Houston Supt. Mike Miles & Urban School Reform

[00:00:00] Charlie Chieppo: Well, hello everybody. And welcome to this week’s edition of the Learning Curve Podcast. I’m Charlie Chippeo, co-hosting today. I’m a senior fellow at Pioneer Institute, and I’m very pleased that we have a new co-host with us today, Meredith Coolidge. Meredith, tell us a little bit about yourself.

[00:00:17] Meredith Coolidge: Yeah, thanks, Charlie. I’m so excited to be here. I am the campaigns manager for Democrats for Education Reform Massachusetts, so I have the privilege of leading political efforts for both statewide and local campaigns here in the Commonwealth, but I actually started my journey in K-12 education as a public school teacher in Texas with Teach for America, and my first experience was in the classroom in Houston ISD during my summer training with I’m super excited to be talking to our guests today.

[00:00:45] Charlie Chieppo: Oh, you, I, you know, I didn’t know that, Meredith. You’re, you are the perfect co-host for this week, then. Fantastic. Great.

[00:00:56] Charlie Chieppo: Well, before we get to that, we are going to talk about our stories. And this week, instead of each of us having a story, which is the usual practice for those of you who listen regularly, no.

[00:01:08] What we’re going to do is Meredith and I are going to talk a little bit about something that’s close to our hearts, which is this ballot initiative to eliminate the statewide test called MCAS as a graduation requirement here in Massachusetts. And the reason we’re going to talk about that is because yesterday, or I should say we’re recording on Thursday.

[00:01:29] So on Wednesday, there was an editorial in The Wall Street Journal about this. So, we have hit the big time. So, we just want to talk a little bit about that, and Meredith, why don’t you kick it off? Tell us a little bit about your thoughts on the editorial and the issue.

[00:01:44] Meredith Coolidge: Yeah, I mean, I thought the editorial was great.

[00:01:47] It really was comprehensive and gave a real overview of what is at stake for students. And essentially, you know, the MCAS assessment, it’s really just a tool to ensure students are learning what they’re supposed to be learning. You know, I started my career as a teacher. I understand some of the key concepts.

[00:02:02] Talking points, but we really have some of the highest standards in the country, and those standards would mean nothing if there isn’t a statewide benchmark to ensure students are meeting the standards.

[00:02:13] Charlie Chieppo: No, that’s exactly right, and it’s funny, taking it from sort of a 30,000-foot, Point of view. The thing that kind of amazed me about it when I was reading it was that, you know, we live in this world where we’re dealing with these Massachusetts issues every day, and when you take a step back and view it from the outside, you really realize that this world issue.

[00:02:35] Look, should not be a very difficult issue, and it’s just very interesting for me to see how an outside entity, I mean, admittedly, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, not one that is without a point of view, but how an outside entity would look at this issue. I found that pretty valuable.

[00:02:52] Meredith Coolidge: You’re spot on, Charlie.

[00:02:53] I mean, I’m glad that they mentioned that we often rank number one nationally, um, in our NAEP scores, and I think on the ground, I’m also hearing from plenty of teachers and parents who are saying that they don’t want this, who are afraid to get involved because of the political nature of the question, and that they really feel like maintaining the standard is important to ensuring that we remain at the top of its game. So, I was interested in the fact that they pointed that out, and I think that I’m hearing that from a lot of folks here in Massachusetts, too.

[00:03:21] Charlie Chieppo: I’m very glad to hear that because, you know, I think it’s so easy when things have been good for a long time, you forget what they were like before things were good.

[00:03:30] And, you know, this is not groundbreaking. Meredith, you’re too young, but for those of us who are old, you know, we remember what public education was like in Massachusetts before 1993 when ed reform was passed. And you know, it was not a very pretty picture.

[00:03:45] Meredith Coolidge: Yeah, my grandmother actually taught out in Pittsfield way before MCAS and now she lives in Florida, and I was sort of talking to her about this and she was Just floored that this was an effort because of how much progress we really have made since the 1993 and then again in 2003 when it became a requirement. So, it is really scary and I’m glad that the Wall Street Journal and other publications are casting a light on it.

