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Houston: Teachers Told to Comply with Miles’ Orders or Get Out

By dianeravitch
September 18, 2023 //
32

Mike Miles, the state-imposed superintendent of the Houston Independent School District, has never been a teacher, but he thinks he knows exactly what teachers should do. He has dubbed his behaviorist program the “New Education System.” Those teaching in certain designated schools are required to do it his way or get out. Clearly he has never read the research on motivation (Edward Deci, Dan Ariely, Daniel Pink), or he would know that forced compliance depresses motivation.

The Houston Press reported:

Teachers called to a last-minute after school meeting at Chrysalis Middle School Friday afternoon were told to get with the New Education System program instituted by Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles or get gone. And that they had until 6 p.m. Sunday to let the district know whether they’d be staying or wanted to be moved to another school.

Dr. Luz Martinez, the Central Division superintendent (previously at Midland in 2021 and Round Rock in January 2023 before moving to HISD this June), minced no words in making it clear that there wasn’t to be any more questioning of the new policies at the NES-Aligned schools, part of the Miles plan after the state takeover of HISD.

By Saturday, two teachers who tried to ask questions — one of whom was thrown out of the meeting — received letters that the district was beginning the process of terminating their employment and they were barred from campus. “Insubordination” was cited as the precipitating factor in Carr’s case.

“We are not going back. We are not compromising,” Martinez had told the teachers at the meeting while Principal Mary Lou Walter stood by, “All this noise that is going on, that’s in the past. We are moving forward. We are NES-Aligned.” She went on to insist that the NES program was “never intended to be rigid, never intended to be mechanical.”

At the same time, Martinez told teachers she’d be bringing more outsiders into the schools who would be in the teachers’ classrooms “all the time” to ensure they are “implementing the model with fidelity.”

Science teacher Teresa Carr said she attempted to ask in what way the teachers at Chrysalis were supposedly falling short. “[Martinez] said we were not implementing with fidelity,” said Carr but when the district superintendent was pressed, the only example she came up with was three elementary students she’d spotted on their way to the office because they’d had bathroom accidents. Pointing out that involved Cage and not the middle school or its teachers, Carr said she was unable to get Martinez to give any specific examples involving Chrysalis.

After Carr left the meeting, another teacher attempted to continue with follow up questions, Carr said. That teacher also received a letter of reprimand and notice that termination proceedings were beginning against her, Carr said.

The holder of a BA in science education and a master’s in English education, Carr said she had never been in trouble with the district before and clearly by Sunday was still very unsettled by what had happened. One bright spot was that she had joined the Houston Federation of Teachers union for the first time before the start of school this year and had already talked with her union rep.

A group of parents at Cage Elementary and Chrysalis — they share the campus and principal with Chrysalis — have planned a protest at 7:30 a.m. Monday about what happened Friday and the NESA program in general. Parent Mayra Lemus echoed the bewilderment of many when she pointed out that Cage has been an A level Blue Ribbon School, so why were the more rigid educational approaches that are part of NES instituted there.

Naturally enough, given the times in which we live, someone recorded part of Martinez’s speech.

Carr said when she asked again for an answer to her questions, Martinez walked toward her saying “You can leave. You can leave. You can leave.”

In her written reprimand to Carr, Martinez wrote that the science teacher had “acted in a highly unprofessional manner” in the meeting and was “insubordinate.” According to Martinez, Carr yelled during the exchange and talked over her. Carr insists that it was Martinez who did the yelling.

“As a result, I will move forward with an immediate recommendation to terminate your contract effective 9/16/2023,” Martinez wrote. She also notified Carr that she was not allowed on the Cage/Chrysalis campus for any reason and that she would have to make arrangements to have her personal items picked up after 5:30 p.m.

“If you’re one of those teachers who don’t want to do the model, that is fine. But you will not be here,” Martinez had told teachers assembled Friday. She gave them the weekend to think it over, but later that was shortened to 6 p.m. Sunday.

Categories Corporate Reform, Discipline, Disruption, Education Industry, Houston, State Takeover, Teachers and Teaching, Texas

Houston: What Teachers Say About Mike Miles’s “Reforms”

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2023 //
37

Mike Miles was imposed on the Houston Independent School District by State Commissioner Mike Morath. Neither Miles nor Morath was ever a teacher. HISD was graded a B district before the state takeover. The takeover was based on spite, on Governor Greg Abbott’s hatred for a district that opposes him.

Miles thinks he is an innovator, but none of his authoritarian mandates has ever succeeded anywhere else. They won’t succeed in Houston because he lacks the single most essential ingredient of leadership: Trust.

He rules by fiat. That may work in dictatorships but not in schools. Fear is not a good long-term motivator. If Miles know anything about research on motivation, he would know that the greatest motivators are intrinsic, such as a sense of mastery and autonomy.

This post was written and published on a teacher website. It reports what’s happening in Houston’s classrooms, through the eyes of teachers.

The post begins:

The largest school district in Texas has been in the news a lot lately. You may know the district was issued a state takeover and its superintendent was replaced by Mike Miles, who, notably, has never taught. 

You may know that as a part of his “wholescale, systemic reform” he identified 28 underperforming schools and identified them as NES Schools—which stands for New Education System. 

You may know a few headlines—the most bizarre being that Miles starred in a musical skit for convocation that’s been scrubbed from the Internet. 

