Mike Miles, the Broad-trained superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District, is under investigation by the Board of Education’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
According to investigative journalists, OPR is inquiring into charges that Miles interfered with an official inquiry and manipulated the bidding process for contracts.
An internal report to the board was published on the Internet by a board member.
The board’s top investigator accused Miles of trying to interfere with his investigation. Miles denied any wrongdoing.
At least six of Miles’ top staff have left in the year since he started work in Dallas, and groups have led protests against him.
He came to education from a military background.
Just today, the district’s trustees voted to hire an independent investigator of the charges against Miles.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Another Broad Hall of Shame inductee. Sigh.
One after another of Broad-trained superintendents leave their posts in disgrace. Are these people born that way, or does the training encourage them to be corrupt?
I think their training makes them think they are invincible. Their way is the right way and must be achieved no matter what shortcuts or interference they have to take to get their way.
There should be a comprehensive list somewhere of all the Broad superintendents who have left in disgrace or been run out of town,
Let that be a cautionary tale to school boards that are thinking of hiring them.
They do exactly what they are paid to do, taking orders from Broad, Gates, Walton, et. al.
I just started Finnish Lesson by Pasi Sahlberg. I must share this paragraph:
Even in business, these larger than life strategies of turnaround and improvement do not produce sustainable improvement. Companies may be broken up, assets sold off, and employees fired with impunity, and all this might increase short term shareholder returns, but few strategies of these sorts survive in the long term and many turn around companies eventually become casualties of their leaders’ reckless behaviors. Indeed, management expert Manfred Ket de Vries explains how many so-called turnaround specialists are little more than psychiatrically disturbed narcissists, sociopaths, and control freaks (Ket de Vries, 2006).
http://www.finnishlessons.com/
GREAT comment!
I have started reading Pauline Lipman’s new book. Thank you for your link that mentioned it.
Also, read Chapter 4: Goal Crazy: When Trying to Control the Future Doesn’t Work in the new book, The Antidote-Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman. In it, Chris Kayes–“a former stockbroker turned expert on organisational behaviour”–describes a syndrome he calls “goalodicy.” In this, when a goal is shown–over time and with evidence–to be unwise and unworkable, this “negative evidence would be reinterpreted as a reason to invest (even) MORE effort and resources in pursuit of the goal.”
Just like NCLB and the morphing into RTTT and everything that we know is wrong about the business model of education and its accoutrements (high stakes testing, junk science, {fake} data driven, TFA, etc.) and, still, Arne and his cronies keep “invest(ing)
(even) MORE effort and resources in pursuit of the goal.”
Which is…?
Wonder how long Terry Grier will be the darling of Houston, TX. He’s been all over the place in the last 25 years.
I agree about Terry Grier –
http://amarillo.com/blog-post/jon-mark-beilue/2011-09-22/most-hated-man-houston-once-had-same-title-here
“I got my latest Texas Monthly in the mail on Wednesday. One of the stories listed on the cover was entitled, “A Year In The Trenches With The Most Hated Man in Houston.”
Wow, who could that be? An attorney? Abortion doctor? Drug dealer? Nope.
It was Houston ISD superintendent Dr. Terry Grier. Remember him? A lot of veteran educators in Amarillo would prefer not to.”
Oh, my.
Well, we would never have a scandal like that here in New York. All of our contracts are no-bid
Sadly, this is not the first time Mr. Miles has caused problems in a district. He was superintendent over Harrison School DIstrict Two in Colorado Springs for the 6 years before he came to Dallas. It does not appear that Dallas investigated. Look at the senior class enrollment in Harrison. It dropped 33% during the 6 years Miles was there while the elementary enrollment grew over 20%. The community complained of students being pushed out. Many pulled out their students in anger at Miles methods. The loss was greatest for students as they neared their taking of the SAT/ACT. Miles came to Dallas with a reputation for raising those scores. See the data at http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2013/05/damage-by-mike-miles-in-colorado.html
I should also post that the largest district near Mr. Miles district saw their ACT scores go down according to published reports.
http://www.progressivefox.com/?p=5364
Mr. Miles is scheduled to speak at a workshop in New Jersey a few weeks from now–on “The Dallas Experience.” I hope this doesn’t keep him away. I’d love to be there myself.
Mr. Chuckster — can you send me more info on this NJ speaking event ?
Mhaag@dallasnews.com
Thanks,
Matthew Haag
The Dallas Morning News
http://education.state.nj.us/events/details.php?recid=19774
http://racplc.pbworks.com/w/page/66018940/FrontPage
http://racplc.pbworks.com/w/page/66021043/PRESENTERS
Mike Miles Keynote Presenter
This is from one of the links supplied by Eric Harvey (below)
Building the Capacity to Meet the Challenges of School Improvement – Part 1 and 2
Mike Miles
One of the key principles of a turnaround school is to focus on the quality of instruction and to keep instruction “the main thing.” Effective school-level instructional leaders are central to making instruction – and concomitantly, student achievement – the focus of reform. It is important to start with a picture of what effective instructional leadership looks like. In this session, Miles will outline specific criteria of instructional leadership and specific actions principals need to take in order to improve the quality of instruction. It is a rare person that can become good in their profession without . .
