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Jennifer Berkshire: Is Public Education Over?

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2025 //
8

Fifteen years ago, I wrote a book about the the danger that school choice and testing posed to public schools. Its title: The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. I named a few of the billionaires funding the attacks on public schools, teachers, and unions–Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and the Walton family–calling them “The Billionaire Boys Club.” Little did I know that they were the tip of the billionaire iceberg.

My hope in 2010 was that public school supporters would block the privatization of their schools. Public schools are as American as apple pie. I wanted the public to wake up, rally around their public schools, and repel the hedge fund managers and billionaires who were funding the privatization movement.

I was too optimistic.

The attacks escalated, fueled by the political power that money buys. The major media bought the corporate reform narrative hook, line, and sinker.

Neoliberal corporate reform brought us high-stakes standardized testing, A-F ratings for schools, charter schools, school closings, and rating teachers by the test scores of their students. And cheating scandals. All to get higher test scores, which never happened.

Now, Jennifer Berkshire asks on her blog The Education Wars whether it’s all over for public schools. Jennifer appreciates the importance of public schools as community builders and civic institutions that serve the common good.

Please read her smart take on the state of public education today:

I won’t lie. If you’re a member of Team Public Education, as I am, it has been a tough summer. And if you, like me, have been sounding the alarm about the dangers of school privatization, it’s impossible to ignore the sense that the future we’ve been warning about has arrived. Five years ago, education historian Jack Schneider and I wrote a book called A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: the Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School that culminated in a sort of “Black Mirror” chapter called “education a la carte.” In it, we described how the ultimate vision of school privatization advocates wasn’t simply to shift the nation’s youngsters into private schools, but to ‘unbundle’ education into a vast array of products for consumers to purchase on Amazon-like exchanges. Lest you think we were exaggerating, turn your attention to Florida, where, as Sue Woltanski documents, project unbundle has arrived with a vengence.

Florida, as usual, is slightly ahead of the curve. But the accelerating collapse of public schools in the state, chronicled in this recent New York Times story, pushed along by the now universal school voucher program, will soon be coming to a state near you. The NYT piece, by the way, was just one of many ‘are public schools over?’ stories to drop in recent weeks. The Washington Post version headed to peer in the window of the GOP vision for education. Spoiler: it entails replacing public schools with “a marketplace of school options.” Then, of course, there was the annual PDK survey of attitudes towards public education, which found both sinking approval of the nation’s schools (with the usual exception for local schools) and rising warmth towards the idea of private school vouchers. As legal scholar Derek Black put it, “The deep well of faith in public education has a disastrous leak.”

To understand what’s happening, I’m going to pause here to spend some time with yet another of the ‘are public schools through?’ stories, Chandler Fritz’s eye-opening new feature for Harper’s, “The Homemade Scholar.” Fritz, a teacher and writer who pens the “Arizona Room” newsletter, took a job at a private religious microschool in order to get a close up view of Arizona’s education marketplace, what he describes as “a new frontier in American education.” I recommend paying attention to this piece because 1) Fritz is a terrific writer and 2) he provides real insights into the appeal of vouchers, or as they’re billed in AZ, education savings accounts—something my own writing rarely reckons with. 

Fritz finds a grab bag of reasons that students and parents are drawn to this particular microschool, most of which will be familiar to you: a hunger for ‘customization,’ the desire for religious instruction, the appeal of a small setting, conservative backlash against public education. But there’s another reason we don’t hear as much about—the opposition to the standardized testing that shapes every aspect of what’s left of our public schools. Fritz’s piece is long (the audio version clocks in at nearly an hour), and infuriating in parts, but his observations regarding the attitudes of these ‘education consumers’ towards standardized tests get straight to the point: they hate them.

Bad math

A similar theme pops up in Dana Goldstein’s recent portrayal of the impact of vouchers on schools in Florida’s Orange County. While three quarters of the schools in the district earned an ‘A’ or a ‘B’ on the state’s school accountability report card, parents are eager to free their kids from the burden of taking the state tests, something Florida education watchdog Billy Townsend has been tartly observing for years. Now, I mention opposition to standardized testing here because, even in our deeply divided times, it is a cause that unites parents across virtually any line of division. If you don’t believe me, head down to Texas, where, in addition to re-gerrymandering the state’s electoral maps, legislators have also been pretending to address the popular revolt against the STAAR Test.

But there’s another reason to revisit the antipathy to testing. While you’ve been distracted by the relentless tide of bad and worse news, what’s left of the education reform movement has been busy reemerging, zombie style, seemingly without having learned a single thing about why it flopped in the first place. There are overt signs of the zombie’s return—like Democrats for Education Reform trying to rally the party around a vision of education ‘abundance,’ or Andrew Cuomo, flailing in the NYC mayoral race, now rebranding himself as the education reform candidate with a pledge to shut down failing schools and replace them with new ‘schools of promise.’ Then there’s the pundit-level narrative taking shape in which education reform was working just great until the teachers unions ruined everything and/or Democrats lost their nerve.

