If the Houston Federation of Teachers has anything to say about it, Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles is well on his way to becoming the most reviled education chief in the United States.

In last Friday's late afternoon march that became as much about the politics of the upcoming elections, the HFT brought out the big guns with Randi Weingarten the longtime combative president of the American Federation of Teachers to urge the hundreds of teachers, parents and community members to fight the changes in HISD.

Gathering across the street from the front door of the Hattie Mae White administration building, participants were handed signs and a "chant" sheet that directed their protests not only at what Miles and his New Education System have planned for HISD, but also at the Texas Education Agency that ordered the state takeover of the district.

"Hey hey, ho ho, TEA has got to go!" "Education is a right! That is why we have to fight!" they chanted as they marched down a portion of West 18th that had been cleared of traffic by the Houston Police Department for the walk.
The march followed a series of speeches including testimonials from teachers and elected union officials urging those present to continue fighting against the changes Miles has brought to the district. According to Weingarten, those in attendance included people from across the United States as what is being done in Houston has become a national issue. AFT is known to give strongly to Democratic causes and Weingarten repeatedly citied the need to go vote, presumably not for conservatives who think what Miles is doing is needed to reverse the trend of low academic scores.

Miles has consistently stated that HISD has been a district of the haves and have-nots. Yes, he has said, there are some good to excellent schools where many students prosper and benefit from good educations. But there are many others, he said, where for years sub-par outcomes are allowed  — a situation that led TEA commissioner Mike Morath to propose taking over the district and appointing a new board and a superintendent who will stay in place until there are no consistently failing schools.

According to Miles, little improvements and half-measures won't work. Which is how he has justified his whirlwind set of changes and telling teachers and administrators that if they can't get with his program, they'd be better off leaving. And he and his administration have also ushered many of the reluctant out the door.

Many community members are particularly incensed is that the 85 schools that are either NES or NESA  have low-income, minority dominant student populations so there is a feeling that the most vulnerable groups are being targeted by the administration.

HFT President Jackie Anderson told the loudly cheering crowd "We do not want our children subjected in a substandard learning environment.  We are tired of being called non-believers, dissenters and noise makers. We are parents. We are professional educators and we want to be respected that way."

"We are here for our teachers who are being terminated for simply asking a question about what is good and what is right for our students," she added. "We are here because the appointed, uncertified superintendent who is creating a culture of fear and intimidation. That is no way for our children to learn. "We don't want to be treated like people who don't have a brain. Spineless, mindless robots. We don't want ot be treated like that."

She then called for Miles to leave the district.

To date in public meetings, most of the attention has been on the changes made at NES and NESA schools with a more regimented system of times tests throughout the day, removal of school libraries and teachers given scripts from the central office.  But there have been cascading effects at other schools as one Sharpstown High teacher said. Sharpstown is neither a NES nor a NESA school..

Nico Abazajian, a Sharpstown High School teacher, said thanks to the hiring freeze that was instituted — while the administration reallocates teachers due to a significant decrease in student population at some of the NES and NES-Aligned schools — remaining teachers are feeling overloaded. Their principal was recently removed by the administration.

After the U.S. history teacher left at his school, Abazajian, a world geography teacher, took on those classes as well. Asked what he'd like to see happen, he responded "I'd like to see enough teachers to take care of the children. Better yet, don't have working conditions that cause teachers to leave."

Part of Miles new approach for administrators at all the schools in the district is an injunction that they should be stepping into classrooms to observe their teachers as they conduct classes.

"In the first three weeks of school I was observed 37 times [by assistant principals as part of the new evaluation system] and I wasn't given any feedback," Abazajian said. "It was a mico-managing, lack of autonomy."

Abazajian said he actually asked for some feedback and would have welcomed some since he is only in his second year as a teacher, Previously he was a software engineer but left that career to become a teacher. Asked why, he responded, "OK this is cheesy but I genuinely care about public education. I decided I would be a cog in a machine that I approve of, that I like."

One of the speakers, Traci Latson, an HISD veteran teacher with 28 years in the classroom with a master's degree in curriculum and instruction, said "Reading a script is not teaching."

"This puts HISD teachers at a moral dilemma. Do I alter the script to meet the needs of of my students and potentially lose my job or do I follow the script with errors?"

"The school environment is so toxic that teachers are have mental health concerns. Men and women sit in their cars before school starts, crying, trying to muster the strength to must the strength to come into the building. Why? They are being bullied. They are being lied to. They are being pressured to follow a faulty curriculum that the teachers know will harm our students. Our students are not thriving in this political regime. "

As most people know, the failure of Wheatley High School to pass state academic standards for a number of years is what prompted the state takeover. (Along with a violation of the Open Meetings Law by an increasingly dysfunctional elected school board.). Ironically enough, when the way was finally cleared by the courts for the takeover, Wheatley had improved its scores.

Rashad Humphrey, a world history teacher at that school said "There's this misconception that just because a school is predominantly black and within a low-income area at Fifth Ward, that the kids there don't want to learn, the kids there are ditching. That is not true. Those kids there are extremely intelligent. They want to learn. They want to be there is school and I completely don't understand why this takeover is happening."

TFT President Capo charged that the trend in Texas is to give all sorts of academic waivers to charter schools that are denied to public schools. "Charter schools expand, our schools get shut down. Don't tell me this is about kids. This is about controlling how our kids think."

As the last speaker in the lineup, Weingarten said:

"The reason we are having this rally right here in front of them is to show we are not afraid to tell the truth. We are not afraid to make it clear what is really happening in Houston schools. None of us would have said before the takeover that the Houston schools were perfect. We know better than any of them their imperfections. But the difference between us and Miles is we care about fixing it and making it better and helping our kids,

Urging them one more tim eto go to the polls to change the administration in Austin, Weingarten said: "I'm a history teacher. What you learn from history is that the tool of the autocrat is apathy."