[en español]
The disenfranchisement has begun. F. Mike Miles plans to “reconstitute” schools that are mostly in Black and Brown Northeast Houston neighborhoods, while 7 of 9 Board of Managers live in affluent neighborhoods west of downtown. This Thursday the BOM will be voting to “suspend board policy regarding meeting dates, denying the public a regularly scheduled time to be heard. Written communication with the Board of Managers is currently unavailable to the public.

• PROTEST this Thursday at Houston ISD, 4400 W 18th at 4:15 pm. RSVP at https://www.houstoncvpe.org/june8
• SPEAK at Thursday’s sham board of managers meeting. Sign up by noon Wed here. Step-by-step instructions here. It might be your last time to speak.. 
• SIGN the petition to oppose this hostile occupation of our schools. 

“I hope my child returns to a school full of strangers and a scripted curriculum with endless test- prep worksheets and no meaningful instruction, without a thriving school library, no music, large class size and no school garden. That’s the school I want my child to attend!”    – said no parent, ever. 

Mike Miles is NOT the person for this job. 

When Miles resigned after three years on the job (2012-2015), results were unacceptable.

• Mike Miles says that all his schools are high performing. In fact, more schools in Dallas were low performing when he left the district than when he began his “reforms.”
• Dallas ISD had a 19% increase in the number of low performing schools under Miles’ tenure
• A Dallas Morning News analysis shows no consistent improvement in test scores, a decline in graduation rates, and skyrocketing teacher turnover

When Mike Miles left Dallas he was uniformly criticized for being a horrible manager

• “He was a military man who is used to giving orders and having them followed without question. The man, in my opinion, is very smart but is not a good manager.”  
• Another leader said he was perplexed by how Miles handled cases in the human resources department, stating:  “The issues in that department and how it was managed are troubling as a taxpayer. It just seemed to me an inordinate set of problems that had a difficult time getting resolved.”  
• In 2015,  a Dallas resident said “Mike Miles stayed about five minutes too long. We’ve lost a lot of great principals, a lot of great teachers.” In the same article, “Miles compared the district to Camelot and himself to King Arthur…But he marginalized many who found him to be stubborn and arrogant.”  
• For those who want to give him a chance, Dallas ISD trustee B. Nutall was an early Miles supporter but “her opinion soured over the next year as she realized he had no vision for the district.”

Miles’“New Education Schools” (NES) sounds new but it is just another unsuccessful “fire your way to excellence scheme.  He has stated he will require all teachers and staff to re-apply for their jobs at 29 schools, mostly in Northeast Houston. Teachers will be required to implement a rigid, scripted curriculum and teachers will be reprimanded for deviating from it. Some teachers will be paid substantially more, but will work a much longer school day. Teachers may be required to teach in person and on zoom at the same time. They will have one planning period per week instead once per day. Miles plans to eliminate librarians from these schools and will outsource wraparound services.

We’ve seen this playbook before. From 2010-2013, “Apollo 20” - a similar tactic to replace and move teachers in Kashmere, Wheatley, and other HISD schools - was a debacle. The program could not produce any sustained gains in math scores, reading scores remained the same, and enrollment dropped, despite a hefty $60 million price tag. Former Superintendent Terry Grier left HISD in disarray and it is about to happen again, but this time without the democratic guardrails of an elected board.

The replacement unelected Board of Managers has been carefully curated to look representative of Houston’s diversity. Because they were chosen for their willingness to rubber stamp whatever decisions F. Mike Miles makes, there will be no accountability -- from the dais or the ballot box.

With no elected school board to act as checks and balances against this would be king, the harm to our children may be permanent.

PROTEST this Thursday at Houston ISD, 4400 W 18th at 4:15 pm. RSVP at https://www.houstoncvpe.org/june8

Community Voices for Public Education
http://www.houstoncvpe.org/

Community Voices for Public Education · United States
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