Often, the real story isn’t as bad as newspaper headlines make them out to be. That’s not the case with what’s happening in H.I.S.D. 

The experiences teachers are sharing are a different story entirely.

Here is what this reform looks like on a classroom level, from teachers currently in H.I.S.D. 

Teachers read from a script the first two days of school. 

Read right off the page. No get-to-know-yous, no surveys, no relationship-building, no games, nothing. Right into curriculum. 

Teachers must keep classroom doors propped open. 

However, teachers and parents argue this violates past safety mandates to leave classroom doors shut and locked.

Teachers cannot dim lights. 

Even if they leave the windows open, have lamps, etc., the lights must be at full power.

Teachers have constant interruptions from administrators and district “minders.”

APs have to submit a minimum of five teacher observations per day, so this means near-constant interruption.

Administrators evaluate teachers on a checklist that has very little to do with pedagogy.

Teachers don’t know how school leaders will use these observations. This is the actual form (big thanks to Janice Stokes).

[Open the link to see the form.]

My first three reactions:

If teachers are reading from a script created by the district, why are we evaluating them on their instruction being relevant and engaging? Isn’t that on your people, Mike? 

MRS stands for Multiple Response Strategies. Pair and share, whip around, etc. These are acceptable checks for understanding, but every four minutes is formulaic and prevents any kind of extended focus or stamina. 

I haven’t heard “DOL” since 1992.

Classroom monitors can coach teachers on instruction at any time.

Even with students present. Not insulting at all!

No “weak readers” can read aloud because it models disfluency.

Huh. OK.

At NES schools, libraries have been replaced with detention centers. 

A district employee I spoke to insists it is a “flex space that can have other uses besides discipline.” I said, “Oh, like a library?” She did not respond. 

Students may not free-write.

Also, they may not work independently for more than four minutes. 

Every four minutes, teachers are required to hold an all-class response to check for understanding. Which is great, until you actually have to read a book, take a standardized test, or focus for more than four minutes.

Every classroom activity must tie directly to instruction. 

No classroom celebrations, relationship-building activities, brain breaks, or routines/procedures instruction are permitted. 

Teachers received extremely limited training on this model.

The location chosen for training left people sitting on floors and stuck in parking lots for over 45 minutes.

There is no information tying any of these strategies to best practice or research on what’s best for kids.

This authoritarian approach to education is taking a huge toll on school climate and morale. A friend of mine said teachers at her school are breaking down on a daily basis. Even the strongest, most experienced educators—department chairs and leaders with stellar records—feel demoralized and unnerved (and that’s saying a lot after the past few years). 

And no, the answer isn’t to “just move,” or switch districts, or quit teaching altogether. First, that response is lazy and reductive, but more importantly doesn’t account for the hundreds of thousands of kids in H.I.S.D. schools forced to learn in environments counterproductive to their wellness and development. 

Public school teachers in Texas have known for years that it’s in the best interest of the state to destroy public education and reallocate funding to religious and private schools. Years of slashing budgets, demonizing teachers, lowering standards, letting chaplains offer mental health counseling—don’t tell me that’s a state that holds any kind of value for public education. That’s a state that wants to “prove” public education doesn’t work so it can privatize.

It’s just wild to me that they’re not even hiding it anymore.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reform, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Houston, Teachers, Texas

Houston: The Fearful First Day of School in a Micromanaged System

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2023 //
17

School started in the Houston Independent School District, and many teachers were stunned by the extent to which their actions were constrained by a script. The new superintendent Mike Miles has be never been a teacher but he thinks he knows everything about teaching. He laid down strict rules, and teachers must comply without hesitation. Miles is the kind of leader who, if put in charge of a hospital, would tell surgeons how to conduct surgeries. This story appeared in the Houston Chronicle and was written by staff writer Anna Bauman.

As she prepared for the start of a new school year in Houston ISD, a fifth-grade reading teacher stripped much of the colorful personality from her classroom, including motivational posters, student art projects, several bins of books and a social-emotional learning nook with comfy furniture.

She wiped away tears and, earlier this week, started teaching at a school under the New Education System, a wholesale reform model introduced by Superintendent Mike Miles, who was appointed in June by the Texas Education Agency to run the largest school system in Texas.

HISD teacher Sarah Rivlin participates in a rally hosted by The Greater Houston Justice Coalition and other community groups to speak against the state takeover of HISD Friday, March 31, 2023, at Cesar Chavez High School in Houston.

While parents and students may have noticed few of the changes, educators from a wide swath of schools in HISD say they feel micromanaged and stressed in their first week under new district leaders, who are reportedly enforcing strict guidelines and conducting frequent classroom observations that have sparked frustration, fear and low morale among teachers at both NES and non-NES schools.

“I feel like they are not allowing me to do what’s in the best interest of the children,” said the reading teacher. “Every day I go to work, I’m crying. Every day I leave from work, I’m crying.”

The superintendent, meanwhile, said he has been pleased with what he has seen while collecting a “baseline” at NES schools in the first week.

“I was very impressed with their progress, even in one day, but also their preparation for the beginning of the school year,” Miles said. “Teachers were teaching well, they were following the instructional model, and it was pretty good. It shows that the schools and the teachers have been preparing hard for the first day, second day of school.”