It seems that Miles has been removed from the list of keynoters (is that a word?). I can’t see him on the first link, but on 7/2, I copied that page to a word document. Here’s what’s missing: “Mike Miles – Thursday, August 15, 2013 The Dallas Experience—Destination 2020 Core Beliefs.”
From a ridiculously fawning article:
The question many are asking not only of Rhee, but of Miles: Are they reformers who can measure the quality of teachers in a fair way and bring reform to public education, or are they outsiders moving so recklessly that they’re endangering the good in public education along with the bad?
http://gazette.com/mike-miles-superintendent-championing-for-better-schools/article/96268
“Many” are asking this. Apparently too few asked this.
Duncan said Miles is a model for reform. Is an Arne Duncan endorsement a guarantee they’ll be terrible managers, or what? Forget “innovation”. They should aim lower, at “basic competence”. See if they can reach “competence” before “transforming” the schools that tens of millions of kids attend.
Anything Arne approves of or promotes SUCKS…..he is the secretary of disaster.
He is sleazy, incompetent and a buffoon.
Not to mention a failed basketball player (that’s what he wanted to do professionally, but couldn’t make the cut).
How about Miles hiring Jerome Oberlton as chief of staff! The guy might be an IT guy but chief of STAFF? According to linkedln he was
Chief Information Officer (CIO)
Atlanta Public Schools
June 2004 – September 2007 (3 years 4 months) Atlanta, GA
Chief Information Officer
Mannatech
June 2007 – September 2009 (2 years 4 months)
(NOTE THE TWO JOBS OVERLAP 4 MONTHS)
President & CEO
Global Technology Services
January 2007 – February 2012 (5 years 2 months)
(NOTE THE TWO JOBS OVERLAP 2YEARS 8MONTHS)
Chief Information Officer
Baltimore City Public Schools
March 2011 – Present (2 years 5 months)
(NOTE TWO JOBS OVERLAP 11 MONTHS)
In Baltimore Jerome Oberlton was charged with misuse of the schools credit card and charging $250,000 to re-due his office.
Dallas ISD Superintendent Mike Miles was aware of those reports when he hired Oberlton as his chief of staff in January. As district spokesman Jon Dahlander relayed to the Morning News at the time, Miles “has spoken with Mr. Oberlton about his entire tenure on numerous occasions, and he is aware of that story. He understands the sensitivity of the situation. He is still very comfortable with him coming on board.”
Jerome Oberlton recently resign because he’s the subject of a federal criminal investigation relating to his Atlanta days!
Where do they find these guys???
Mike Miles made out like a bandit when he had a “consulting” gig in Paterson, NJ for over $7,000 a day, which he turned over to his sister when she left the DOD under a cloud:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2012/04/living-large-at-nj-doe.html
PATERSON, NJ – An education specialist fired last September by the U.S. defense department over allegations of misconduct has been working at Paterson Public Schools under a consulting contract that pays a Colorado company $7,244 per day.
Shirley Miles had been executive director of the Department of Defense Education Activity when an Inspector General investigation last year found that she steered jobs to friends and family, took liberties with travel reimbursements and failed to properly report vacation days, according to a story by Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper.
After being fired in September by the federal government on the nepotism-related allegations, it seems Shirley Miles’ family connections quickly landed her work in Paterson.
By October, she joined the team of consultants assigned to Paterson under the school district’s contract with Colorado-based Curriculum Focal Point, according to district employees. Her brother, Mike Miles, is described as one of Focal Point’s “professional developers” on the company’s website and many district employees generally consider him the consulting company’s main representative in Paterson.
[…]
PatersonPress.com attempted to contact Mike Miles through the email provided on Focal Point’s website but received no response. In addition to his consulting work, Miles also serves as superintendent of schools of the Harrison district in Colorado Springs, according to Focal Point’s website.
The contract says Focal Point would be paid $3,000 per day during the 2010-11 school year, $7,244 during 2011-12 and $7,292 for 2012-13. The contract sets the duration of a work day as 8:30 am-3 pm.
Yes, he was working full-time as Harrison’s superintendent when he got this cushy job.
Yes, NJDOE Commissioner Chris Cerf is also a Broadie.
Here in Dallas, Olberton resigned, citing his upcoming indictment. He was only here a few months (hired by Miles!), but he managed to get his fingers into the pie nevertheless; our “newspaper” did a story on his corrupt actions in Dallas, but I won’t post the link because the same “newspaper” wholeheartedly supports Miles.
Talk is cheap. Arne was so impressed by Miles that he blew him off for a RttT grant.
Imagine if we could start a movement to boycott cities with Broad supers.
Is there some way to gather the info of their past assignments and stop them from getting hired when they parachute in?
It is really alarming to read these comments and see how much damage he has done.
Could we have stopped Bennett before he moved from IN to FL?
Miles method at HSD2 was to change terms and methods of how accountability was reported so focus was shifted to what he wanted people to see, not the actual issue. Student achievement did not improve if measured by the criteria in place before Miles tenure as superintendent. He also took advantage of a ATU that he capriciously changed at will and without notice because challenge was rendered ineffective. Many of his employees learned the hard way one cannot trust anything the man says because the terms will change without notice, always to his advantage.