Many principals, teachers, parents, and students in Houston are fed up with Mike Miles’ lockstep, scripted curriculum. Miles boasts that test scores are going up, but far more important indicators are in decline, especially morale. After Miles stripped autonomy away from professionals, the district experienced alarming numbers of resignations. Hundreds of uncertified teachers have been hired to replace those who left.
Student enrollment sharply dropped by about 5%.
The Houston Chronicle reported:
Sarah Malik used to think Houston ISD’s Lantrip Elementary School was a great fit for her daughter.
After the departures of the school’s principal and several teachers in the spring, Malik knew they had to go.
Malik is one of thousands of parents who pulled their child from HISD this year. Several told the Chronicle they were leaving the district due to the stringent reforms, plummeting morale, principal and teacher departures or cookie-cutter lessons that they said did not account for children’s individual learning needs during the previous academic year.
HISD’s enrollment will not be finalized until October, but it appears to be on track to drop below 180,000 students.
If you read the literature about motivation, you will learn that the most important driver of motivation is a sense of autonomy. Read Edward Deci, Dan Ariely, Daniel Pink. Miles is crushing morale, motivation, and autonomy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
All part of the plan. Most school districts and states use ‘per pupil’ formulas for funding schools. They aren’t going to take last year’s budget, divide by a smaller number of schools and declare an increase in per pupil funding. They will keep the levels as they are, or even reduce them because of the budget pressures from vouchers, etc. and the public schools will be weakened even further.
Your example shows the impact of fleeing teachers. Their replacements are less competent, further reducing student and parent satisfaction, resulting in further declines in enrollment.
This is all part of the plan, mind you.
It is past time, well past time, to get out the torches and pitchforks and rid our communities of these miscreants, and instilling a healthy fear in the ones who do not run.
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Precisely. This Miles had a directive from Abbot Hitler to wreck the schools. Then they will complain that the schools are wrecked.
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Yes, Miles is in Houston to destroy the public schools.
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These radical red state governors don’t work for the people. They work for the billionaires that have no need for public schools and would like to crush them. I wish the public would wise up, organize and vote them out.
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This is a plot worthy of Doctor Evil. Drive staff at all levels from the public schools which causes large numbers of parents to pull their kids out of schools which leads to further reductions in staff which leads to…. The final act is all the kids, the White kids that is, ending up in so-called “Christian” schools or in the workforce. Of course the Black / Latino kids will find their place deported, on welfare or living a life of crime.
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The enrollment drop is likely just part of the national trend.
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But it doesn’t explain the huge exodus of principals and teachers.
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Correct.
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Flerp: we discovered that colleges are experiencing enrollment problems as we visited colleges with our daughter.
Not sure that is the same as -9000 in a major school system, though
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I think it’s the same phenomenon.
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Roy,
Birth rates declined with the great recession and never went back up. It is hitting high schools now and will impact colleges. See https://www.axios.com/2024/07/03/education-enrollment-cliff-schools
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First, it is clear that the decline in Houston isn’t simply a declining birthrate — it is about parents faced with underfunded public schools that are so intentionally undermined that they have lost too many good teachers who choose not to keep their child in them.
But, if schools are losing enrollment because of a declining birthrate, then it is so messed up that our political discourse frames every issue so as to reject the good solutions that are now available as a result. A declining birthrate should be an opportunity to have the small class sizes that were near impossible to achieve when overcrowded schools had 34+ students in a classroom and even music and art rooms were turned into classrooms.
With declining enrollment, the huge cost of building new schools to provide new classrooms to allow smaller class sizes is no longer a barrier. It should be framed as an opportunity, but sadly, it will simply be an excuse to give the most vulnerable public school kids even less than they have now.
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“First, it is clear that the decline in Houston isn’t simply a declining birthrate”
It’s clear? How is it clear? Did you mean to say it’s “plausible” or “quite possible”?
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“It’s clear? How is it clear?”
I read Diane’s entire post above. Did you?
“Malik is one of thousands of parents who pulled their child from HISD this year. Several told the Chronicle they were leaving the district due to the stringent reforms, plummeting morale, principal and teacher departures or cookie-cutter lessons that they said did not account for children’s individual learning needs during the previous academic year.“
The Houston Chronicle reported that thousands PULLED their kids. So this is about more than declining birthrates, although no doubt that adds to it, which is why I also addressed that.
But declining birthrates would hit lowest grades first — unevenly spaced. As someone born at the very tail of the baby boom, I saw the big difference between the total size of my entire grade and my youngest sibling’s grade.
But as I said, declining birth rates should be seen as an opportunity for lower class sizes without needing the expense of building lots of new schools. But lower class sizes isn’t valued by ed reformers – reducing budgets is all they care about. No class size reductions because there is no space, and then when there is space, no class size reductions because there just isn’t money and we don’t think children deserve it unless their families are rich enough to afford the private schools that all seem to have small class sizes because of course, small class sizes are very important but only for kids who already have every advantage.
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Fair point and mea culpa.
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Well said.
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very gracious of you, thanks!
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“Read Edward Deci, Dan Ariely, Daniel Pink, [Alfie Kohn, Peter Senge and, of course, W. Edwards Deming].”
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I’d put Noel Wilson at the front of your list.
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This Noel Wilson?…
https://childrensliteracycenter.org/about-noel/
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