The district is laying the groundwork for a pay-for-performance evaluation system geared toward measuring the quality of a teacher’s instruction, although a Harris County judge has temporarily blocked HISD from implementing the system.

“The high-quality instruction, there’s a clear rubric for that, there’s a clear spot observation form, because we have to train teachers,” Miles said. “We can’t just do what we’ve always done, which is go into a classroom every three weeks or three months and think we’re going to see something that is effective teaching, and just rely on, ‘Oh, I’ll know it when I see it.’”

This year, all principals will be evaluated under a new system that requires them to give instructional feedback and spend significant time coaching teachers in classrooms. Principals will be graded in part based on the quality of instruction at their school. Meanwhile, teachers will also be measured with a new evaluation system this year, although those who do not work in the schools targeted for reform may ask for a waiver.

District leaders trained teachers in recent weeks on the evaluation system and new classroom expectations. For example, one slideshow presented during teacher training listed some “common practices that we want to generally avoid,” including stream of consciousness writing, rooms with dim lighting and worksheets that are not purposeful. The training materials also discouraged teachers from showing entire films, letting kids “earn” free time and allowing “poor readers” to read aloud during class.

The slideshow instructed teachers to post a “lesson objective” on the board before the start of each class, avoid wasting time on transitions between activities, teach “bell to bell,” teach grade-level content to “every student every day” and use a timer to guide pacing of the lesson. Teachers should use a “multiple response strategy,” an activity that engages and checks the understanding of all students, every four minutes, according to a sample spot observation form.

On the first day, teachers said they were expected to skip introductions and get-to-know-you games, instead jumping right away into instructional material.

“I don’t even know who my kids are because we haven’t been able to get to know them,” said the fifth-grade reading teacher. “They still call me ‘teacher’ because they can’t remember my name.”

She has struggled to stay on pace with the timed lessons and was scolded for bringing in additional materials to help students, many of whom are Spanish speakers who cannot read on grade level. When she raised concerns about the fast pace, a district official told a campus administrator that the teacher was “moving too slow.”

“We’re not allowed to give them work on a level they understand. Most of the time, they sit there confused,” the teacher said. “I’ve had students crying since day two, saying they’re overwhelmed.”

Meanwhile, Jessica Waligorski, a special education support teacher at Isaacs Elementary School, said she appreciates the rigor, high expectations and organization of the NES model. Administrators are supportive and easily accessible at her NES campus, she said. Teachers lift each other up when doubts creep in and students have taken to the new model “like sponges,” she said.

“Everyone is holding each other to a standard and we’re not wavering,” she said. “We have set the tone, we have set expectations, we have set goals … and our kids have been engaged, learning. They don’t have a minute to misbehave because there’s so many things they’re learning.”

Miles has said there is no directive from the district mandating that teachers at non-NES schools teach with a specific curriculum or follow a certain instructional model. In reality, however, many of the new rules and expectations seem forced on campuses across the district, including high-performing schools that do not fall under NES.

Some of the rules seem to have been taken to an extreme. One teacher said she asked for an accommodation to use lamps instead of florescent lights in her classroom due to a serious medical condition. District officials denied her request and suggested another option: Wear sunglasses.

The teacher has already started getting headaches from the bright lights.

“I have all my lights on,” she said. “I’m trying to get through the day.”

In addition to turning on lights, the teacher, who works at a non-NES middle school, has made several other changes this year, including removing bean bag chairs from her classroom, keeping the classroom door open and following the new instructional techniques outlined on the evaluation rubric.

District staff have been observing classrooms almost every day this week, she said. The teacher said she was nervous to sit down while taking attendance or interrupt a lesson to tell a funny story during class.

“We all feel afraid to step out of line,” she said.

One teacher at a non-NES campus said she was observed by appraisers three times on Monday, creating a climate of fear and nerves even at a top-ranked campus. She loves having visitors in her classroom — “I’m a really good teacher and I’m proud of what I do” — but it feels different when “someone’s sitting there, ticking boxes,” especially on the first day of class.

“People are having trouble sleeping because they’re on edge,” she said. “It’s the constant anxiety that we’re going to be caught and that we’re going to be dinged. … I think you’re going to see a mass exodus of teachers at the end of this year, if this continues.”

One teacher at a different non-NES campus said he and other educators were chastised for spending the first day on introductions, logistics and relationship building with students rather than teaching content.

The teacher stayed three hours late that night to adjust his lesson plans for the second day, and his principal checked in first thing the next morning to make sure that he was prepared to teach a full-blown lesson, as expected by the appraiser in his classroom.

The new expectations and frequent classroom observations from district administrators this week has created a sense of frustration and anxiety on campus, according to the teacher, who said he was ready to quit even though he feels “called” to the profession.

“There’s no grace, there’s no empathy, there’s no treating people as people,” he said. “We are not encouraged to move forward — we’re pushed off the cliff and told to fly. And if you don’t fly, you fail.”

Many of the teachers at his top-rated campus have decades of experience, he said.

“I work at a really special school. … We should not be the target,” he said. “We were hoping that we’d be so far under the radar that we’d be left alone, but that’s not the case.”