[00:04:10] Charlie Chieppo: Yeah, you know, the other thing that I have to say as someone who writes a lot of opinion pieces, many of which don’t say wonderful things about public officials. I think you really got to give credit as well to Governor Healey, Karen Spilka, who’s the Senate President in Massachusetts, and Mariano, who is the Speaker of the House.

[00:04:28] Massachusetts, obviously, is pretty much a one-party state, all Democrats, but all of them standing up for each other. You know, against the Massachusetts Teachers Association and say, no, this is, this is important. And, you know, that’s not an easy thing for them to do and I really give them credit for it.

[00:04:42] Meredith Coolidge: I totally agree with you. And I think to that point about what the teachers union is saying, there’s this misconception that if the graduation requirement was removed, it would be replaced immediately. And I appreciate, you know, leaders like Tutwiler and other folks who are stating that this is false. There would be no statewide replacement and it will be based on districts.

[00:05:03] Specific curricula, which, as we know, Charlie, is subjective and unreliable, and, you know, as the Secretary says, it would mean more than 350 different versions of a diploma, so you just ask yourself, how is that fair, especially for our most marginalized students?

[00:05:17] Charlie Chieppo: Well, that’s what I was going to say, and here’s the question of the day, Meredith. How many people do you think believe that if this ballot initiative goes through, and MCAS goes away as a graduation requirement, that Weston, which is always considered one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest town in Massachusetts, students in Weston are going to get the same standard and the same content as students in Holyoke, which is, you know, a very poor and underperforming district in western Massachusetts.

[00:05:45] Meredith Coolidge: Oh, you’re right, and the Voices for Academic Opportunity Equity Coalition’s actually working on a Mass Corps report, which has really demonstrated the inequities, especially in course taking and just across the Commonwealth, you know, local districts do such different things. And this would really, really affect, especially the most marginalized students.

[00:06:07] Charlie Chieppo: Yeah, that’s so true. And as we go through this process, I hope that our side really brings out this issue because the reality is that MCAS is really a tool. for equity and for equalizing opportunity, and I think we’ve got to get that message out.

[00:06:21] Meredith Coolidge: And one other thing I’ll say on this, the thing that I hear a lot from folks is, oh, you know, one high stakes test shouldn’t determine a student’s future, and there’s just such a lack of awareness also about the existing avenues to achieving a diploma if a student doesn’t pass it.

[00:06:37] The first time, or at least one of the, you know, three required MCAS assessments, there’s the EPP process, which actually provides additional support to students who don’t achieve the partially meeting expectations range. And then there’s also an appeals process where administrators can collect a bunch of evidence to demonstrate a student’s knowledge, particularly for new arrivals.

[00:06:57] So there’s a lot of misinformation out there, and I think we really need to focus on improving the system as opposed to just getting rid of it.

[00:07:04] Charlie Chieppo: Absolutely. And I will leave this topic by just for the benefit of those of you who are living outside Massachusetts and want a little taste of the political discourse in Massachusetts, one of the lines from the editorial is a quote from Max Page, who’s the head of the Mass Teachers Association. And he spoke before the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education a while back about this topic. And his quote was, the focus on income on college and career readiness speaks to a system tied to the capitalist class and its need for profit.

[00:07:35] And look, I’m no capitalist myself, but I think that if you live in Kansas, I don’t think you’re used to hearing that kind of discourse in your, you know, at meetings of government entities. So anyway, this is one that we’ll be watching throughout. And after the break, we are going to come back with Mike Miles, who is the superintendent of the Houston Independent School District in Texas.

[00:07:57] Mike Miles is superintendent of Houston Independent School District. Most recently, Superintendent Miles served as founder and CEO of 3rd Future Schools while previously serving three years as the superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District and six years as superintendent of the Harrison School District in Colorado Springs.

