteros said when she asked teachers and administrators at Scroggins Elementary School if they could explain lessons slower or in Spanish to her son, she was told they couldn’t.

Angel has also had issues with bullying but told Quinteros he hasn’t told anyone at school because he is afraid school officials will tell him he needs to speak English and he can’t do it that well.

“‘I’m not going to learn English, I’m not going to,”’ Quinteros said her son has told her.

Duncan Klussmann, a clinical assistant professor of school leadership at the University of Houston, said Miles’ reforms are affecting Spanish-speaking and bilingual families because they do not allow for a lot of customization in students’ learning.

“What we know about education is when 1,000 students walk into a building each day they all have very different needs that need to be addressed,” he said. “It's still yet to be seen if the system that has been put in place will address the needs of bilingual students.”

Public education observers, teachers and parents have described Miles’ leadership and vision for the district as military-like and test-score-driven.

Several Houston ISD teachers and community members have criticized him for his “my way or the highway” approach, with Miles saying that those who don’t like his changes can choose to leave the district.

“If they don't want to work in that kind of culture, they need to make the decisions that's right for them,” he said at a Texas Tribune Festival event in Austin last month.

Under the NES schools, which were selected for the most significant immediate overhauls, every teacher had to reapply for their jobs with no guarantee they would be rehired. Those who stayed are monitored to make sure they are sticking to the curriculum and instructional materials provided by Miles’ leadership team.

Educators say Miles’ system has a rigid approach to teaching. They are tasked with following a strict teaching schedule, which district leaders created to reduce the time teachers spend preparing curriculum. Detractors say it limits educators' ability to decide how to teach their classes.

Teachers who spoke to the Tribune and requested to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation said Miles’ system requires them not to spend time repeating lessons — even when they feel like students didn’t fully understand the material — and to skip any ice breakers or socializing in their classes. Miles has monitors in NES schools to make sure teachers are not deviating from the curriculum.

Miles believes the bad experiences some teachers have described are purely anecdotal and has framed them as examples of the “status quo” thinking prevalent in the state’s education system.

David DeMatthews, an associate professor of educational leadership and policy at the University of Texas at Austin who has followed Miles’ career, said his approach will likely boost test scores. But DeMatthews doubts that such a system will produce sustainable academic improvements or help create a conducive environment for learning.

“That type of teaching is not going to be engaging over time. It's not going to be rewarding for teachers,” DeMatthews said. “This is a very fast-food approach to education.”

But Miles also has people rooting for his success. Sue Deigaard, a former Houston ISD school board member, said while she agrees that Miles’ changes have been abrupt, the district probably needed them.

“The intention to not waste another year for students who are behind is a commendable approach,” Deigaard said. “Our kids have had enough lost years.”

But she added that the new leadership could’ve done a better job at gathering input from the community, especially from people on those campuses that have experienced the greatest changes.

Klussmann said the underlying issue with the new system is whether Houston ISD leadership will give families options to opt out if it’s not working for them — especially in the midst of recent Republican efforts to allow parents to be more involved in decisions about their children’s education. One of the main arguments some Republican leaders have made for “school choice” — a proposal that would allow parents to use state funds to pay for their children’s private schooling — is that it would give low-income families more freedom to leave their school district if they’re not happy with it.

Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott called state lawmakers to return to Austin for a special legislative session starting on Oct. 9. He didn't indicate what the focus of the session will be but he has long said it would be on school choice, one of his biggest priorities this year.

“State leadership and the Legislature really focused on parental choice this last year and the parents should have a say in the type of education that their child is getting, and I think [whether Houston ISD lets parents opt out] is going to be a test at the state level,” Klussmann said.

Manzano said she is lucky to live in a school zone that would allow her to switch districts if she remains unhappy with the changes at Houston ISD — she could go to Galena Park ISD east of Houston — but many parents don’t have that choice, and their kids must conform to the new rules or fall behind.

For both Manzano and Quinteros, if things don’t change, they will look elsewhere for their children’s education.

“If things continue like this, I have to take my son out of this school,” Manzano said. “I don’t like what’s going on.”

Celina Manzano's children head to school at Pugh Elementary School in East Houston.
Danielle Villasana/ Texas Tribune

HISD Takeover: New superintendent Mike Miles put on a play to inspire teachers. Not everyone was amused.

 Friends:

Here is a critical piece by investigative journalist, Josephine Lee, that I encourage you to read. It's rather bizarre to see Mike Miles, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) superintendent himself as one of the actors in the play described below, especially when the students that agreed to do this play weren't aware that he’s their superintendent. As one HISD teacher said, “It reeks of propaganda.” 

