Who the Hell is Mike Miles?

Who the hell is Mike Miles?

Mike Miles is the new superintendent for the Houston Independent School District. The State of Texas assigned Miles to Houston’s public school district after winning a court case that said a “takeover” of Houston’s public schools was acceptable. A new school board was also appointed by the Texas Education Commissioner Mike Miles.

Miles is calling his improvement agenda “NES.” “NES” stands for – get ready – the “New Education System.”

Catchy.

Here’s the problem. Almost nothing in Miles’s “NES” is new. Most of it, if not all of it, has been tried by school leaders before, both in Houston and across America. And most of it, if not all of it, has met with mediocre results for young learners.

Here’s what Miles’s “New Education System” is all about.

Staff reapplying for their jobs.

Implementing an apprentice system, where young teachers work with veteran teachers.

Placing learning coaches inside schools so they can help improve classroom practice.

Extended hours.

Eliminating existing positions to pay for all of this.

This is “new?” I’m afraid not.

Turns out, Mike Miles is a buddy of Mike Morath, the current Texas Commissioner of Education. Morath served on the school board while Miles was the superintendent for the Dallas Independent School District. When Texas won the court battle for who get to call the shots for Houston’s public schools, Morath called his good friend Mike Miles to come on down to Houston and get busy improving schools.

The problem with all of this is that no one, including Morath, paid much attention to what happened to Miles during his last superintendent’s job – in Dallas.

Here’s what The Dallas Morning News had to say about Miles and his resignation as DISD’s superintendent back in June of 2015:

“Dallas ISD Superintendent Mike Miles announced the end of his turbulent three-year tenure Tuesday after failing to negotiate changes to his contract.”

“Miles wanted his contract to forbid school trustees from searching for a new district leader while he was still superintendent. He wanted immediate access to a ‘retention incentive supplement’ – $50,000 per year – that he wasn’t scheduled to get until July 1, 2017. And he wanted to require the nine school board members to follow its Board Operating Procedures.”

“[While in Dallas,] Miles overhauled teacher and principal evaluations. He directed millions of dollars to struggling schools. He removed educators who he thought were failing students. Supporters praised him for his tireless passion and dedication to education reform.”

“But he marginalized many who found him to be stubborn and arrogant. He failed to make his hands-on education management style – developed at the much smaller Colorado district – work in a larger setting. He also battled a revolving door of top administrators, including his former chief of staff who resigned days before he was indicted on federal bribery charges that led to a prison sentence.”

“His tenure was marked by his expansion of the district’s communications, public relations and advertising efforts, creating flashy campaigns touting DISD’s accomplishments. He spoke in grandiose terms, often calling on the district’s ‘heroes’ to carry out his vision. At the news conference Tuesday, Miles compared the district to Camelot and himself to King Arthur.”

“But in Texas, superintendents are graded by state STAAR results, and DISD scores have stayed flat or dropped under him.”

“David Lewis, a recent DISD school board candidate, said Miles failed to deliver on his promises.”

“’Mike Miles stayed about five minutes too long,’ Lewis said. ‘We’ve lost a lot of great principals, a lot of great teachers. To see that he resigned today, I feel like we’re getting started. But there’s a lot of work that has to be done now. Now, it’s time for the real work.”

Notwithstanding Miles’s self-reference to King Arthur, The Dallas Morning News article doesn’t seem to describe a leader that would be the go-to candidate Mike Morath would pick to fix Houston’s schools.

After working 25 years in the Houston school system, and another 10 years with Houston and neighboring school districts as an educational non-profit leader, I can say this:

If there is one entity less prepared to fix learning for Houston’s youth than the Houston Independent School District, it would be the State of Texas.

Mike Morath and his TEA bureaucrats don’t have a clue when it comes to providing what young learners need and want. Furthermore, placing a superintendent like Mike Miles inside Houston, after his less than stellar performance in Dallas, just invites criticism and divisiveness.

It might be different if Miles and his Morath-appointed board would have creative ideas about what kids need to learn at deep levels, but it appears that these folks have opened the same bag of tricks that have failed so many kids and their families in other districts across Texas and across the U.S.

I feel especially bad for black, brown, and poor kids who are subject to not only less than innovative strategies to help them learn, but a political environment in Houston that just isn’t going to help anything, or anyone get better.

Til tomorrow. SVB