This version of events, encapsulated in this recent David Brooks column, goes like this:

School reform was an attempt to disrupt the caste system, to widen opportunity for the less privileged. Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama angered core Democratic constituencies like teachers unions in order to expand opportunity down the income scale. But now Democrats have basically given up. Joe Biden didn’t devote much energy to education reform. Kamala Harris ran for president without anything like a robust education reform agenda.

Brooks goes on to cite Michael Petrilli on the ‘Southern surge,’ the rise in test scores in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee (but not Florida) that has education reformers so excited. Kelsey Piper, authoress at the brand new outlet the Argument, is excited too. In her back-and-forth with leftist policy analyst Matt Bruenig over the question of whether giving parents cash benefits poor children, Piper comes down squarely on the side of fixing the schools.

I think school reform after school reform has served every conceivable interest group except students (who do not vote) and so have failed to meaningfully increase literacy and numeracy, even though we now have a road map for how to genuinely let every child thrive.

If you guessed that the ‘road map’ referred to here is Mississippi, you would be correct. Mississippi, by the way, is a national leader in child poverty levels, an honor that the state, which just eliminated its income tax, seems determined to hold on to.

Proxy war

Such ‘if only the band would get back together’ takes somehow miss what a flop much of our recent version of education reform turned out to be. Here’s a partial list. The backlash to Common Core on the right didn’t just help to usher in Donald Trump but played a role in transforming the GOP from the party of big business (which was all in on pushing the Common Core standards) to one dominated by aggrieved populists. And the over selling of college tapped into a well of resentment so deep that the entire system of higher education is now threatened. Then there is the relentless push to narrow the purpose of school down to standardized testing and workforce prep, a bipartisan cause that, as I argue in a forthcoming essay in the Baffler, has now been abandoned by the right in favor of education that prizes ‘virtue’ over vocation, even as many Democrats continue to beat the ‘career readiness’ drum.

I’m not the only one to point this out, by the way. Teacher-turned-writer Nora De La Cour makes a compelling case that the appeal of so-called classical charter schools is due in part to the damage done to public education by neoliberal education reform. Students at these rapidly spreading classical schools encounter the ‘great books.’ Their public school peers get “decontextualized excerpts in corporate-produced test prep materials,” writes De La Cour.

Which brings me to the main point of this piece. (Finally!) Part of what’s so frustrating about our current moment is that by leaning into a deeply unpopular vision for public schools—test them, close them, make them compete—a certain brand of Democrat is essentially incentivizing parents to seek out test-free alternatives. Consider too that we’re in the midst of a fierce intraparty debate over what Democrats need to do to win. For the education reform wing of party, the answer to the question is to go hard at teachers unions and double down on school accountability, while also embracing school vouchers. 

While this vision is inherently contradictory, it’s also a loser with voters. There may be no single less appealing sales pitch than ‘we’re going to close your school.’ Just ask former Chicago mayor Rahm Emmanuel, who was so unpopular in the city’s minority neighborhoods after shuttering 50 schools that he couldn’t run for reelection. As voucher programs expand rapidly, we’re about to enter a new era of school closures. If you don’t believe me, just check out this statement from a CATO Institute spox in response to that WaPo story on Arizona:

It’s tough for some families when their school—public or private—closes. Kids miss their friends, teachers worry about their jobs, parents have to adjust their transportation plans. But stories bemoaning public schools losing enrollment due to school choice policies are missing the point. Should parents who want a different option for their children be forced to stay in their assigned school in order to prop it up? Of course not. Public schools had a virtual monopoly on enrollment for decades, but no school can serve the unique needs of all the children who happen to live near it. As we continue down the path of more educational freedom, some schools will rise to the challenge and others will close. We shouldn’t sacrifice children’s futures in an effort to save schools that aren’t meeting their needs.

Close readers will note the moving goal posts—that we’ve moved from school choice as a means of escaping ‘failing schools’ to escaping any kind of school. But the bottom line is that we’re just supposed to accept that ‘education freedom’ means that lots of schools will be closing. Or take the ‘back to the future’ sales pitch for microschools, in which parents “form pods in church basements, barns, and any space they can find. Teachers are launching microschools in their garages.” This vision of what proponents like to call ‘permissionless education’ is one many parents, indeed entire communities, will find difficult to make sense of. It also seems like a gimme for Democrats who are trying to differentiate themselves from the right’s hostility to public schools. 

I want to end on a hopeful note, because I’ve depressed us all enough by now, but also because there are some hopeful signs out there. While the education reform zombie may be reemerging, well funded as ever, a growing number of Democrats are showing us what it sounds like to run as an unabashed advocate for public schools. There’s Graham Platner, the challenger to Susan Collins in Maine, who calls out the endless attacks on public schools and teachers as “the tip of the assault on all things public.” Or how about Nathan Sage in Iowa, who puts the defense of public education at the center of his populist platform:

Public schools are the heart of our Democracy, and Republicans are tearing them down brick by brick, while treating our heroic public school teachers like dirt. They are underfunding our public schools and are diverting billions of taxpayer dollars to private schools and into the pockets of billionaires behind them.