[00:08:16] Miles also served his country as an officer in the Army’s Elite Ranger Battalion and as a company commander, then joined the U. S. State Department as a Soviet analyst. And a member of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He then served as a diplomat to Poland and Russia at the end of the Cold War, finishing his service in the State Department as Special Assistant to the Ambassador to Russia before returning home to the United States.

[00:08:41] Miles holds degrees from the U. S. Military Academy in West Point, the University of California at Berkeley, and Columbia University. So you’ve dedicated your life and career to public service, first as a soldier, then as a diplomat. And for the last 30 years as an educator, an educational leader, would you tell us about your family background, formative educational experience, and as well as how you became so dedicated to public service in several different capacities?

[00:09:10] Mike Miles: I’m one of eight kids. My dad was in the service. He was a, what we call a noncommissioned officer. We traveled around a bit. And, my mom’s Japanese, my dad’s black, she didn’t speak English very well, but I went to public schools, of course, mostly on the army bases, but when I got to high school, I went to Fountain Fort Carson High School in the town of Fountain in Colorado.

[00:09:39] I always wanted to be a soldier, since I was in second grade, and then I wanted to go to West Point. So, I always had that career path, the initial career path in mind. But I grew up in the days of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, these are the days in the 60s and early 70s where it was, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

[00:10:04] I heard that phrase so many times from my dad, it was repeating Kennedy, of course. And so, this notion of service, my dad was in the service, this notion of service, you know what I mean? And not just me, I think in those days, maybe more people had some sense of service. You know, in my education, you know, we talked a little bit more about the common good. And I think maybe that’s not talked about these days.

[00:10:30] Charlie Chieppo: Selfishly, it’s very nice to hear people who have the same historical references that I do. We’re getting rarer and rarer as the years pass, it seems.

[00:10:42] You’re then went on to be an officer in the Army Ranger Battalion and Company Commander. And first of all, thank you for your military service. And could you talk about attending West Point, the role that your service in the military played and how that’s informed your work as an educational leader in some large urban school districts?

[00:11:02] Mike Miles: So, I graduated from West Point and did join the Army right after that as an officer, of course, and served in the Ranger Battalion. And then I left the Army in 1983 after my time in the Army was up, the five-year commitment, and I wanted to be a diplomat, and so I had to go back to school, got a second bachelor’s degree from Berkeley in Slavic Languages and Literature, and then Columbia in International Affairs and Public Policy.

[00:11:30] And then joined the State Department, and then eventually did become a diplomat to Poland and Russia. And I think the through line between the Army, diplomacy, and education is the sense of public service. I’m, at this point, a professional public servant. That’s kind of what I do. And I serve the public interest.

[00:11:52] But I think the other through line is in almost all the positions I’ve had; I’ve been in a leadership position. And it’s so important in education, almost any organization, of course, but I think in the education field, leadership is critical, whether you’re talking about the principal position or superintendent.

[00:12:12] And the concepts of leadership are the principles of leadership. are very similar. Yeah, there’s educational leadership that there are some differences, but basically, the core principles of leadership are always there. And what I gained from the military, for example, is this notion of attention to both the mission and people.

[00:12:33] You have to take care of your people. You have to be empathetic. You also have to be relational. At the same time, the mission is important. And sometimes adult issues or even those Relationships have to be secondary to what the ultimate mission is. In education, for example, the mission is to educate kids, it’s to put students first.

[00:12:58] And people say that, but they don’t often do that, because then, maybe the other interests get in the way. So, leadership is about making the tough decisions sometimes. Leadership is about improving organizational effectiveness. Leadership is about inspiration. And, you know, moving a whole bunch of people to do things that they would not ordinarily do, or the toughest challenges. So, I learned that at West Point through my Army career, but also in my diplomatic service.

[00:13:29] Charlie Chieppo: Interesting. Yeah, that applies, I think, regardless of the Particular subject matter area that you’re working in. Okay, so you mentioned your time in the State Department and then you went on to be Special Assistant to the Ambassador to Russia. Would you talk about these experiences in foreign service and the knowledge and lessons that you and other educators should transmit to young people about the role K 12 education plays in a free society and in promoting America’s national security?