Categories Corporate Reform, Curriculum, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Houston, State Takeover, Teachers, Texas

Houston: Mike Miles Backs Down to Allow Recess

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2023 //
46

Mike Miles doesn’t think children need recess. As a military man, he thinks recess is a waste of time. But he backed down to parent pressure to allow recess. Great to have an authoritarian superintent who makes all decisions (not). Satisfying to see that at least once, he listened to parents.

Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles announced on Tuesday that he is changing the recess schedule at schools under the New Education System to allow for more unstructured play time for kids in response to a push from parents.

All students in pre-K through fifth grade classrooms in the 85 NES and NES-aligned schools will now have a single 30-minute recess period each day, according to the district, an increase compared to a former schedule that included two shorter breaks for the lower grades and no recess in fifth grade.

LATEST NEWS: HISD superintendent dissolves autism support team under special education restructuring plan

“Teachers shared that they believe these modifications will limit lost learning time and maximize high-quality instruction, and we’ve heard from many families that they value unstructured free play time for their students,” Miles said in a statement. “We were able to make these changes without sacrificing high-quality instruction time and we believe this will enhance the environment in our schools and support student achievement.”

The change marks a big win for an HISD parent advocacy group called Free Play Houston, whose members have written letters, met with administrators and orchestrated an email campaign in recent weeks in an effort to push for more recess time for NES students, pointing out that shortening recess time may stand in violation of state law and HISD board policies.

“We are overjoyed that a child’s right to play will be respected and valued this school year,” the organization said in a statement on Tuesday, thanking those who emailed HISD leadership about the issue. “Houstonians have long known that all children need an unstructured play time during their school day. Decades of research shows that recess not only promotes social and emotional skills that become fundamental learning tools, but that recess also benefits students by improving their memory, attention, and concentration.”

Before these changes, the latest version of the NES master schedule allowed for one 15-minute recess in the morning and one 15-minute break in the afternoon for kindergarden through fourth grade students, with no additional time built in for getting students to and from the playground, according to Brooke Longoria, co-founder of Free Play Houston and an HISD parent.

Additionally, the former schedule included no recess for fifth grade students, with district administrators saying their physical movement needs would be met through Dyad programming like martial arts, dance and spin bikes, along with PE class.

SCHOOL SAFETY: Houston-area schools struggle to comply with new law requiring armed officer at every campus

The modification appears to be the first time the new state-appointed superintendent has responded to community pushback by changing course.

Categories Childhood, Houston, Play, Students, Texas

Mercedes Schneider: Mike Miles, Master of Chaos, Takes Charge of Houston Public Schools

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2023 //
7

Mercedes Schneider summarizes the checkered career of Mike Miles, who was put in charge of the Houston Independent School District by State Commissioner Mike Morath, who was appointed by hard-right Republican Governor Greg Abbott. Abbott wants to punish Houston for not voting for him. What better punishment than to install Mike Miles as superintendent?

Schneider writes:

In June 2023, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) became the latest major school district to experience a top-down, ed-reform tactic that largely ignores community investment and fail to deliver on promised academic gains: the state takeover of a school district.

On June 01, 2023, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) appointed Mike Miles as the new HISD superintendent.

Miles is the golden-child product of market-based, ed-reform leadership. As reported in his LinkedIn bio, Miles holds no college degrees in teaching (engineering; slavic languages and literature; international affairs and policy). He has never been a classroom teacher, never a site-based administrator, yet he was a district superintendent in Colorado for six years (2006-11) and superintendent of Dallas ISD for three.

Though he does not mention it in his LinkedIn bio, Miles was a member of the Class of 2011 at the Broad Superintendents Academy A 2011 EdWeek article on Broad superintendents includes the criticism that they “use corporate-management techniques to consolidate power, weaken teachers’ job protections, cut parents out of decisionmaking, and introduce unproven reform measures.”

Indeed.

In 2015, Miles abruptly resigned from Dallas ISD amid being, as WFAA.com states, “at the center of controversy since he took the position nearly three years ago,” which apparently included questions about misdirecting funding intended for at-risk students and the subsequent exit of the Dallas ISD budget director. (Also calling Miles “a lightening rod for controversy,” WFAA.com offers this timeline of Miles’ unsettling tenure in Dallas.)

Despite all of his Dallas ISD controversy, TEA– which is no stranger to stepping into its own controversy— chose to hire Miles to lead its newly-state-snatched HISD.

Following his Dallas ISD exit, in 2016, he founded a charter school chain, Third Future Schools, which has locations in Colorado, Texas, and Louisiana. For two years (2017-19), Miles was a senior associate in an education consulting firm, FourPoint Education Partners.

And according to his LinkedIn bio, Miles is/was on a number of ed-reform organization boards, including Teach for America (TFA) Colorado (2017-20); National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) (2013-present), and Chiefs for Change (2015-present).

Please open the link to finish reading the post.

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Chiefs for Change, Corporate Reform, Cruelty, Democracy, Discipline, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Extremism, Failure, Houston, Libraries, Shame, State Takeover, Teachers, Texas

Mike Miles Removes Two Principals Right Before School Opens

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2023 //
15

In true Broadie style, Houston Superintendent Mike Miles removed two elementary principals only days before the start of school. He started his job of “reforming” the Houston public schools in June, so he obviously did not observe either of them. This is disruption to the max. Teachers and parents learned about this abrupt action through an automated phone call.

