Sweeping financial and curriculum content changes that Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles has proposed that will give him the power to act quickly without going to the board for approval were the top bone of contention at Thursday night’s board of education meeting.
That and the continued public disapproval of his plan to remove libraries from the 28 schools targeted for extra help in his New Education System schools. As speaker Dana Castro addressing Miles wryly noted: “By closing our libraries you have conveniently taken the argument over banned books out of the question.”
Thursday night’s board meeting was notable both for the changes that Miles has continued to introduce as well as his first time presence at the public hearing portion of the agenda The superintendent wants the authority to approve purchases up to $2 million from its present $100,000 limit without board approval and it appears the board members are more than willing to relinquish that responsibility.
Board of Managers member Ric Campos, calling on what he said was his business history of working with various governmental units, told fellow board members that what Miles was proposing was perfectly justifiable and needed. When board member Adam P. Rivon asked for monthly reports on what was being done, Campos said that information was already in the financial reports and requiring a separate report from the superintendent’s office was just needless paperwork.
Speakers also challenged the approach Miles is proposing — Rosetta Stone language programs — to teach dual language and told the board that allowing Miles to determine policy all by himself without going through the trustees was not only a recipe for disaster but something they could be legally liable for in the future.
Speaker Ruth Kravitz said: “There has never really been a board agenda as horrifying as this one and you, well intentioned, good people need to hold the line. Mike Miles is acting like a man with a trust fund.”
One of the changes would remove the requirement that Miles consult with the teachers union before making any changes to their working situations.
Ruth Hoffman Lack, a school psychologist who started as a teacher in Westbury High School in 1992 said no one person could be expected to know enough about everything to make informed decisions without input from other people.
“It is absolutely critical that decisions about almost anything be run by at least a few and sometimes several people. My favorite example in 1993 when the new building opened at Westbury High School we discovered that despite faculty and staff all having commented and seen the plans in advance there was not a single faculty bathroom in the whole thing.”
“All three of the items I’ve signed up to speak to remove the input of multiple participants and leave a single person, the superintendent, the sole responsibility.
For his part, Miles characterized many of these statements as false and expressed his exasperation with what he what he said were continued misrepresentations of his policies.
Among the changes he wants to emphasize is the need to improve Career and Technical Education course work in the district, steering students to more for-the-future classes in AI (artificial intelligence) and away from what he considers lower skilled jobs like cosmetology.. Not doing this will leave these students far behind their peers in the future, he said..
Miles also made a presentation about upcoming “What If” scores from the Texas Education Agency in which because of changes in the test and its scoring and based up9n 2021-22 TEA scores of district schools, a number of HISD campuses that had been listed in the B range may drop to D or F ratings.
This makes all the more tough for HISD returning to an elected board, since the TEA has said that won’t happen until there are no schools in the district receiving failing grades, he pointed out. .
He also said that contrary to other reports, just because HISD has filed for a waiver allowing the hiring of uncertified teachers and principals, that the district is doing well in getting ready for the new school year.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