[00:13:55] Mike Miles: That’s a great question. I’m glad that you’re asking. It’s very nuanced. What I learned as a diplomat is how important perspective is when trying to solve important problems. And how important it is for a free society to have an educated society. I lived in Russia during the Cold War days. I lived in Poland, which had just become more democratic when I was there.

[00:14:24] But I could see how those societies operated, and there wasn’t as much freedom as we have here in America. And the leaders there relied on people really not being well informed, and not having a broader perspective than the one that they have that surrounds them every day. And so, free societies need people who can critically think.

[00:14:51] And have a broader perspective and experiences outside their own circle, outside their own community even. And that perspective, that notion of understanding different peoples, different cultures, I think is part of what we try to do. We’re not totally responsible for how we engage in a free society, educators are not. But we do have a role to play. And so, I think those lessons from diplomacy really apply to education today.

[00:15:25] Charlie Chieppo: Let’s shift now to your education career. You served as superintendent of Harrison School District in Colorado Springs. Can you talk a little bit about your work there and some of the educational and managerial challenges in the district and how you transitioned? You know, that must have been a very interesting transition from going from being a soldier and a diplomat and then to being an educational leader.

[00:15:47] Mike Miles: Yeah. So, I was a teacher first. So, I left Rush at the beginning of 1995. And taught for four years at Fountainfield Carson High School, the same high school I graduated from.

[00:16:00] Because my family and I, we went back to Colorado Springs, and Fountain is right, is very close to Colorado Springs. I taught for four years, and then I was a principal for four years. So, it wasn’t like going from being a diplomat to being a superintendent. I taught four years with, uh, principal for four years and then assistant superintendent for curriculum for three years.

[00:16:21] So, I had quite a bit of experience before becoming superintendent, but those leadership and organizational effectiveness learnings applied to my superintendency in Harrison, which is a district in Colorado Springs. It’s a small district of about 11,000 students at the time. So, I was able to not only kind of extrapolate on my educational experience, but also on my leadership experience from both the Army and the State Department.

[00:16:51] Charlie Chieppo: All right, I’m going to turn you over to Meredith.

[00:16:56] Meredith Coolidge: Thanks, Charlie. This has been such an interesting interview so far. Thank you so much for your time, Superintendent. I’m going to talk a little bit. So, let’s talk a little bit now about Texas. So, in Dallas, you created the reform effort, Destination 2020, which asked for improvements to be made by 2013 and 2015, and another plan, Accelerating Campus Excellence, involved moving new principals and teachers into campuses and attracting high performing teachers to campuses with greater needs. So, could you discuss a little bit about your work as the superintendent in Dallas ISD, as well as the thorny politics of reforming a large urban school district in America?

[00:17:33] Mike Miles: Yes, I mean, that’s a big question. Let me just take parts of it as they come to mind. Overall, I think and this applies to my Dallas period, that the American public education system is failing as a system.

[00:17:49] And I always look at systems first before I look at any faults that people would have. Because in my experience, you know, it’s the system, not the people, that’s the problem. People generally do what the system allows them to do or doesn’t allow them to do. People respond to the interests of the system.

[00:18:06] Or the intent is that a system provides or doesn’t provide. And so that became more clear to me going to Dallas as I looked at how a large urban district was organized and how it operates in the context, political context, but also, you know, just the educational reform context. And so Dallas was a system that was not doing well when I got there, and the question then became, you know, how to reform the system, how to improve it, in both the short term and the long term.

[00:18:40] And so some of the things we did in Dallas were systemic. You mentioned a couple of them, right? The pay for performance, or how we paid people, both principals and teachers. In Dallas was pretty novel at the time. It’s a true pay for performance system. Even Washington, D.C. doesn’t have a true pay for performance system, although I think you could describe it as one.

[00:19:04] Denver had ProComp, I think is the name of it. Which was not a true pay for performance system anyway. That was one of the things we put in place. The ACE program, Accelerating Campus Excellence, also not particularly innovative, but the way it was done really made a difference for struggling campuses.