Erin Trent (left), principal at Stevens Elementary School, and Linda Bellard, principal at Garcia Elementary School, were both removed from their positions Aug. 23, 2023. 

Erin Trent (left), principal at Stevens Elementary School, and Linda Bellard, principal at Garcia Elementary School, were both removed from their positions Aug. 23, 2023. Houston ISD

Parents and teachers at Stevens say they were “blindsided” by the announcement, which was made via an automated phone call.

“This unexpected and impersonal communication from the district caused immediate anxiety, confusion and fear, not just for me personally but among hundreds of parents,” said Adam Chaney, the parliamentarian for Stevens’ Parent Teacher Community Organization.

“Our community deserves clarification immediately. We are two days away from ‘Meet the Teacher,’ the whole campus is going to be present, and then Monday morning is the start of school,” Chaney said. “It’s become increasingly difficult to avoid interpreting this chaotic situation through the lens of this controversial takeover.”

HISD officials declined to comment further or provide a reason for the reassignments, saying that the district cannot comment on ongoing personnel matters. The call Stevens parents received Wednesday acknowledged that “the change may feel abrupt,” but that it had “become clear that this change is necessary to ensure Stevens Elementary students start the year off well with access to high-quality instruction on day one that meets their needs and supports increased academic outcomes on the campus…”

Trent’s abrupt removal has led members of the Stevens community to speculate that she was reassigned because she did not opt in to Superintendent Mike Miles’ New Education System earlier this summer.

One teacher, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said Trent resisted pushes from the HISD central office to become an NES-aligned school, which would have seen many of Miles’ most sweeping and controversial reforms implemented at Stevens.

Miles also disbanded the HISD team of autism specialists who served schools throughout the district.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Broad Foundation, Cruelty, Disruption, Houston, State Takeover, Texas

Houston: Here Were Mike Miles’ Goals for Dallas in 2012

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2023 //
11

While browsing through some old posts, I stumbled upon this one, which is a story that appeared in the Dallas Morning News in 2012, shortly after Mike Miles took charge of the Dallas public schools. It gives valuable insight into Mike Miles’ thinking. Miles was appointed to lead the Houston Independent School District by State Commissioner Mike Morath after the state of Texas took control of Houston, fired its elected board and their superintendent. Miles is a military man who learned about education at the Broad Academy. Military men give orders; so do Broadies.

Please note that nothing in Miles’ goals addresses early childhood education, class size, medical clinics, or nutrition. Miles believes in metrics, the coin of the conservative, neoliberal realm.

Matthew Haag and Tawnell D. Hobbs wrote this story for the Dallas Morning News. It appeared May 10, 2102.

Dallas ISD Superintendent Mike Miles outlines ambitious plan to help make district one of the nation’s best

Mike Miles not only wants to boost graduation rates but also wants to see more high school graduates go straight into the workforce. To achieve that, he wants to create a “career-ready” certificate that would give eligible students priority for entry-level jobs at area businesses.

 

Dallas ISD Superintendent Mike Miles on Thursday unveiled a slew of ambitious goals, proposals and recommendations designed to turn around the school district and make it one of the nation’s best.

In his first presentation to trustees as the district’s new leader, Miles spent nearly two hours laying out his vision for the district in a presentation that both excited and overwhelmed the board members.

Under the plan, teachers would be under more scrutiny. Principals would have one year to prove their worth. And the business community would be asked to step up.

If the road map is followed, Miles said, Dallas ISD is bound to become a premier school district.

“We are going to raise expectations for our staff,” said Miles, who earned a reputation for disrupting the status quo in the school district he will soon leave in Colorado Springs, Colo. “If you cannot tell that from the presentation, you have to know it from what you heard about me.”

He said DISD will begin rolling out some changes next school year, while other changes will span several years. The most immediate change, he said, will be a philosophical one. The district must embrace a vision and mission of raising academic achievement, improving instruction and not accepting excuses.

“We cannot just post it and market it and put it in little brochures. We have to practice this,” said Miles, adding that he wants 80 percent of DISD employees to be “proficient” on those beliefs in a year.

Many of the changes Miles laid out Thursday mirror those he implemented while in Harrison School District 2 in Colorado Springs.

A seemingly small change he suggested — one he said stirred outrage among teachers in Harrison — is to keep classroom doors open all day.

With the doors open, principals and administrators can move freely into classrooms to observe teachers. Under Miles’ plan, every Dallas teacher would be observed up to 10 times a year. In three years, those observations will contribute to teachers’ grades and factor into their salaries, as part of a pay-for-performance evaluation system.

Rena Honea, president of the teachers group Alliance-AFT, said “people are going to be in shock” with Miles’ proposals. “I envision it will be very different from what DISD has seen and experienced,” she said.

Miles has said change will be hard, but it’s necessary.

“If you cannot raise student achievement or have high quality of instruction, you cannot be a teacher in Dallas,” he said Thursday.

90% grad rate by 2020.

If the changes are successful, Miles said, the district will see skyrocketing graduation rates and achieve goals former superintendents promised but failed to reach.

Only three-quarters of DISD students currently graduate in four years of high school — a number Miles wants to see hit 90 percent by 2020. He also wants student SAT scores to jump nearly 30 percent over that time.

“Even if the district was in the best position possible, we would have to change things,” Miles said. “There is growing belief that children need more education after high school. High school is not the end point anymore.”