To this list I could add Josh Cowen and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, or Catelin Drey in Iowa, who, if she pulls off a win in today’s special election to fill a state senate seat in a district that Trump carried by 11 points, will end the GOP’s supermajority in that chamber. Drey, by the way, is running as a pro-public-education-candidate and an outspoken opponent of Iowa’s controversial universal school voucher program. Plenty of influential Democrats will insist that that message is a loser. That the way for Democrats to win is to run against public schools—to talk about what failures they are, why we need to get tougher on them, and how maybe we don’t actually need them after all. I think they’re wrong, and that voters agree.

Drey did win in Iowa, decisively, proving that a pro-public education stand is a winning message. Drey won 55% of the vote in a district that Trump carried. Her victory broke the Republican supermajority in the state senate.

Categories Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), For-Profit, Funding, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Portfolio District, School Choice, Standardized Testing, State Takeover, Vouchers, Walton Foundation

Jeff Bryant: The Podcast That Was Killed–about State Takeover of Houston Schools

By dianeravitch
December 8, 2024 //
5

Jeff Bryant is a veteran journalist who covers education issues. He is the chief correspondent for Our Schools, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He shared the following article with this blog.

What a Podcast Killed by Houston Public Media Reveals About the State Takeover of the City’s Schools

A podcast about the state takeover of the Houston Independent School District (HISD), which Houston Public Media (HPM) produced, promoted, and then quietly killed before it debuted, has been shared with Our Schools. “The Takeover,” hosted by Dominic Walsh, an award-winning public education journalist, examines the takeover, the state’s installation of a new board and a controversial superintendent Mike Miles, and the subsequent series of reforms Miles rolled out that have frustrated and angered teachers, parents, and students.

Our Schools has thoroughly examined the recordings to ensure their authenticity and is reporting on the contents of each episode so that readers are better informed about the consequences of the state takeover of Texas’s largest school district—the eighth-largest district in the nation. We have decided not to make the podcast public for legal reasons.

In four episodes of what was meant to be Season One of the podcast, Walsh covers events that took place in the school year 2023-2024, beginning with the secret ceremony in which Miles was sworn in to serve as superintendent in June 2023. Episode four culminates in March 2024 when public outrage forced Miles to back down on an evaluation plan that could have potentially resulted in half of the district’s principals losing their jobs, including some who lead the district’s top-rated schools.

Walsh ended the Season by questioning whether widespread public anger at policies implemented by Miles could endanger a school bond referendum that voters eventually decided on during the November 2024 election. That bond referendum was defeated, and the Houston Landing reported that Texas voters had never before rejected a proposed school bond measure “totaling $1 billion or more.” HPM called the defeat “an unofficial referendum of state takeover.”

Much of the airtime in “The Takeover” is taken up by interviews that are critical of what Miles has implemented, including those with parents, teachers, librarians, and students, many of whom bitterly complain about the new reforms. Walsh points out that state takeovers of local school districts almost never produce positive results, as numerous studies have shown.

Walsh has given ample time to takeover supporters on the podcast as well, including Miles; Texas Commissioner of Education Mike Morath, who appointed Miles; state-appointed Houston School Board President Audrey Momanaee; and Texas lawmakers, both Democratic and Republican, who support the takeover. He also speaks about positive developments since the takeover began, including improved test scores in math and science.

Yet, while Walsh’s reporting can be described as balanced, he largely frames the takeover and the new reforms Miles has imposed as the latest iteration of the decades-long education reform movement that Walsh negatively characterizes as being “top-down.” He further points out that the reforms are overly reliant on standardized testing with punitive accountability measures that often lead to schools being closed, teachers and school principals being fired, and parents feeling alienated.

A request for comment was sent to HPM station manager Joshua Adams, but Our Schools is yet to receive a response.

Episode one of “The Takeover” is titled “School Reform, the Musical,” a reference to a musical skit Miles staged, and played the leading role in, to ease the district about his massive disruption efforts and to counter any criticisms. But the episode could easily have been called “Winners and Losers,” which is the theme Walsh keeps returning to while describing who gains in Miles’s new education system and who loses out.

The winners tend to be those school staff members who benefit from a tiered salary system Miles implemented and teachers who are comfortable with a centrally created and scripted curriculum. The losers? Parents who see their children’s favorite teachers being fired or leaving in frustration. Students who find the scripted curriculum less engaging. Librarians whose libraries are shuttered. Teachers who lament about losing their freedom to tailor instruction to students and miss the curriculum they felt most passionate about, like teaching the entire book in English Language Arts class.

A contrast Walsh repeatedly draws throughout the episode is Miles’s claims of knowing “the best way” to improve schools versus what Walsh observes as the “painful reality” on the ground when the reforms were rolled out.

