Mike Miles: His Regrets, Successes, and Goals for HISD

Hey everyone, we're almost one month into the historic HISD school year that has seen a lot of changes from T.E.A. appointed Superintendent Mike Miles. So what's working and what is it? Well Superintendent Miles joins me to discuss the first month of classes, the backlash he's received, and things he could have done differently since taking over. It's Monday, September 25th, 2023. I'm Rahul Rumsonli, and here's what Houston's talking about. Superintendent Miles, welcome in to CityCast Houston. How are you? I'm doing great. Hey, so let's start with this one. We're about a month in now, and there have been so many changes. How's everything going so far? You know, there have been a lot of changes, but I think things are going well considering that we move pretty quickly, but that was important for us to do. And so I've been in dozens of schools at this point, and people are using the new instructional model, teachers are teaching well, and kids are learning. So I think that's the measure whether we're doing well or not. That's not to say there aren't challenges, and people have to continuously improve. But we're off to a good start, that's the best way to phrase it. Yeah, about a month in gives you a good chance to look at what has worked and what hasn't worked. So what has worked so far? So we started this school year with 85 schools using a new education system model. That's different in many ways, especially instructionally, highly differentiated instruction, high student engagement, different staff model, different curriculum. And so that's a lot for any system to absorb, especially with 85 schools. And so I see that people are using the model. They understand how to use the model, and now it's just a matter of getting good practice at using it. Is there something that hasn't worked with the model that has worked before for you at previous stops? It's nothing that hasn't worked, it's a matter of improvement though. So if you were to look at, for example, the network I came from, third future schools, which is using a similar model, whole scale system reform, new education system, their way ahead. They've been using differentiated instruction for a while now. They've been doing multiple response strategies as well. They understand how to use teacher apprentice as well and learning coaches. They've been using team centers. So it's not that those things here in Houston are not working. It's just that we're not as practiced as the other system. And we'll get better. Yeah. How do you measure success at those 85 schools? In the end of the day, success is measured by the outcomes we need to see. So we need to see in the end that kids can read better and do math better and are better prepared for the year 2035. So there are some very specific metrics that we have to look at. No, we can't turn around the whole system, even 85 schools overnight. These are schools. Our schools have been many of them have been underperforming for decades. Now, don't get me wrong. We also have some pretty good schools in Houston, the whole gamut. And we have many schools that can compete with any school nationally. But we also have a whole bunch of schools that are underperforming and have been underperforming. So those schools are mostly the NES schools are some of the more struggling campuses. And we have to improve their proficiency overall and close the achievement gap. We won't do that overnight, but we will have a good start on it this year. Now from the TEA perspective, how are they measuring success for what you're doing over the next two years at minimum? They will look at outcomes also. We have a pretty specific charge from TEA, the charge for academics is to not have any schools with multiple years of D or F status. So they're going to be looking closely at whether we move the needle on DNF status schools. When the accountability ratings come out in a month, we'll probably see that we have probably over 50 DNF campuses. So they're going to look closely at those campuses first. They're going to look at our STAR data. And then they're going to also look at how well we serve our special needs students. That's another charge from TEA. Absolutely. With all the changes, they have been met with some pushback from teachers and parents. Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently? Some of it we tried to make sense for people. We would definitely do more of that at the same time. Some of this is not, is unavoidable, right? Teachers were gone during the summer and we communicated some things, but most we're not paying that much attention over the summer and then when they got back in August, that's when we did a lot of training and sense making. But that is a short window, no question. We had a choice. We could have waited a year, right? Coming in in June is not ideal. And back in the spring, when it looked like there might be an opportunity to come in early, that would have been more ideal. But we had to get a board of managers in place, so we didn't come in until June. So I had a choice at that point to wait a year and do a listening tour like everybody else does and do town hall meetings and focus groups and draft a strategic plan to put out in the spring and then start reform a year later. That is unacceptable to me and probably most people because we're behind today and our kids don't have a year to wait. You know, it seems like everybody in your administration, you specifically, you are focused on one thing, improving the education system so the kids can get better. So the kids are better at the end of the day and you have to make tough choices, like you just said, like we had to start it now. We're not waiting a year. Were you surprised with all the backlash that you received because of these choices that you made and your teammate? No, totally understandable, faced it in Dallas. You know, I know when you make changes, any change, any significant change, there's going to be some backlash. I also think we live in a world where things are even more divisive, things are more negative, social media in particular. I think that's just the nature of the beast for any change, whether it's good or bad. And you have a subset of people who, you know, will yell and scream that the sky is falling and you just have to stay the course and show that, well, the sky actually didn't fall. In Dallas, I'm sure the rice marching band didn't take shots at you, right? Like that's, that was an interesting one. Yeah, you know, I wish, again, a lot of this is understandable and I think people think those sorts of things don't do much harm. But the misinformation in our society as a whole and then what we're trying to do and specifically is really not good for the culture, the culture of the school system, but also the culture of our times. You know, let's get information first. You're at a university. How about, you know, finding out what's actually going on before doing a marching band program? There were a lot of emotional headlines at times. Is there one that you wish that was reported correctly and the misinformation was not out there that hurt the messaging or just how you were implementing with NES? Well, that's a good question. I don't, I don't know if there's one and I get that and there is nuance to a lot of things that that have to happen in education. And so I understand why people pick up on this or that and then it's not intentionally trying to misinform, but they don't understand perhaps the nuance, right? So take, for example, the team