Throughout Miles’ presentation, trustees said little as they absorbed details of the 29-page plan and asked only a handful of questions. At one point, trustee Nancy Bingham, who appeared in favor of the goals, said Miles had caused her heartburn. Other trustees wondered how he would pay for everything.

Miles told trustees that he will spend the next few weeks finding money to cover new programs and initiatives. He said he would have to cut elsewhere to make room for his plans.

Miles’ plan would allow principals more control over their campuses, but they would also be required to meet higher expectations, such as improving communication with parents and the community. If the principals fail, others will be waiting for their jobs.

Starting next school year, Miles wants to create a leadership academy for 50 or 60 educators who want to become principals. They would spend the entire year in training and will vie for open positions.

The idea brought nods and smiles from some board members, but trustee Carla Ranger questioned the program. She hinted that the people who go through the yearlong training lab would have an unfair advantage to land the jobs over existing principals.

“If the notion is that there is an unfair advantage, welcome to principalship,” Miles told her. “You have to compete. That’s the way the world works.”

Miles said he will be open to tweaking his action plan, called “Destination 2020,” but remained unapologetic about his ambitious goals and plans.

Previous downfalls

Lofty expectations for DISD have been mentioned before.

Former DISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa rolled out an ambitious reform plan when he arrived in 2005. A major component was to reach a 90 percent passing rate on state exams by 2010 for all student groups.

The ultimate goal, Hinojosa said, was for Dallas to be the top urban district in the nation within five years, culminating by winning the coveted Broad Prize for Urban Education. While test scores improved under Hinojosa’s watch, DISD did not come close to winning the Broad Prize.

Hinojosa also set goals for the district’s graduation rate. Before his arrival, the graduation rate was 81 percent in 2003-04. He had set a 93 percent graduation rate goal for 2009-10. But the goal wasn’t met. The Class of 2010 had a graduation rate of about 75 percent.

Miles not only wants to boost graduation rates but also wants to see more high school graduates go straight into the workforce. To achieve that, he wants to create a “career-ready” certificate that would give eligible students priority for entry-level jobs at area businesses.

Starting next school year, Miles wants 1,000 entry-level jobs for students with the certificates. And he wants the certificate program to grow in the coming years — with 3,000 jobs by 2015.

Miles said he will go to the business community, ask for their support and urge them to focus their efforts on helping DISD students. He said he also wants the business community to help define what it means to be career-ready.

“Let’s let them put their money where their mouth is,” he said.

At a glance: The superintendent’s plan

In his first presentation to the Dallas ISD trustees, new Superintendent Mike Miles unveiled “Destination 2020,” a plan that sets goals for the district. Here are parts of that plan.

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT GOALS FOR 2020

Graduation: 90 percent of students will graduate on time. [The Class of 2010 had a graduation rate of about 75 percent, which is the percentage of ninth-graders who graduated in four years, according to Texas Education Agency records.]

Test scores: 60 percent of students will receive a 21 or higher composite score on the ACT out of a possible score of 36, or 1110 on the reading and math portions of the SAT out of a possible score of 1600. [For the Class of 2010, the average ACT score was 17.1; the average SAT score was 860, according to Texas Education Agency records.]

Workplace ready: 80 percent of student will be proficient on the “Year 2020 workplace readiness assessments.” According to the plan, “These assessments will be designed by the business and nonprofit communities and will include critical thinking, communications, teamwork, information literacy, technology skills, and worth ethic.”

College and careers: 90 percent of students will enter college, the military or a “career-ready job” right out of high school. A career-ready certificate will be created for students who meet certain goals. Businesses will be asked to commit to providing entry jobs for those students.

AREAS OF FOCUS

Some areas of focus for the next three years:

Effective teachers: “While teachers in DISD are working hard and are committed to children, a quick review of instruction and discussions with instructional leaders in Dallas reveals that the quality of instruction is inconsistent and that good instruction is not pervasive in many schools.”

Effective principals: “While we will provide the best support and professional development any principal in the state could hope to receive, they will have only one year to demonstrate that they have the capacity and what it takes to lead change and to improve the quality of instruction.”

Professional and high-functioning central office: “The entire central office system will be designed to support schools as teachers and principals try to accomplish three main goals: 1) Improve the quality of instruction; 2) Raise student achievement; 3) Create a positive school culture and climate.”

Engaging parents and the community: “We will be much more purposeful in helping community supporters work in reinforcing ways. … We cannot have 100 different partners spraying reform initiative on our schools. That would diffuse the efforts and take us off our direction. Thus, we will help channel the support and ensure the major educational initiatives work in reinforcing ways.”

KEY TARGETS FOR AUGUST 2015

At least 75 percent of the staff and 70 percent of community members agree or strongly agree with the direction of the district.

At least 80 percent of all classroom teachers and 100 percent of principals are placed on a pay-for-performance evaluation system.

At least 60 percent of teachers on the pay-for-performance evaluation system and 75 percent of principals agree that the system is “fair, accurate and rigorous.”

Create a rubric to assess the professional behavior and effectiveness of each major central office department.

For 90 percent of new hires, the maximum length of the hiring process will be less than five weeks.

The community provides 3,000 jobs for graduates who have “career-ready” certificates.