Episode one, “School Reform, the Musical” states:“State installed superintendent Mike Miles says his plan will make schools better, raise test scores, and career readiness, especially in high poverty neighborhoods that need it the most. And who could argue with those goals. Everyone wants that. Right? But it’s complicated.”
—Dominic Walsh

In episode two, “The Law,” Walsh begins by examining the law that made the state takeover possible and delves into the “conflicting philosophies” over public education and the rampant inequity in the education system. His reporting reveals that the law, House Bill 1842, was mostly based on the low academic performance of just one school, which had started to improve just before the announcement of the takeover. Walsh questions whether the low performance in Houston schools might be due to a lack of resources and the rigid system Texas uses to assess its schools.

Another state law the episode considers—passed in 2017—was an attempt to incentivize school districts to partner with charter school management groups to operate their lowest-performing schools. This law kept the HISD and other districts with low-performing schools under constant pressure of being privatized. Walsh explains that Houston’s reform movement is based on strict accountability measures of schools, which were exported to the entire nation later on.

Episode two, “The Law” states:“This is a story about conflicting philosophies—deep-seated disagreements over the possibilities, potentials, and purpose of public education in a deeply unequal society.”
—Dominic Walsh

Episode three, “The Texas Miracle,” goes back to the 1990s to explore the origin of top-down education reform in Texas under then-Governor George W. Bush and the so-called Texas miracle that became the inspiration for the No Child Left Behind Act, enacted in 2002 by then-President George W Bush. These policies were furthered under the Barack Obama presidential administration, and, in Houston, under the leadership of former superintendent Terry Grier from 2009 to 2016. He was rewarded with school improvement grant money by Obama, which he used to force changes in some of the very same schools Miles is focused on today.

However, Walsh speaks with education researcher Julian Vasquez Heilig, who was an employee of HISD’s Office of Research and Accountability from 1999-2001. He explains that the acclaimed progress resulting from the Texas miracle was a “mirage.” In another interview, education historian Jack Schneider says that the positive results, of what he calls the “bipartisan, neoliberal” policy of NCLB and similar laws, have never really been achieved.

Nevertheless, Walsh explains that the reform agenda spawned a host of reforms, to which Miles is devoted. In fact, as Walsh reports, the charter school network that Miles created and led, called the Third Future Schools, uses an education approach almost identical to what Miles is trying to implement for Houston’s public schools system. Walsh notes that Third Future Schools struggled to meet all the progress measures in another Texas school district when the company was contracted to transform a school. Walsh concludes, “If Miles can pull this off in Houston, it will be a first.”

Episode three, “The Texas Miracle” states:

“In the eyes of some researchers, if we have learned anything from the past two decades of education policy, it’s that this type of top-down, test-based school reform does not work, largely because of what it misses. But others think Mike Miles may have finally cracked the code.”

—Dominic Walsh 

The Takeover’s final episode, “Reconciliation,” largely focuses on the behind-the-scenes players that will determine the fate of Houston schools. These include the state-appointed board that Miles answers to—it mostly functions as a rubber stamp for Miles’s reform agenda, according to critics—the Texas Education Agency that initiated the takeover, and Texas state lawmakers, including the legislature and Governor Gregg Abbott, who determine state education policy. In reporting on each of these entities, Walsh finds various “contradictions” that are hard to reconcile.

Walsh interviews Audrey Momanaee about the takeover board and questions how the effort can align with the “visions and values of community,” as she claims while delivering  “results,” like higher test scores and a narrowed curriculum, which don’t seem to be in line with the values of the local community. Walsh returns to this same contradiction in his interview with Morath in which Walsh notices how Morath’s emphasis on raising test scores clashes with his goal to raise “educated citizens.” Texas state lawmakers present an even starker contradiction, Walsh notes, as they pass laws that hold public schools to increasingly harsher accountability measures while attempting to pass a new voucher system that would redirect more education funding to private schools, which have no public accountability at all.

In the face of these contradictions, Walsh accuses leaders of the Houston takeover of “kind of operating as if they have blinders on” as they choose to ignore what education should be, instead, going for scripted curriculum, command and control managerial practices, and ever higher test scores. Walsh notes that Miles seems to waver from his agenda only when wealthier parents and representatives of the business community voice their dissatisfaction.

Episode four, “Reconciliation” states:

“How the state measures success, how it decides when to intervene, and when this takeover will end, is actually up in the air. In fact, the whole public education system in Texas is in flux.”

—Dominic Walsh

Why HPM decided to kill “The Takeover” before it had a chance to air is not immediately clear based on the content of the podcast.

According to a September 2024 article in the Texas Monthly, which called the decision to kill the podcast “head-scratching,” executives at the news organization pulled “The Takeover” the day before it was scheduled to debut when they learned that Walsh’s “long-term romantic relationship with an HISD teacher” presented, what they believed, was a “conflict of interest.” Through a series of public records requests, Texas Monthly reporters Michael Hardy and Forrest Wilder obtained copies of the podcast episodes and internal communications related to its cancellation.