[00:19:22] This was putting high performing teachers in low performing campuses. So those are some systemic changes. We also did some systemic changes instructionally, putting in regular spot observations and focusing on the quality of instruction and things like that. But even then, those reforms in Dallas, although they had a big impact and changed the trajectory for a whole bunch of kids, and I think the growth and achievement as a result of the reforms I put in place has been documented and researched.

[00:19:54] The most recent one was the National Bureau of Economic Research report that came out a year and a half ago from Steve Rifkin and Haneshek on the Dallas reforms. So even with that, my Dallas experience showed that the other big problem with big urban districts is reform, and that piecemeal incremental reform does not work.

[00:20:18] And the system is designed to keep it from working. Thank you. The incentives, the way the word gets elected, and the way the reform effort struggles, even one piece, with the status quo bias and the other interests against reform, I think that’s what all urban districts do. So most urban districts over the last 20 years have tried piecemeal, incremental reform, and it has not worked on any large scale. So that informs my Houston work, if you want to talk about that.

[00:20:54] Meredith Coolidge: That’s a great lead in to Houston. I, I think your point about piecemeal reforms haven’t worked, that there needs to be sort of an overhaul. I know in spring 2023, so re really recently you were appointed superintendent of the Houston ISD by Commissioner Murath as part of the takeover by the Texas Education Agency.

[00:21:12] So could you talk a little bit about Sure. The educational, administrative, and political circumstances that led to the state of Texas taking over HISD, the eighth largest district in Texas with nearly 185, 000 students.

[00:21:26] Mike Miles: Yeah, so obviously I wasn’t a part of the takeover, you know, the run up to the takeover.

[00:21:32] I was appointed, and I met the board of managers three days before my first day of work in HISD. So, it’s a little bit, you know, It’s different because the state intervened in Houston ISD for a number of problems that the district was experiencing. One was with the elected board at the time. Two, there were lots of problems with special education compliance, both state and federal.

[00:21:59] The district was not following many of the laws or policies in the state and at the federal level. And then the third and most important is that there were a lot of schools that were not doing well academically, despite some of the ups and downs post COVID. So, the state, after passing legislation, after going through the courts for three years, finally took over Houston ISDU, the eighth largest urban district in the country. And I was appointed at that time.

[00:22:31] Meredith Coolidge: That makes a lot of sense. So, obviously we’re talking about these big, bold reforms in urban school districts. You mentioned a couple of different places. I know places like Washington, D.C. under Michelle Rhee and Kaya Henderson, as well as New York City under Joel Klein.

[00:22:46] Similar to You’ve introduced in Dallas and what you plan to introduce, it sounds like, in HISD, there have been big, bold efforts to reform larger urban school districts, so could you just share with us some of, you know, the lessons you’ve drawn from these experiences, especially with the political and bureaucratic barriers you’ve encountered, and how do those lessons inform your current plans for Houston?

[00:23:06] Mike Miles: Props to Washington, D.C. for some of the reforms that have taken place over the decade. And I think New York is a different animal altogether, of course, having over a million students. But most of the other urban districts that have tried reform, on a large basis, and there was an appetite for that. About 12 years ago, I mean, I think that was the reform era.

[00:23:33] There was an appetite in the country with No Child Left Behind, with Race to the Top, with large philanthropists, you know, investing in turning around school districts, especially large urban districts and, you know, struggling campuses. And there were many more effort, and there was a sense that we needed to do bold things and that’s what Race to the Top was about.

[00:23:56] That was what No Child Left Behind was about. But there’s now, in the last several years, some fatigue over that. And now I see a lot fewer efforts to do bold things. Not too many people are talking about anything major. And there’s actually been, over the last several years, going back on accountability.

[00:24:18] We stopped using the A word, accountability. Even in Texas, a lot of us didn’t even want to, you know, have the state results revealed last year. The accountability results, right? I mean, it’s just data, but they apparently didn’t like the data or something, but they didn’t want accountability scores released so the state wasn’t joined from it.