 

SOURCES: Destination 2020; Texas Education Agency

Miles started in Dallas with a five-year contract. He resigned after three years.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Broad Foundation, Dallas, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, History, Houston

Oklahoma: Will the State’s Extremist Secretary of Education Seize Control of Tulsa Schools?

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2023 //
9

Oklahoman John Thompson writes about the conflict enveloping the Tulsa public schools: Ryan Walters, the extremist Secretary of Education, wants to take over Tulsa’s public schools. Opposition to Walters’ plans by Tulsa’s parents and political leaders is growing. State takeovers if school districts have historically failed but Walters doesn’t appear to know it.

Thompson writes:

Oklahoma Secretary of Education Ryan Walters has a history of threatening the accreditation of the Tulsa Public schools, promising to fire its superintendent, Deborah Gist, and driving “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) out of the classes, as well as mandating his ideology-driven curriculums. Walters’ attacks grew dramatically as he responded to the news in June that he might be in danger because his department’s “administration of federal GEER funds is being investigated by FBI agents and the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office, according to people with direct knowledge of the inquiry.”

For instance, Walters said at a Moms for Liberty event, “Tulsa Public Schools is getting money from the Chinese communist government,” He said, “They funneled it through a nonprofit — I mean, money-laundered it through a nonprofit in Texas.”

But then Walters said he “had been in regular communication with Houston [HISD] about their school takeover.” According to HTUL news, he has said “there’s currently a standards team and textbook committee to gather information on possible vendors like Hillsdale College and PragerU.”

Immediately afterwards, journalists, educators, and public school supporters studied the history of Broad Foundation takeovers in Dallas and the HISD. Even better, they spoke out in ways I had never seen in Oklahoma’s edu-politics. For example, TPS board member, Jennettie Marshall, “said during the board’s 90-minute discussion of the district’s accreditation status. ‘We are under attack. If you’re not keeping up with Houston, … if we continue the course we’re on, that’s where we’re headed. That shouldn’t be.’”

Just as important, the Tulsa World balanced its excellent reporting with editorials and publishing letters to the editors. The following 13 headlines were cited in just one day, August 18, 2023, of the paper’s E-Edition:

Letter: Many good things, successes happening in Tulsa Public Schools

Letter: State School Board needs to show support for Tulsa community, stop antics of top official

Letter: Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum must be more forceful defending Tulsa schools

Letter: Tulsa Superintendent Deborah Gist deserves credit for leading through times of crisis

Letter: State Education Department ought to help improve schools, not tear down

Letter: State superintendent has no specific plans for Tulsa schools, only insults


Letter: State superintendent’s attack on Tulsa schools harms students across the state

Letter: Tulsa clergy leaders urge state to build bridges with TPS, not hurl rocks

Letter: Oklahoma education crisis comes from state superintendent pushing a personal agenda

Editorial: Silence is no way to improve schools or defend representative democracy

Editorial: Losing control of Tulsa schools to state bureaucrats bad for city and students

Ginnie Graham: Manufactured crisis in schools takes time away for big-picture discussions

Opinion: Set aside political rhetoric, provide Tulsa schools help to keep good teachers

The first thing that stands out stands out about the World’s coverage is its excellent journalism, and its fact-checking of Walters. The first thing that stands out from the World’s opinion pieces and letters to the editor is the strong wording when opposing Walters’ threat to the Tulsa Public Schools. The letters opposed Walters’ “antics;” his “personal agenda;” his “political rhetoric;” how he “has no specific plans for Tulsa schools, only insults;” and how he “harms students across the state; as well as how he should “help improve schools, not tear down;” and how the mayor “must be more forceful defending Tulsa schools.”

The editorials criticize the “silence” of political leaders, who belatedly pushed back against Walters, saying the “TPS needs partners, champions and advocates to improve — not political firebombs and quiet bystanders.” Another argued that Walters’ “political rhetoric” hurts the retention of good teachers; and that it hurts the city. Ginnie Graham described the chaos that she witnessed when enrolling her child in school, and explained:

The TPS administrators are completely overwhelmed by the firehose of misinformation, distortions and lies coming at them. Their time is monopolized by people seemingly hell-bent on tearing down the district, rather than offering a helping hand or even sitting down for an informative discussion.

And TPS School Board Chair Stacey Woolley closes her editorial with:

Your TPS Board of Education has a plan. Walters does, too, but not one that works on behalf of Tulsans.

I didn’t sign up for this takeover and neither did you. As a community, we must stop it: www.protecttps.com

Moreover, the World reported on powerful philanthropists, like the Schusterman and the Kaiser foundations, who have publicly opposed Walters takeover threats. Then, Mayor G.T. Bynum came out against the takeover. The resistance has even reached the point where the World editorialized, “conservative lawmakers must speak up.” And now, Gov. Kevin Stitt has distanced himself from the extremist (Walters) who he appointed and then repeatedly supported. The World reported, Stitt said he “believes the State Board of Education will not overreact when considering accreditation for Tulsa Public Schools.” Stitt now says, “I don’t know what takeover is, what they are talking about. I believe in local control. I think the local board needs to address that.”

When I first learned about Walters’ new threats, I worried, “If we don’t recognize the extent of the threats of a HISD-style takeover, he might unite the worst of the corporate reform privatizers, with his Moms for Liberty extremism, and impose irreparable damage on the TPS and other school systems.” But, “If we unite, the damage that Walters is promising to inflict on the TPS, and the Tulsa metropolitan area as a whole, could undermine his extremist campaigns.”