In their investigation, Hardy and Wilder found “no evidence that HPM canceled the podcast because of external pressure, as some community members have speculated. No inaccuracies in Walsh’s reporting are identified in the internal communications we reviewed, and HPM executives did not respond to a question about whether they had identified any.”

Hardy and Wilder also note that “What constitutes a conflict of interest is a disputed subject among journalists.” They have interviewed experts on ethics in journalism who question HPM executives’ decision to cancel the podcast.

HPM still archives Walsh’s education reporting on its website, with no disclaimer. Walsh, however, no longer covers education and seems to be reporting on other beats for HPM.

But it’s hard not to sense the irony as Walsh signs off his reporting in “The Takeover” saying, “Whatever happens we will be here. Stay tuned.”

Categories Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Houston, Parents, State Takeover, Texas

Houston: Voters Reject $4.4 Billion Bond Issue as Protest Against State Takeover

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2024 //
4

Voters in Houston turned down a much-needed $4.4 billion bond issue to renovate and upgrade schools. The vote was widely viewed as a rebuke of the state takeover, which ended democratic control of the schools, and of state-imposed Superintendent Mike Miles.

Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles called voters’ rejection of the district’s proposed $4.4 billion school bond — the largest school bond in Texas history —  “unfortunate and wrong” in a statement Tuesday.

Miles conceded the bond election after approximately 60% of the roughly 350,000 voters who cast early or mail-in ballots voted against both propositions of the proposal, according to preliminary early election returns from the Harris County Clerk’s Office. HISD has made history as Texas voters have never rejected a proposed school bond measure exceeding $1 billion…

The district’s bond proposal was split into two propositions. Proposition A would have allocated $3.96 billion for school building renovations and expansions, including safety and security infrastructure, while Proposition B would have spent $440 million for technology equipment, systems and infrastructure.

HISD aimed to spend $2.3 billion for rebuilding and renovating 43 schools and $1 billion for lead remediation, security upgrades and HVAC improvements. The district planned to spend $1.1 billion to expand pre-K, build three new career and technical education centers and make technology upgrades without raising taxes if the bond passed…

The rejection of the district’s first school bond campaign in 12 years follows a vocal, monthslong grassroots opposition effort, where bond opponents encouraged people to vote against the bond due to the state takeover and a lack of trust in Miles and the Board of Managers.

Categories Elections, Funding, Houston, State Takeover

Texas: State Agency Clears Mike Miles of Charges

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2024 //
3

Several months ago, Texas journalists reported that millions of dollars were transferred from charter school accounts in Texas to charter school accounts in Colorado. Their stories said that Houston superintendent Mike Miles was bolstering the finances of one of his Colorado charter schools.

Miles was appointed as superintendent of the Houston Independent School District as part of a hostile state takeover of HISD. State Commissioner of Education Mike Morath was installed by Governor Greg Abbott, and Morath imposed Miles on HISD.

When Miles came under fire for financial irregularities, the state investigated. Who is the state? Mike Morath, the same guy who appointed Miles.

Guess what? The state report cleared Mikes.

Are you surprised?

The Texas Tribune reported today:

The Texas Education Agency has cleared acting Houston school district Superintendent Mike Miles of wrongdoing after he was accused of improperly diverting millions of dollars in state funds to his Colorado charter school system.

After reporting from Spectrum News and The Texas Observer prompted calls for an investigation earlier this year, the education agency concluded on Tuesday that neither Miles — who the agency picked to lead the state’s largest school district last year — nor his charter school network, Third Future Schools, “violated any applicable Texas laws,” according to the 29-page investigation report.

The investigation found, in part, that checks directed from a partnering Texas school district to Third Future Schools’ Colorado address went there because the Colorado location handles accounting services for the network’s Texas branch, which is run independently. But, the checks were eventually deposited in the Texas branch’s bank account.

“Based on the evidence obtained and analyzed during the investigation, there is no merit to the allegations contained in the media reports that state funds were being inappropriately diverted from public school students in Texas,” the report notes.

The agency is closing the investigation, and “no further action will be taken” at this time, the report says.

In an email sent to the Houston school district community on Tuesday, Miles called the earlier reporting “a baseless distraction and an attempt to undermine and discredit the good work happening” in the schools.

“Now we can do what we always do and move forward on behalf of our students,” Miles said.

Earlier this year, Spectrum News reported that the Texas branch of Third Future Schools — which receives funding from multiple Texas school districts to run campuses in the state — was potentially using public funds from its school in Odessa to offset financial losses at a sister school in Colorado.

The Texas Observer later reported that it had identified “additional irregularities” related to the disclosure of expenses by the charter network.

Miles denied wrongdoing and accused the previous reporting of mischaracterizing “common place financial arrangements between charter schools and the charter management organizations that support them” and welcomed an investigation into the network’s activities.

The state’s investigators agreed with Miles, saying they found no evidence that Texas school districts deposited funds into the bank account of Third Future Schools in Colorado. Third Future Schools-Texas reimburses the Colorado location for administrative services it provides to all of the charter network, the report says.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Houston, State Takeover, Texas

Houston: Mass Exodus of Teachers Under Mike Miles

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2024 //
18

When Broad-trained military man Mike Miles was superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District, the district experienced a mass exodus of teachers in response to Miles’ top-down style of management. Houston is experiencing the same phenomenon, the Houston Chronicle reported.

