I know some of you might not be interested in what is happening in Texas with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) taking over the Houston Independent School District (HISD). Believe me, I’ve tried to stay away from the topic, but I wrote about it a bit last week and it looks like I’ll do the same today.
I worked in the Houston Independent School District for 25 years, and then led a group that was an external partner to that district and others for another 10 years as we helped schools improve their leadership strategies and classroom practices. I think I’ve done a pretty good job ignoring what was happening in Houston’s public schools, at least until TEA won its court case to assume leadership of HISD because of a continuance of low-performing campuses and possible financial malfeasance. Then the phone started ringing.
A friend of mine is applying to the TEA-appointed board of managers, scheduled to replace the elected HISD board of trustees within the next few months. This board of managers will work with a new superintendent, appointed by TEA, in hopes of improving school district performance and cleaning up financial practices. Last week, I wrote about some of what is wrong with this picture of TEA taking over the leadership of HISD (See “Anecdotes Don’t Fix Learning at Scale” at abetterparthtolearning.com).
My friend sent me a television interview completed recently with TEA Commissioner Mike Morath.
Here are some of my thoughts shared with my friend based upon watching that interview:
When Morath distinguished between a governance board and a management board, I texted,
“The last time HISD had a governance board (or a board that looked at the district from 10,000 feet) versus a management board (or a board involved in the daily decision-making process) was at least 15 years ago. Barely anyone in Houston remembers that far back, so Morath will have a tough time making the argument that the TEA-appointed board should be focused on governance and not management. And besides, I don’t know how to make an appointed board apolitical.”
Both my friend and I think this is a golden opportunity for HISD to offer its families, especially those black, brown, and poor families stuck in sucky schools, a chance to enroll in a much different way to get kids to become smarter and stronger at reading, writing, and problem-solving.
But I wrote this to my friend about getting parents to think a different way about their children’s learning,
“I don’t know if there is a Houston audience buying what you are pitching here. It’s tough to get people thinking about black, brown, and poor kids lack of reading skills, and other skills, when the decision-makers want to focus on topics like state versus local control, appointed versus elected leadership, Trump-backed politicians versus others, and the list goes on and on. There’s a management model called activity avoidance where leadership picks to debate and argue over any topic except the topic (like reading) that is most important to the organization’s success.”
“When I was a region superintendent in Houston and the leader of the largest educational non-profit in the Gulf Region, I couldn’t get any of the district leadership to focus on reading. So I don’t know why we would think an appointed board would do something like that, unless it would be part of their appointment negotiations, i.e. you don’t get on the board unless you are willing to focus on Houston’s reading problem.”
Both my friend and I believe all of this is a learning system problem, but Morath and TEA have always wanted to turn it into an individual school issue (notwithstanding the potential financial woes). But as I wrote to my friend,
“The system is broken? Whoa! Hold on their cowboy. No way you will hear Mike Morath say that publicly. The system is NOT broken. Schools are broken.”
My friend wants to believe most teachers aren’t to blame for what is going on in districts like Houston. Here’s what I wrote back to him,
“I don’t think enough teachers own the problem (of not being able to read, write, or problem-solve). I think most teachers blame kids and parents for their problems – or the district. Teachers shouldn’t get a pass on all of this. There’s a lot of bad teachers in HISD – like 30%.”
Toward the end of my friend’s commentary on the Morath interview, he asked his viewers to pray. Here’s my response to that,
“I like your prayer idea, especially when it comes to black, brown, and poor kids and their families. They really don’t have a chance no matter who is running the traditional system, unless it’s God.”
So, I’m going to end this column with a short letter to Commissioner Mike Morath. Here it is:
Dear Commissioner,
I know you are a busy man, so I’ll make this short.
Your improvement strategy in Houston will fail.
Instead, you should do the following:
Start a training program for adult learning coaches, professionals who know how to complete an individual learning plan for young learners that includes input from the young learner’s family.
Once learning coaches are trained, offer families whose children currently attend low-performing Houston schools an education savings account, to be applied to schooling options selected by the family. Governor Greg Abbott is pushing education savings accounts, or vouchers, in the legislative session underway, so this could be a win-win situation – testing the effectiveness of vouchers in Texas while offering real choice to young learners and their families.
Families could use their education savings account to hire a learning coach to help them build a learning plan for their young learner. Families could use their voucher to join a homeschool, learning pod, or micro-school, with or without the support of a learning coach. Families could use state money to enroll in a private school. Or they could apply their education savings account toward enrolling their young learner in another Houston school, since the low-performing school they went to in the past would be closed and no longer an option.
Under this action research project, young learners would start owning their own learning by creating their own learning plans, with the assistance of their parents or possibly a professional learning coach. If reading, writing, and problem-solving skills increased, Houston could offer this choice to any family currently enrolled in traditional school. This would be real learner choice, and not choice constrained by places called schools.
I understand you might not have the courage to go this route. I know how much politics is involved in providing our young learners an opportunity to learn.
But, if you don’t try something like I outlined above, you will fail Houston, and more importantly you will fail thousands of Houston’s black, brown, and poor families.
Just give it a try. Call it action research and blame me if it doesn’t work.
Signed
Scott A. Van Beck
Tomorrow is the 1st anniversary of A Better Path to Learning. So, in celebration of the day, I will post my first article printed on April 11, 2022. Enjoy.
A Better Path to Learning 
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