Can Mike Miles remake Houston schools?

Houston's radically redesigned elementary and middle schools posted higher math and reading scores in nearly every grade level in the first year, reports Houston Landing. In Superintendent Mike Miles’ “New Education System” (NES) schools, the share of students scoring at or above grade level improved by 7 percentage point, while other schools saw a 1 percentage point increase.

Houston Superintendent Mike Miles is very, very controversial.

Is it sustainable?

Big-city education reforms often get off to a strong start under a new leader, writes Robert Pondiscio in Education Next. But promising gains in achievement often level off or disappear. As one reformer tells him, "The rubber band snaps back."

After all, Houston won the Broad Prize for Urban Education for educational improvement in 2002 and 2013, yet was taken over by the state in 2023, he writes. A senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Pondiscio is the author of How the Other Half Learns.

Formerly a superintendent in Dallas and Colorado Springs, Miles "founded and led Third Future Schools, a charter school network that specializes in turning around chronically struggling schools," writes Pondiscio. Miles is imposing Third Future's educational model on NES schools, and he's not waiting for everyone to buy in to what he calls "wholescale systemic reform."

This school year, Miles forced 28 chronically low-performing to follow the NES instructional model; another 57 voluntarily adopted it. In 2024–25, 45 additional schools are expected to join. That means 130 out of 274 Houston schools will be NES schools. High-performing schools will be allowed to preserve their autonomy.

NES teachers are told what to teach and how to teach it. They receive daily lessons, writes Pondiscio. "Teachers can adapt and customize the district-provided PowerPoint slide decks, but they cannot change the lessons’ aims or lower the targeted standards."

Teachers pause the lesson every four minutes -- the use timers -- for students to discuss with classmates, solve problems on whiteboards or do some other check for understanding. After 45 minutes, there's a 10-minute quiz. Those who do well go to a library or "team center "for 35 minutes to work in pairs or alone on higher-level material. Those who don't quite understand the lesson stay in the room to work with the teacher.

It's demanding and fast paced. Critics claim NES is leaving children “overwhelmed, crying, and complaining.” Teacher turnover is high.

But, behavior is better, says Miles. Students don't have time to act up.

Financial troubles loomed at year's end, writes Pondiscio. Enrollment is down more than 14 percent since the pandemic, "contributing to a revenue shortfall of more than half a billion dollars, as Miles and his team seek to increase spending on NES turnaround schools."

NES teachers are paid according to their job, not seniority. In what Miles' calls the hospital plan, a third-grade reading teacher makes more than an electives teacher, for example, just as a heart surgeon makes more than a GP. Teachers also get a bonus for working at a NES school.

The district could lose even more students if Texas expands school choice by authorizing education savings accounts, as seems likely.

As choices expand, "the consensus and constituency for big-city reform is disappearing," writes Pondiscio. Weeks before the first year's tests results were released, the Houston Chronicle published an op-ed by a former school board member who said Miles and the state-appointed board are “wreaking havoc on schools that didn’t need fixing.” The headline: “We’ve seen enough.”