More than 4,000 employees left Houston ISD in June, bringing the total departures since the state takeover to over 10,000.

The record number is three times higher than the June departure average for the past five years, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of district employment records. Over 75% of the departures were recorded as “voluntary,” including retirements and resignations.

Teachers accounted for more than 2,400 of the employees who left in June, with the monthly tally exceeding the total number of teachers who typically leave HISD over an entire school year, according to the analysis. About 4,700 of HISD’s roughly 11,000 teachers left the district during the 2023-24 school year.

Some teachers cited state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles’ strict new reforms and sudden class assignment changes as the reasons they left. June’s bloated number of departures includes job cuts and terminations linked to job status notices.

Jackie Anderson, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, called the teacher departures “unprecedented.”

June’s HISD staff departures surged to three times the average

Over 4,000 staff members left the district this June. The record number of departures was more than triple the average for the past five years….

Bellaire High School teacher Brady Mayo, who taught business law and International Baccalaureate business management, said he chose to retire after seeing teachers hesitate to use time off and deal with new district-mandated policies, such as requiring classroom doors to stay open, at the campus he loved.

There was a culture of fear under new district leadership, he said, even though his campus was not a school in Miles’ New Education System.

“I mean, nobody asked me to leave. But I felt run off, just like most teachers. And nobody ran me off. It’s just the way I felt,” the 33-year educator said. “I felt like Mike Miles was going to put his teachers in place, whether they’re certified or not, his yes men.”

Askew Elementary School teacher Karen Calhoun said the district-imposed strategies did not allow teachers to use techniques that they knew worked for students. Calhoun, who retired in June ahead of Askew formally becoming an NES school this fall, said many “top-tier” teachers left the school. She had never seen turnover like this in her 40 years at the school.

“I decided to retire because I could see the change happening,” Calhoun said. “It’s obvious. People come in all the time (for classroom observation). They don’t identify themselves when they come in. You don’t know who they are. They take notes, they go back and they talk to the principal. You don’t even know what’s going on….”

School staff felt micromanaged, said Lea Mishlan, former principal of West Briar Middle School. Mishlan was told to resign by the district or face board termination.

“We were constantly —  I mean, even the last week of school, we were expected to be in their rooms,” the 20-year educator said. “And so they just felt like they were being nitpicked. And so every time I had to present something to them, it was just like, what? Like, again? Like, another change? So, the morale was horrible, and it was really hard to maintain positivity throughout the craziness.”

Categories Education Industry, Extremism, Failure, Houston, State Takeover, Teachers

Houston: Miles Ousts Two 2023 Principals of the Year

By dianeravitch
May 12, 2024 //
16

Mike Miles, the superintendent imposed on the Houston Independent School District, announced major budget cuts and staff layoffs. Among those released: two principals of the year for 2023. Miles was trained by the Broad Superintendents’ Academy to disrupt, and he’s doing it.

Houston ISD alerted dozens of teachers and principals of both performance-based job cuts and budget-forced reductions this week, prompting parents across the state’s largest school system to plan another round of protests as the tumultuous school year under state takeover nears an end. 

Among the dozens of teachers and principals asked to leave: both the HISD Elementary and Middle School Principals of the Year in HISD in 2023. 

Neff Elementary Principal Amanda Wingard confirmed in a Facebook post Thursday that the school district asked her to resign.

“I have loved Neff and the Sharpstown community for the last 35 years,” wrote Wingard, who was honored at a banquet a year ago for her leadership.

Alongside her is 2022-23 Middle School Principal of the Year, Auden Sarabia, who told his staff at Meyerland Performing and Visual Arts this week that he was asked to resign or go before the Board of Managers, a teacher and parents confirmed. Saraba has worked for HISD for 18 years.

Crockett Elementary Principal Alexis Clark is also not returning to her visual and performing arts magnet campus near the Heights.

“I’m heartbroken. We’re all heartbroken. I’ve done my best to protect my kids — they’re young — from what’s happening,” said Liz Silva, PTO fundraising chair and incoming president. “Can’t really avoid the topic anymore with them…” 

The Houston Chronicle is working to confirm other principal departures, and, in some cases it is unclear whether principals are resigning or being forced out. Even before this latest round of cuts, HISD’s principal turnover had been high under Miles.

The school district’s Board of Managers unanimously permitted job cuts Thursday night prior to the 2024-2025 school year. Positions subject to cuts include nurses; librarians; counselors; assistant principals; principals; reading, math and science teachers; and special education coordinators. It’s unclear at this time how many termination notices have been handed out and how many positions total will be cut.

Governor Abbott’s plans to wreck the district and destroy the morale of educators and parents are on track. Remember that the state took over the district because one school was not improving, although it did improve in the year before the takeover.

The takeover is a politically motivated sham.

