“When state leaders took over Houston Independent School District, they wanted a superintendent who could withstand criticism”
Superintendent Mike Miles was appointed by the Texas Education Agency to cure the long-ailing Houston Independent School District. He is arguably the most influential and certainly the most controversial educator in the nation’s second-largest state. He’s 67, and he roams the maze of desks with the agility of an athlete, peering over the shoulders of 25 or so of the more than 180,000 students in the state’s largest school district. They are enrolled at 1 of the 85 schools that adopted his custom cocktail of education reforms last year; 45 more will join this academic year.
The buzzer goes off. The teacher presses the reset button and claps her hands. After the timed segment, she picks one of a handful of Miles-approved strategies to engage her students. The teacher opts for T&T (Turn and Talk); others include Whip Around (the entire class stands and the instructor asks every student a question) and Oral Choral (students call out responses to questions in unison). The children stand up, turn toward their neighbors, and discuss a short passage from the lesson.
The teacher circles the desks and listens to her students. At the end of the class, she will keep some of the children in the classroom for additional instruction, while sending others to the “team center”—what students would have called the library just a year ago—to complete a more challenging assignment to reinforce their mastery of the material covered. But for now, the teacher clicks a remote, and a new passage displays on the whiteboard. The students settle into their chairs, and their eyes turn to the screen. The timer again begins its countdown: 3:59, 3:58, 3:57. . .
Miles and his entourage, which includes the principal and a district supervisor, file out of the classroom and regroup in the quiet hallway. He asks principal Eileen Puente what she thought of the class. The superintendent’s voice is soft, his manner relaxed. But Puente, a woman with a warm smile who’s led the school for five years, stands at attention. She knows it’s now her turn to be evaluated. She answers that student engagement seemed high, but that she is worried the teacher’s pace was too slow because the lesson reviewed material that had already been covered. Miles agrees, checking the silver dial on his black Movado watch. Then he is off to observe another classroom.
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Houston spends about $2,600,000,000 for 180,000 students – about $14,444.44 per student. Far, far less than Madison’s 22 to 29k/student – depending on the figures supplied……
