In Houston, the backlash against the authoritarianism of state-imposed superintendent Mike Miles continues to grow. Teachers of special education and bilingual education don’t like the standardized curriculum.
If I’m focused on what’s happening in Houston, there are two reasons:
1. I’m a graduate of the Houston Independent School District, and I don’t like to see it under siege by a know-nothing Governor and his puppet state superintendent.
2. This state takeover demonstrates the utter bankruptcy of state takeovers. It was concocted out of whole cloth, on the claim that one school in the entire district was “failing.” Before the takeover, that school—Wheatley High School—received a higher score (based on state tests) and was no longer “failing,” but the state took over the entire district anyway. So Houston is a national example of the vapidness of “education reform,” meaning non-educators like Miles, Governor Abbott, and State Chief Mike Morath telling professional educators how to do their jobs.
Anna Bauman of The Houston Chronicle writes:
A cornerstone of the New Education System introduced by Superintendent Mike Miles is a highly specific and rigorous instructional model.
As many students and teachers know by now, the system includes a standardized curriculum provided by the district, frequent classroom observations and grade level materials. Each day, teachers in core classes provide direct instruction for 45 minutes, give students a timed quiz and then split the children into groups based on their understanding of the lesson, with struggling learners getting more help from their teacher.
Miles says the model is meant to improve academic achievement, especially among student populations whose standardized test scores often lag behind their peers, and has disputed any claims that the system fails to accommodate the diverse needs of students.
In conversations over recent weeks, however, seven teachers at five different schools told me they are struggling to meet the needs of children with disabilities or emergent bilingual studentsbecause the model is too rigid, fast-paced and inflexible to provide accommodations for these learners.
For example, one teacher at an NES-aligned campus told me she cannot realistically give students extra time, a common accommodation for special education students, on the timed Demonstration of Learning. If she lags behind schedule, administrators will enter her classroom and demand: “Why aren’t we where we’re supposed to be?”
A teacher at Las Americas Newcomer School, home to many refugee and immigrant students, said district officials instructed educators to remove alphabet posters from their classrooms and limit the use of dictionaries, which many non-native English speakers rely on during class.
“Many of them, it’s their first year being in school. They don’t know the language. I have a classroom with at times four different languages spoken. And we’re forced to do the same slides and the same work as a regular, general education school,” the teacher said.
Only time will tell whether the new system will boost academic achievement as Miles intends, but for now, teachers are speaking out because they are concerned about doing what is right for their most vulnerable students.
“When I go home at night, I want to know when I put my head down on my pillow that I did the best I could by my kids,” said Brian Tucker, a special education teacher at Sugar Grove Academy.
You can read more in-depth about these issues in separate stories published this week about special education students and English language learners.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“A cornerstone of the New Education System introduced by Superintendent Mike Miles is a highly specific and rigorous instructional model.”
Can you speak edudeformer speak?
Rigorous education
That is rigor in the sense of “stiff.” Dead and deadly.
“. . . administrators will enter her classroom and demand: ‘Why aren’t we where we’re supposed to be?’”
Either those adminimals have fleas or else multiple personalities.
“Only time will tell whether the new system will boost academic achievement as Miles intends. . . .”
No, no need for time. We already know that it won’t “boost academic achievement” but will serve to destroy the education of many students.
But, hey, gotta keep those private prison corporations supplied with profit opportunities.
Exactly right
Miles is not an educator, and his blind adherence to curriculum standardization proves his lack of understanding of diverse students. As someone that worked in a good public school district, I saw first hand the benefit of using specialists to meet the needs of individual students. When my district created an intervention committee that worked with other teachers to suggest ways reach vulnerable students, the district assembled a team of specialists to offer suggestions to the staff. As an ESL teacher, I sat with a reading, speech and LD resource room teachers, a school psychologist and sometimes social worker to listen to classroom teacher concerns and offer suggestions so we as a group could better serve our young people. The atmosphere of the meetings were always collaborative, collegial, and they focused to solutions to address the issue presented.
I had to laugh when ‘dizzy’ DeVos accused public education of being a factory model of education. While we do handle large numbers of students, it is because public education strives to be ‘thorough and efficient’ in its use of resources. However, most public schools offer far more effective options for young people than a one size fits all charter or voucher school. One of the reasons private charter and voucher schools reject more challenging students is because they are amateurs, not professional educators, and, of course, they want to offer the cheapest education possible in order to make more money. People like Miles would like to standardize curriculum so they justify turning students over to computer screens, which in my opinion, is the ultimate factory model of education.
However, most public schools offer far more effective options for young people than a one size fits all charter or voucher school.
But Ditzy DeVoid doesn’t actually know anything about education. She just spews ideology. Or in her case, ideology and idiotology.
If I may add a little to the thought: “She just spews REACTIONARY XTIAN THEOFASCISM ideology.
Never did figure out how I was supposed to follow a student’s IEP and a rigid curriculum taught in a rigid fashion at the same time. Ah, for the good old days when the needs of the student were paramount.
ever did figure out how I was supposed to follow a student’s IEP and a rigid curriculum taught in a rigid fashion at the same time.
This is, ofc, impossible. One of the ten billion things that Deformers like Miles (and Gates, the head warlock of this coven) do not understand. It’s ironic that such slow learners have placed themselves in the business of education reform. Miles will fail here as he failed elsewhere, and then he will be rewarded for his failure by another extraordinarily well compensated post doing the same failed bullshit to another district’s students.
Deformers fail upward. It’s some sort of unwritten law in these United States.
Teachers who care about students instead of test scores, brothers and sisters, much love! One love.
The teachers in Houston (and across the country) are being forced to commit educational malpractice and child abuse. This is insanity.
You spoke precisely, Sheila. This is child abuse.
Bob, The year after I retired (2011) from teaching at the RI School for the Deaf (where we had certified teachers of the deaf, guidance counselor, social worker, psychologist, linguists, nurse, and a librarian, as well as teacher aides who were fluent in sign language), I volunteered at a Providence middle school. I was in a classroom of ESL students, and the teacher was an ESL teacher. For one of their English periods every day they worked on a Pear$on text about Extreme Weather. (I am not making this up.) It was obvious that the students not only did not understand the text, but did not understand the questions in the assignments. Still, they were reprimanded for not doing their homework. When they were reading about the dust bowl (yes, the dust bowl in English class), I told the teacher about a great documentary I had seen on PBS about it. He actually got it and showed it to the class, literally looking over his shoulder in case an admin would catch him wasting time showing a film. These students who needed extra time and cultural context to understand this “textbook,” were not given it because the teacher was browbeaten into keeping to the same pace as the classes with native English speaking students. Oh, and they were constantly taken out of class to take a nonsensical computerized assessment. This broke my heart.
Was this ESL person a trained professional or simply a warm body to fill a teaching void? Most trained ESL teachers would reject this education malpractice.