Categories Budget Cuts, Disruption, Education Reform, Funding, Houston, State Takeover, Texas

My Conversation about the State Takeover of Houston Public Schools on KPFT-Pacifica

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2024 //
6

I was invited by KPFT, a Pacifica station in Houston, to discuss the state takeover of the Houston Independent School District.

This is a better link.

The host of the show is Paul Castro, who has taught in HISD and in an open enrollment charter school.

It was a good exchange. We talked about The state-appointed superintendent Mike Miles, about charter schools, and about Governor Abbott’s determination to get a voucher bill passed by the next legislature. I explained what a voucher program would mean and what has been learned from the experience of other states.

You have to search the website to find the program. It aired April 26 at 9 am.

“Amplified Houston” Friday

Host:Paul Castro

Guest:Diane Ravitch 

Topic

Public school reform and HISD Takeover

Amplified Houston for Fri., April 26, 2024, focuses on public school reform and the HISD takeover. Dr Diane Ravitch, Founder and President of the Network for Public Education (NPE) will guest. NPE is the single largest organization of parents and teachers and other citizens working to stop the privatization of public education and the misuse of standardized testing.Diane Ravitch’s Blog is dianeravitch.net. Her two most recent books are EdSpeak and DoubleTalk:A Glossary to Decipher Hypocrisy and Save Public Schooling and The Death and Life of the Great American School System.

Friday, April 26, 2024 9:00 am30:07

Categories Charter Schools, Democracy, Houston, State Takeover, Texas, Vouchers

Tune in! I Discuss “Slaying Goliath” Tomorrow with Tim Slekar

By dianeravitch
April 24, 2024 //
3

Tim Slekar is a fearless warrior for public schools, teachers, and students. I will be talking to him about Slaying Goliath and the struggle to protect public schools from the depredations of billionaires and zealots.

This Thursday on Civic Media: Dive Back into “Slaying Goliath” with Diane Ravitch

Grab your pencils—BustEDpencils is gearing up for a no-holds-barred revival of Diane Ravitch’s game-changing book, *Slaying Goliath*, live this Thursday on Civic Media. 

Launched into a world on the brink of a pandemic, *Slaying Goliath* hit the shelves with a mission: to arm the defenders of public education against the Goliaths of privatization. But then, COVID-19 overshadowed everything. Despite that, the battles Diane described haven’t paused—they’ve intensified. And this Thursday, we’re bringing these crucial discussions back to the forefront with Diane herself.

This Thursday at 7pm EST on BustEDpencils, we’re not just revisiting a book; we’re reigniting a movement. Diane will dissect the current threats to public education and highlight how *Slaying Goliath* still maps the path to victory for our schools. This isn’t just about reflection—it’s about action.

**It’s time to get real. It’s time to get loud. It’s time to tune in this Thursday at 7 PM EST on Civic Media.**

If you believe that without a robust public education system our democracy is in jeopardy, then join us. Listen in, call in (855-752-4842), and let’s get fired up. We’ve got a fight to win, and Diane Ravitch is leading the charge.

Mark your calendars and fire up Civic Media this Thursday at 7pm Central. 

Categories Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Censorship, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Courage, Cruelty, Dark Money, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, For-Profit, Fraud, Injustice, Privatization, Propaganda, Resistance, School Choice, Separation of church and state, State Takeover, Supporting public schools, Teachers, Unions, Vouchers

Houston: Democratic Legislators Demand an Investigation of Mike Miles’ Tactics

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2024 //
2

The Texas Education Agency, under Republican control, took over the entire Houston Independent School district last year because one high school—with disproportionate numbers of at-risk students—had low test scores for several years in a row. Even though that school, Wheatley High School, was showing marked signs of progress, State Commissioner Mike Morath, fired the elected school board and hired Mike Miles as superintendent with expansive powers and selected a hand-picked “board of managers.”

Morath, a software executive, was appointed by Governor Gregg Abbott, who surely enjoys punishing a mostly Black and Hispanic district that did not vote for him. Of course, Morath must know that state takeovers seldom lead to improvement. This is especially the case in a hostile takeover, like this one.

Houston Democrats are waking up and taking action. At last. How can they allow Gregg Abbott to do a hostile takeover of HISD and install a man with a grandiose sense of his own importance, a man who previously failed in Dallas? Given the Republican super-majority in the state and Abbott’s vengeful nature, there’s probably not much that can change his stranglehold over Houston’s public school students and teachers. But it’s always good to protest and make noise.

Several Houston-area Democratic legislators are calling for a formal hearing to address “potential violations of state law” in Houston ISD in the aftermath of the Texas Education Agency stripping elected leaders from the school district.

The lawmakers asked in a letter sent Friday that the House Committee on Public Education host a hearing to address reports of “unqualified, non-degree holding teachers” working in classrooms and a lack of accommodations for students with disabilities. They also requested independent research proving the benefits of state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles’ New Education System. 

