Could Mike Miles Be Our Educational Savior?

ABPTL has been hard on Mike Miles, the state-appointed superintendent assigned to lead the Houston Independent School District back in 2023. But now, based on new test data, it seems like Miles’s reforms, a program he calls his New Education System, is working for more kids in more schools.

The Houston Chronicle reported earlier this month that,

“Schools in Houston ISD’s reform system continued to post dramatic gains on most STAAR (Texas’s standardized testing system) exams this year, with some subjects improving more than 40 percentage points since the state takeover began in 2023.”

“The growth in the rate of students meeting grade level at schools within the New Education System – the model state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles introduced at some schools to improve academics – has largely outpaced growth at schools outside of the model.”

“HISD said putting more funding, staffing and resources into classrooms has contributed to stronger performance. Next year, the district will allocate $8,459 on average to students at NES campuses, compared to $6,265 for students outside the system.”

“Schools outside NES have improved more slowly, although they continue to outperform NES schools, posting higher rates of students meeting grade level in almost every tested subject.”

“’As expected, schools starting furthest behind have made some of the fastest gains, but they also have the greatest distance to close,’ the district said in a statement. ‘The goal is sustained improvement that enables every student, regardless of campus, to achieve at grade level.’”

“Since the takeover, the rate of students meeting grade level on end-of-course tests rose by 30 percentage points at NES schools. Schools outside of the system improved by 6 percentage points, although they still have a higher share of students meeting grade level than NES schools.”

But the gap between NES and non-NES high school students meeting grade level expectations is narrowing. In 2022, 60% of non-NES high school students met grade level on STAAR end-of-course exams, while 28% of NES high school students achieved grade level status. In 2026, the non-NES school performance improved to 66%, whereas the NES schools improved to 55%.

This type of improvement makes you wonder why the entire Houston school district is not adopting NES practices. HISD still has work to do with their English performance, but NES Algebra and Biology scores are impressive (a 44 point increase in Algebra and a 46 point increase in Biology.)

Houston’s elementary and middle school performance isn’t as impressive as their high school achievement. Whereas the rate of students meeting grade level on STAAR exams went from 51% to 54% in non-NES schools, and 28% to 40% in NES-labeled schools, the district has more work to do with their younger learners to match what is currently happening in HISD’s high schools.

And there continue to be detractors and critics to what is currently happening in Houston.

“’If you get gains this big, you have to look at how they were produced. You just don’t get (those) gains…if you’re testing the same kinds of kids and everybody’s improving. It just doesn’t happen,’ said Daniel Koretz, a research professor of education at Harvard University who has studies testing policies and grade inflation for decades. ‘It’s time to lift up the covers and see what’s going on.’”

ABPTL is all for “lifting up the covers,” but, in the meantime, is it time to take a knee and bow to the brilliance of one Mike Miles and the academic improvements he’s brought to Houston schools that have failed generations of kids in the past? Is it time to admit that Miles and his leadership group have figured out a methodology for making at-risk kids, who go to school in a large, urban, and diverse district, smarter and stronger?

Sources in Houston tell ABPTL that Miles’s NES program will expand to other American cities in the near future. One of those cities could be Memphis, Tennessee.

If Mike Miles shows NES works inside the Memphis school district, one of the lowest performing districts in America, then we might need to anoint him “King Mike – Savior of Teaching and Learning.”

Til tomorrow. SVB