[00:24:40] That’s one more data point for this notion that accountability has dropped as well. So, what I learned was that our profession was moving away from reform. That our profession was moving away from accountability and partly because the large urbans in particular have not been able to close the achievement gap or prepare kids for a year 2035 environment or A world or workplace that’s changing rapidly and going into Houston, I was familiar with this notion of piecemeal incremental reform networking, familiar with accountability having been pushed to the, you know, off the front burner, the notion that we’re not really addressing the achievement gap and the notion that Right now, especially now, we need a fundamentally different solution if we’re going to prepare kids for a different world and workplace.

[00:25:37] The education system is not only failing, but it’s antiquated, meaning we’re still doing the same things we’ve always done, reading, writing, math, science, without really thinking about, okay, what is it that we need 10 years from now? And there seems to be even more resistance to change than there was before, and probably because before there was an appetite, and you can see other people changing and reforming. Or at least trying, and now you don’t. So that’s what we’ve faced here in Houston when I got here.

[00:26:10] Meredith Coolidge: That is very interesting, and sort of to your point about the future of reform, given your extensive experience leading two urban traditional ISDs in Texas, as well as your role as a public charter leader, how do you see the connection between urban education reform and parental choice in schools?

[00:26:27] Specifically, how do these factors influence persistent challenges of chronic underperformance and the growing despair among young people in American cities?

[00:26:37] Mike Miles: Yeah, I tell y’all, y’all ask the right questions, that’s for sure. So, this is another, I think, data point to support the notion that we’re a failing system because I think more and more families and students are looking for a system that works, looking for schools that work.

[00:26:56] I think a lot of. Actually, you know, the growth in charters is not just people wanting a different culture. There are kids who are not getting what they need, there are poorer families, and black and brown kids that are choosing charters also get more and more. And that’s probably evidence of the fact that parent’s kind of know what they want, and kids really want what they want.

[00:27:20] To be prepared for life after high school and parents want their kids to go to good schools, meaning, you know, schools where the kids can learn to read and do math and go to college or have a skill. That’s what they want. And so, there’s been a growth in charter schools, online schools, non-traditional public schools, and that’s a good and bad thing.

[00:27:44] The good news is that more and more people are finding what they need. The bad news is, we still need a strong traditional public education system. People don’t have the resources, or sometimes even the information they need, to go outside the traditional public system, and 80 percent of all kids in America are attending traditional public schools.

[00:28:07] The students who are challenged by poverty or language barriers can’t find enough of these other places or online schools don’t work for them. So, we need strong public education system and so we need to really reform public education system so that we can compete with the non-traditional public schools.

[00:28:30] Meredith Coolidge: That’s excellent. Thank you so much.

[00:28:33] Charlie Chieppo: Thank you so much, Superintendent Miles. That was great. We really appreciate your time and your insight.

[00:28:38] Mike Miles: Well, I appreciate you guys. Thanks for asking me.

[00:28:53] Charlie Chieppo: Well, that was a great interview. Very interesting to hear what’s going on in Houston. Meredith, it was great to have you here. I hope you’ll come back and co-host with us again.

[00:29:02] Meredith Coolidge: Yeah, Charlie, this was so fun. It was so great to hear about all the new and exciting reforms that are happening in Houston and really just enjoyed my time.

[00:29:11] Charlie Chieppo: Well, great. We enjoyed having you. We have a very special Tweet of the Week this week, because it is from NBC Olympics, and the Tweet is, Gabby Thomas reigns supreme, 200-meter Olympic champion. And this is particularly important here at the Learning Curve. Gabby. A, because Gabby Thomas is a Massachusetts native, and B, because she did her undergrad at Harvard, but also because she was not too long ago a guest on this very podcast.

[00:29:41] So we are just thrilled that she is going to come home with Olympic gold, so congratulations to Gabby Thomas. And then of course our podcast next week, the guest will be Starley Coleman, who is the President and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. We hope you’ll tune in then. Thank you.