Watch the full recording of Mike Miles July 18th community meeting. 

https://www.youtube.com/live/jH5tbLJxrGw?feature=share

Q& A starts at Minute 20  

Here are a couple of excerpts below. It is unfortunate that his responses to parents and teachers are dismissive, laden with half-truths and outright lies, and built on manipulative debater flourishes.

1. (20:36)-Jennifer Blessington, HISD teacher about teacher recruitment and retention: I absolutely think teachers need to be paid well, but I would argue that if we were primarily motivated by money, we would have chosen another profession…If teachers are micro-managed and deprofessionalized, they will flee this district in droves.” Miles responds that he disagrees and that “teachers were warned several times and they still volunteered.”
2. (41:41) Travis McGee, HISD parent: There’s a difference between leadership and dictatorship. Those teachers are not motivated; they are scared to death. This NES System. Not even sure if I have a job. Not even sure if the schools will be open. Not even sure what the curriculum will be... Earlier you mentioned experiments. Throughout history, experiments have never been good to Black and Brown people...Make sure every school has equality and equity in the same sense. What are you gonna do different? It does not matter what comes out of his mouth. Read the legislation. If SB 1842 doesn’t get you, SB 1882 will and if you try to sue, SB 1365 will. Miles responds that if he slow-walked the program, people would complain. "Stop dissing principals and teachers who are stepping up." Translated: If you are complaining, you are part of the problem.
3. (46:47) Ann Eagleton, HISD community member and parent of children who graduated from HISD: I took a look at your original NES schools, which are your schools in Colorado, that use this format and I was very disheartened. You’ve had to close one of your three schools due to low enrollment. People there have rejected NES and I am trying to understand why think it will work here. Is it just because we have a gun to our heads or because it really works…My question is about sustainability. In a few years, this won’t work and we’re going to be half a billion dollars in debt”  Miles tells her, “yes, maybe in a few years we will have to close schools.”
4. (1:03:00) Jessi Heiner, SDMC member at an NES-aligned school. The principal told SDMC (minus the teachers) that “if they are not willing to dive into NES, this will not be the campus for them…In the meeting (SDMC meeting with no vote), there was only enough time for a handful of questions. To most questions, the answer was the same. “We don’t have all the answers because the logistics are still all being worked out.... We are now less than 3 weeks away from NES teachers starting, and we have even more unanswered questions than before."