The request comes after the state takeover of HISD in March 2023 and the Texas Education Agency’s appointment of the Superintendent and nine members of the Board of Managers. Due to the takeover, the nine lawmakers who signed the letter said it is “imperative that the state assume full responsibility for HISD students and hold the board of managers accountable”

“As their duly elected State Representatives, we must hold a hearing to learn more about these concerning reports and efforts to subvert state laws and requirements,” the letter states.

Reps. Christina Morales, Ann Johnson, Jarvis Johnson, Penny Morales Shaw, Mary Ann Perez, Jon Rosentahl, Shawn Thierry, Hubert Vo and Gene Wu all signed the letter, which was addressed to Speaker of the Texas House Dade Phelan and the House education committee. Phelan and TEA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter. 

“Teacher reports and parent concerns are uncovering troubling developments at our schools,” Morales wrote in a statement. “The community can no longer vote on who represents us on the school board, so we as the state representatives must hold the appointed board accountable.”

In a response to the letter, HISD said it was going to stay focused on “the critical work of serving students and families,” and it had already seen positive impacts for kids after implementing reforms.

“HISD has invited dozens of elected and community leaders into our schools to see the work happening first-hand,” the district wrote. “We are pleased to share our progress with any other leaders who want to better understand what’s happening in the schools.”

Miles has implemented the New Education System program, a controversial model that includes standardized curriculum, the conversion of libraries to Team Centers and courses focused on critical thinking and the “Science of Reading,” at 85 schools this year. The campuses also have longer hours, timed lessons, higher pay for educators and additional staff who support teachers.

“Teachers have expressed that some of our most at-risk students are not receiving the services and support that they legally have the right to receive,” lawmakers wrote. “They have also shared with us that their students feel discouraged and constantly berated by the continuous assessments and instructional method prescribed in the New Education System.”

According to the letter, the district has circumvented the law requiring teachers to obtain a bachelor’s degree, a certification and other requirements to work in a classroom by assigning certified teachers as the teacher of record for more than one classroom.

“These efforts are not only detrimental to the continued learning and development of our students, but also a violation of state law,” lawmakers said.

The Democratic lawmakers also said the district has shared plans with teachers and administrators to address a teacher shortage by hiring community college students as teacher apprentices and learning coaches. 

Under the NES model, teacher apprentices work with teachers to plan and implement lesson plans, provide instruction and support classroom management, and they can serve as the teacher when the primary instructor is absent. Learning coaches provide support to teachers by supervising students, making copies, grading papers and completing paperwork.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reform, Curriculum, Democrats, Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, Houston, State Takeover, Texas

Houston: Principal of a High-Performing School Removed; Parents and Students Baffled

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2023 //
2

The chaos continues in the Houston school district, under the addled leadership of Mike Miles, the state-appointed superintendent. Another principal was pushed out, along with several staff members. No reason was given. Several hundred teens and parents demonstrated outside the school to protest the sudden dismissals of tested school leaders.

Sam Gonzalez Kelly wrote in The Houston Chronicle:

Families and staff at Eastwood Academy High School were informed Tuesday that their principal and several other staff members were pulled from the East End school after an investigation by the district into “incidents at the campus.”

Principal Ana Aguilar’s removal was announced in an automated phone call from HISD Central Division Superintendent Luz Martinez, who said that the change was being made to “ensure a high-quality education environment.” A district spokesman added in a statement that “HISD takes student safety in our schools very seriously,” and that Aguilar and other staffers were removed “after an investigation into incidents at the campus.”

Ana Aguilar

An assistant principal, a counselor and a librarian were also relieved of their duties, according to one teacher at Eastwood, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. An HISD spokesman declined to elaborate on the “incidents” in question or provide further comment.

The news immediately sent waves of outrage and confusion rippling through the tight-knit Eastwood community, whose members were unaware of any incidents that would spark their principal’s removal. Aguilar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“It’s very frustrating, Eastwood is a wonderful school,” said Miranda Gonzales, a parent of an Eastwood student. “There’s no reason for the principal to be removed, Eastwood isn’t (in Miles’ New Education System). It’s ridiculous, it’s insanity and none of us know what’s going on.”

Eastwood, a school of fewer than 400 students in Houston’s East End, received an A rating from the Texas Education Agency on its latest evaluations. Aguilar joined the campus in 2022 after spending three years as principal at Robinson Elementary School, where she won a First Year Principal of the Year Award at what was an Achieve 180 campus in the east region of the district.

Aguilar’s removal is the latest in a string of shakeups at HISD schools, where at least nine other principals have been replaced without much in the way of explanation given to families or staff. The principal at Middle College High School at Houston Community College’s Felix Fraga campus, also in HISD’s Central Division, was removed less than a week ago. The principal at Cage Elementary and Project Chrysalis Middle School, many of whose students go on to attend Eastwood Academy, was replaced during the first week of school this year.

Yesterday the new Miles leadership removed the principal of Wisdom High School and most of its top administrators. Wisdom’s students are mostly non-English-speakers.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Disruption, Ethics, Houston, State Takeover, Texas
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