Read this in combination with Lee's July 14, 2023 piece titled, “Teachers strong-armed to get on board with Houston schools takeover.” The district is now part of Miles' New Education System as follows:

"In recent weeks, criticisms of Miles’ sweeping reforms—particularly removing school librarians and using libraries as student disciplinary centers—have become national news. Miles has said that the 85 schools taking part in his New Education System program, which he transplanted from his Third Futures charter school network, will expand to 150 schools by 2025."

It's all so suspect and not the way to be working in good faith with teachers, parents, community, and students. It's experienced as objectifying, getting treated like an object. And this objectification dishonors the teachers and unmasks this raw and shameful taking of power.

Where is the community in this story? The community is positioned in the background in this account.

I hope that the press is alive and well everywhere so that the people can get the information they need directly from the community. This could be in the hands of local bloggers, those with Instagram accounts, or on listservs or Facebook groups of people in the cultural arts. I'm confident that Lee will also continue producing credible accounts, too.

Thanks to journalist Alfredo Santos, he was been my consistent, local news source from his newspaper, La Voz de Austin. This, alongside a truly excellent source for local news on education, The Austin Chronicle.

Tony Diaz and Liana Lopez with Nuestra Palabra have been my go-to people on anything involving community and education in Houston. There are, to be sure, broad overlapping communities with a shared interest in the preservation of our democracy that are coming together—even as others are still needing to join on in defense of all public education—or "P-20 education," as we say in higher education, meaning Pre-K through 20 pointing to how learning is lifelong.

Do read the article below. Folks at the capitol are noticing that Harris County has been on fire with lots of young, progressive, highly diverse, and politically aware students, activists, and most importantly, voters! 

Without a doubt, this harshness of policy animus against HISD is everything about pushing back on the democratic party and the county's otherwise progressive or liberal base. 

Still, all of this sounds like such a hard time right now in HISD. May our teachers and everyone involved find ways to be whole so that all of our children's classrooms become the sanctuaries that they can optimally be.

I'm not amused either. I'm in prayer and meditation. My life is a constant prayer and meditation.  🙏 🙏 🙏

Sí se puede! Yes we can!

-Angela Valenzuela

HOUSTON ISD TAKEOVER, THE MUSICAL
New superintendent Mike Miles put on a play to inspire teachers. Not everyone was amused.

by JOSEPHINE LEE
AUGUST 18, 2023, 10:17 AM, CDT

A single spotlight shined on a student performer in an aisle belting the lyrics to West Side Story’s “Something’s Coming”:

Something’s comin’, something good
If I can wait!
Something’s comin’, I don’t know what it is
But it is
Gonna be great!

The stage lit up to reveal a 1950s diner with red and white checkered tablecloth tables and red rubber stools. In walked new district superintendent Mike Miles, playing “Mr. Duke,” owner of the joint who doubles as a counselor who listens to the teachers’ and students’ grievances. 

Since March, when the Texas Education Agency seized control of the Houston Independent School District (HISD), citing the failure to meet state standards at one high school, Houston’s teachers and parents have seen the battle with the state-appointed school board and superintendent play out in community meetings and in the press. Now, during a week of district-mandated conferences at the NRG Center, teachers were watching the takeover play out on stage. Miles directed the script—an hour-long musical that took six weeks to prepare, depicting how the new superintendent will rekindle the extinguished spirits of burnt-out teachers, give hope to hopeless students, and bestow a visionary plan to save public education. 

“We are lost as a profession,” a teacher said on stage. 

“My dreams are getting smaller and smaller,” a student later echoed. 

“Well, maybe that new guy—you know, super … super …”

“You mean Superintendent Miles?” 

“Maybe Superintendent Miles will make things better for us.”

Maybe.

But teachers who spoke to the Texas Observer said Miles’ performance wasted the district’s time and money and mocked their professional experience and concerns. 

“For him to turn our concerns into satire is really insulting,” HISD teacher Melissa Yarborough said. “It reeks of propaganda.”

“He wasted our time when we could be in our classrooms preparing our lesson plans before school starts,” said Chris, an elementary school teacher who asked only to be identified by his first name. 

Jessica, who has been teaching for 24 years, told the Observer Miles’ musical “was very condescending. The message was that we don’t know what we’re doing. And he’s coming in to show us how to do it right.”

Chris, Jessica, and others we spoke to asked that we use their first or middle names for fear of disciplinary action. A slide from the training states: “HISD expects any employee not to use social media or any communications platform or media, including forwarding, supporting, or ‘liking’ posts or communications to communicate false or misleading information about the school or district, particularly if designed to damage the school or district’s reputation.” 