centers. If you were to go to schools today and I encourage everybody to do that, you'll see that the team centers are where kids go when they are proficient or accelerated in English and math during the second half of class. That's part of the differentiated strategy. So if you go there, you'll see kids working on accelerated lessons or differentiated lessons. They're working intently right now by themselves, but in the future, there'll be team centers that have where you can work with a partner. And it's a place of work. And everyone, I have, I still have yet to see a kid and I've been, I've been in 15 schools, yet to see a kid in there that's been put into a timeout, zooming back into his classroom. So you need to come see it and that's the nuance, right? The headlines, the headlines are hard to beat, right? But the actual practice when you go into it, you'll see. And that's my advice to everybody. Learn more, come into the schools. I've been in 15. I'll be in three more on Friday and next week and another five. And that's how I find out about what's going on because I see with my own eyes. And we also have other, our other leaders, division superintendents, executive directors going into schools all the time. That's the job. So we have a good feel for what's going on in the schools. I'm glad you brought up special education. We recently did an episode on it as well. And I know you've implemented steps already to improve special education with getting more pay for special education teachers, providing more staff for them, which is so important. What is the two-year goal to improve the special education department at HISD? Yeah, there's two parts. One is we have to meet state and federal compliance. That means we have to ensure that kids who need services get identified. And then we have an IEP and individual education plan in place sooner rather than later. It should not take months to get an IEP in place once you've identified a student. So that's part of what we have to do. The other part is we just have to improve the outcomes for special needs students. In other words, we have to give them really good reading instruction. We have to give them really good math instruction. We cannot sell them short on the quality of the instruction that they're receiving. And so we have to improve the quality of instruction and our ability to provide high quality instruction materials to special needs students just like all other kids. So we have to raise their achievement, close their achievement gap as part of the transformation. What has the feedback been like a month in from the parents of those students who are in the special ed program? I think there's overall I think parents are happy because their kids come home and tell them, you know, what they experience. I still think we have some issues in special education. I, you know, it's again, we're we're not going to turn things around in a year and much less a month. And but we're we need to show that we're making gains. So everything's not going to be, you know, fine or transformed yet, but we'll make progress every every month. Super 10 miles. Let's talk about the budget. That was a big story this weekend. There's a $250 million deficit. Now, I know there's a lot of reasons for it. Mainly that teacher salaries are going up. So does this mean the overall budget for HISD moving forward will look different? So the way you have to look at budget is you have to establish a bottom line. And so what what is the bottom line and the bottom line for schools is often what the fun balance is. You know, what do you have left in the bank? And the the question for HISD, the first question is what's what's prudent? What's prudent is keeping your triple A bond rating and also having at least 90 days operating revenue. So operating revenue 90 days, probably 500 million is enough to keep your triple A bond rating. 600 million is probably enough. And we want to cushion because we don't want to even get close to that. So probably somewhere around 850 million is a good target for a district to size with a $2.2 billion general operating revenue not counting the almost a billion dollars in other funds. So that's that's the goal. 850. So I'm not looking at like it's 250 budget deficit this year and then next year if it's 250, it'll be that. I'm looking at we should have no lower than an $850 million fun balance going in the future, even this year. So that's the target and we'll live within our means. Gotcha. That makes a lot more sense. Thank you for explaining that. All right. I want to ask you about one of the most vocal critics, Jackie Anderson, the president of the Houston Federation of Teachers. Now, there was a lawsuit regarding the evaluation system that you want to use, but that has been withdrawn. Have you been able to speak to Jackie since then or even before the lawsuit? Yeah, I had a, well, I had to talk with various representatives of the Union. I don't think Jackie Anderson was at that one. I think her deputy was or number two, about two weeks ago, three weeks ago. So yeah, I have talked to them, but not specifically Jackie, right? And the reason I'm asking is it seems like there are a lot of people out there who are stakeholders who are critical of the changes, but are we having actual conversations to learn your side? You learn their side, anything like that. And that's the question is, are those conversations happening? So there are some conversations happening, but let me put, let me frame that for you. I'm talking to a whole bunch of people, a whole bunch of stakeholders. I've had community meetings, I've talked to principals, I've talked to teachers, I've talked to funders, I've talked to business people, I'm talking to you. I've been on the radio. I've been, you know, I've had more media availability than I think anybody and so forth and so on. So I'm talking to a lot of people, I'm getting a lot of input all the time. And that's what's important. And I will talk to anybody who wants to do good things for kids, but we got to have an understanding that we're going to put kids first. And that's not always the, the unions agenda. And I understand their agenda. I support teachers. And sometimes, you know, we, we have to just focus on teachers like when we talk about salaries, but, but even then, it should be a kids first context. So if, if you're not going to put kids first, or if you're going to misinformed people about what we're doing, that doesn't seem like a good action. And so you know what, I'm going to do what I need to do. And I'll talk to the people who are going to have a kids first mentality and also not be bad actors. If you want to be a bad actor, I don't have time for that. All right, before we let you go, what message do you have for parents and teachers who aren't confident in the changes? I'd say go to your school, see what's going on with the changes. If you have a feedback, bring them to your principal, and we'll try to change or we'll try to improve what we're doing. That will support kids. Superintendent Miles, thank you so much for all of your answers and answering everything. So candidly, we appreciate it. That's the luck the rest of the school year. Thank you. I'll talk to you later. That was HISD Superintendent Mike Miles. You can keep up with the latest on HISD with the link in our show notes. So how's the school year going for your child or a student you know at HISD? Let us know with the contact information in our show notes. That will do it for today. Thank you for listening, and I hope you learned something new.