It looks to me, that Tulsans and other Oklahomans are pushing back, making it more likely that Walters will lose this fight

Categories Accountability, Censorship, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Houston, Injustice, Oklahoma, Privatization, Resistance, Stupid, Tulsa

Tulsa: Mayor Tells State Board: Hands Off Our Public Schools! Meanwhile, Mike Miles Stages a Musical in Houston

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2023 //
32

The State Secretary of Education in Oklahoma Ryan Walters has been threatening to take control of the Tulsa public schools, replace the elected school board and fire the district superintendent. State takeovers have a long history of failure. Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum wrote a strongly worded letter to the Oklahoma State Board of Education and told its members in no uncertain terms, “hands off our public schools and our elected board!”

It’s a terrific letter. Open the link and read it. If only every city had leadership who stood up for their public schools like Mayor Bynum did!

Of course, Houston’s Mayor opposed the state takeover of HISD but Governor Abbott and his state Commissioner Mike Morath were determined to destroy democracy in Houston because the people there vote Democratic.

Speaking of Houston, the state-imposed Superintendent Mike Miles celebrated his arrival with a splashy musical performance, while teachers sat obediently in their seats at the NRG Arena.

The Texas Observer reported:

Hundreds of Houston’s teachers gathered at the NRG Center early morning Wednesday, where they were directed to wear school colors, wave school banners, and shake sparkly pom poms. Facilitators started the Harlem Shuffle dance in the aisles. And then, as the teachers were motioned back into their seats, the room turned dark and silence fell.

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.”

The Houston Chronicle also reviewed Miles’ musical event.

A few fine arts teachers who spoke to the Chronicle said Miles is hypocritical for spreading his message through a musical theater production even after disrespecting fine arts teachers, who at NES schools will be paid far less than their peers teaching reading, math or science.

“He claims reading and math are the forefront and he wants to get rid of fine arts. Yet he used fine arts to promote his ideologies,” said one fine arts teacher, who called the production a “slap in the face.”

Another fine arts teacher said it was “the very definition of irony.”

“The fact he used HISD fine arts teachers and students in his presentation, the day after saying in his evaluation sessions that we are not as essential … creates a sense of rage and despair I cannot even describe,” said the teacher, who was told they could be fired for making negative public statements about the district.

Only staff from NES campuses attended the live event at NRG, while educators from other schools watched convocation remotely from their own campuses following a last-minute scheduling change.

Funnily enough, Miles also staged a splashy musical with him as the star when he began his tenure in Dallas in 2012. All of the district’s 18,000 teachers were summoned to watch. The video has been removed from the internet. But The Texas Observer ran a great story about the event, with a photo of him dancing with students. At that performance, he laid out his vision for making DISD the best urban district in the nation by 2020 using ideas he learned at the Broad Superintendents Academy. He was, he said, a believer in disruptive change, like Arne Duncan. “Miles epitomizes today’s school reform movement, convinced that anything worth doing in a classroom can be measured.” But three years later, he was gone.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Education Reform, Houston, Oklahoma, State Takeover, Teachers, Texas, Tulsa

Hechinger Report: State Takeovers of School Districts Have a Poor Track Record

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2023 //
5

Steven Yoder writes in the Hechinger Report about the state takeover of the Houston Independent School District and the dismal record of state takeovers.

Houstonians see the takeover as the vengeful punishment of a Democratic district by a mean-spirited Republican governor. Takeovers typically don’t improve academic performance. They stifle the democratic voices of Black and brown citizens. Given the research, it’s the silencing of democracy that is the purpose of takeovers.

Yoder writes:

On June 1, the TEA took over Houston’s school district, removing the superintendent and elected board. Critics say it’s an effort by a Republican governor to impose his preferred policies, including more charter schools, on the state’s largest city, whose mayor is a Democrat and whose population is two-thirds Black or Hispanic. In other districts where state-appointed boards have taken over, academic outcomes haven’t improved. Now red-state governors increasingly use the takeovers to undermine the political power of cities, particularly those governed by Black and Hispanic leaders, according to some education experts.

The state took over HISD because one school—Wheatley High School—had been failing for years. But before the takeover, Wheatley improved its test scores, and no school in HISD was failing. But the state took control of the state’s largest district anyway.

At least three studies have found that takeovers don’t increase academic achievement. The latest, a May 2021 working paper by researchers from Brown University and the University of Virginia, looked at all 35 state takeovers between 2011 and 2016. “On average, we find no evidence that takeover generates academic benefits,” the researchers concluded.

Takeovers are premised in part on the idea that improving school board governance improves test scores. But the 2021 paper concluded that may be wrong: “These results do not provide support for the theory that school board governance is the primary cause of low academic performance in struggling school districts,” the researchers wrote.

Why did Governor Abbott and State Commissioner insist on taking control of HISD? Because they could. Because they are vengeful and arrogant. Because they know nothing about research. Because it’s amusing for a hard-right conservative like Abbott to grind down a district that didn’t vote for him. Because Mike Morath was never an educator and knows nothing about how to improve schools.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Democracy, Education Industry, Elections, Extremism, Failure, Fraud, Houston, Texas
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