“THE MESSAGE WAS THAT WE DON’T KNOW WHAT WE’RE DOING.”

In recent weeks, criticisms of Miles’ sweeping reforms—particularly removing school librarians and using libraries as student disciplinary centers—have become national news. Miles has said that the 85 schools taking part in his New Education System program, which he transplanted from his Third Futures charter school network, will expand to 150 schools by 2025.  

Earlier this week, Miles terminated nearly two dozen special educational and mental health contractors after the Texas Education Agency tasked the new administration to improve special education services as a condition to end the takeover. 

The day before the performance, someone called the fire marshall to address the district’s chaotic and overcrowded training conference at the NRG Center.

“I saw somebody get wheeled out because they had a panic attack. Then this lady asked me to watch the door to keep people from coming in, so I didn’t really get anything from that training,” Chris said. 

In one scene, a teacher rebukes other teachers who waste class time.

“Maybe I should show a movie every now and then and give you free time so you can surf the web and only look at videos and TikToks,” she said on stage.

In another scene, an older teacher admonishes a group of students using pretentious diction. Students respond with slang, saying, “They always treat us like we’re second class, but we’re not.”

Miles’ character Mr. Duke then stepped in to help translate for both parties and bridge their differences, telling the students, “There’s always going to be people like that, but you guys are the underdog, and you’re going to show them how you’re going to change the world.”

Comfort Azagidi, a senior at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, who performed in the show, said that unlike Mr. Duke, during rehearsals Miles “didn’t really talk to us. When he finally came to rehearsals, he never introduced himself or acknowledged us. He just came in and walked past students and teachers.” Comfort said they were misled into participating in the show and found the portrayal of Gen Z students and culture “offensive.”

Teachers also said the musical belittled their concerns about the lack of information and organization they see from the district as they struggle to prepare for a new school year starting in less than two weeks. 

Elizabeth, a teacher with nine years of experience at one school in Miles’ New Education System program, said administrators eliminated the elective class she had taught for years. She is now instructing a course called “The Art of Thinking,” for which she has received only a general curriculum guide and the first three lessons. 

“I don’t know what exactly I’m supposed to accomplish in this class,” Elizabeth said. 

In public meetings, Miles had promised he would not eliminate school electives. He has been under fire for instituting a salary system that pays elective, science, and social studies teachers less than reading and math teachers. 

“I can look at an elective teacher in third grade and say reading is more important to our students right now, and the value that teacher brings is higher than the value a P.E. teacher brings,” Miles told the Houston Chronicle. 

“The musical was a slap in the face to all the fine arts teachers,” Elizabeth added, noting that Miles had to obtain the help of fine arts teachers and students from the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and other schools. “All the choreography, technology, and skills behind the musical—these elective teachers had to build up that skill.”

In another scene, Miles took a jab at the press and community members criticizing his decision to eliminate librarians and turn libraries into student detention centers. 

“Why are you getting rid of playgrounds?” students playing reporters asked. 

“I didn’t say I’m getting rid of playgrounds,” said Miles, playing himself. 

“Why do you hate children?” the reporters ask. 

Elizabeth told the Observer, “The musical was a dig at everybody who has criticized him. It wasn’t about what the schools could be. It was just about him.”

When asked to comment about teachers’ criticisms of the musical, Miles said, “Those are anecdotes from one teacher or a handful of teachers dissing the convocation. They didn’t get into the spirit of it. Some people always want to bring down something great.” 

Miles called his critics naysayers and said, “You will always have people who don’t want to change.”

Yarborough disagrees. She said that teachers have been calling for changes for years, including smaller class sizes and more resources and funding for the classroom. She said some of Miles’ reforms, which have not worked in the past, are moving the district backward. 

“I’d agree with Miles that things were not good the way they were,” Yarborough said. “But he is not inventing anything new. Districts have tried scripted curriculum in the past, and it has not fixed our problems. Reconstituting schools is not new. Paying teachers based on their student test scores is not new. I have not seen any evidence that that stuff works.” 

Miles’ musical ended with teachers and students singing, dancing, and laughing freely on stage, which teachers noted was a stark contrast to the sterile classrooms Miles wants in schools. 

“It’s all for show,” Elizabeth said. “Like in the Wizard of Oz, when you look behind the curtain, what’s being presented is not what’s really going on.” 

JOSEPHINE LEE is Texas Observer's 2023 David McHam Investigative Reporting Fellow. She has previously worked as an educator and community organizer. Her reporting on labor, environment, politics, and education has been featured on Salon, Daily Beast, Truthout, and other outlets. She was raised in and lives in Houston.