Asher Lehrer-Small, Houston Landing

America’s biggest education experiment is happening in Houston

This article first appeared on Houston Landing and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Todo cambió. Everything changed.

That’s how Arturo Monsiváis described life this year for his fifth-grade son, who attends Houston ISD’s Raul Martinez Elementary School. Teachers raced through rapid-fire lessons. Students plugged away at daily quizzes. Administrators banned children from chatting in the hallways.

Sitting in the parent pickup line on the last day of school, Monsiváis said his son often complained that the new assignments were too difficult. But Monsiváis, a construction worker, wouldn’t accept any excuses: Study hard, he advised.

“I tell my son, ‘Look, do you want to be working out here in the sun like me, or do you want to be in an office one day? Think about it,’” Monsiváis said.

The seismic changes seen by Monsiváis’ son and the 180,000-plus students throughout HISD this school year are the result of the most dramatic state takeover of a school district in American history, a grand experiment that could reshape public education across Texas and the nation.

In stunningly swift fashion, HISD’s state-appointed superintendent and school board have redesigned teaching and learning across the district, sought to tie teacher pay more closely to student test scores, boosted some teacher salaries by tens of thousands of dollars and slashed spending on many non-classroom expenses.

Protestors rallied at Houston ISD headquarters against the potential takeover of the district's school board.

(Left photo) Demonstrators rally in front of Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center in opposition to a possible takeover of the HISD's elected board by the TEA. (Houston Landing file photo / Marie D. De Jesús) (Right photo) From left, Jaelauryn Brown, 8, Jaedis Brown, 13, and Jaeson Brown, 4, walk through the front rotunda of Houston ISD's Wheatley High School on June 1, 2023, in Houston's Greater Fifth Ward. (Houston Landing file photo / Antranik Tavitian)

The changes in HISD rival some of the most significant shake-ups to a public school system ever, yet they’ve received minimal national media attention to date.

Still, district leaders, citing private conversations with researchers and superintendents, said education leaders throughout the U.S. are following the HISD efforts to see whether they may be worth replicating. Adding to the intrigue: Texas lawmakers have looked in recent years to policies used by HISD’s new superintendent, former Dallas Independent School District chief Mike Miles, as inspiration for statewide legislation.

“I think people are watching and waiting,” HISD Board Secretary Angela Lemond Flowers said. “We’re stepping out there big, and it’s important because we are a big district and we have lots of students that we need to make sure we’re serving better. Not in the next generation. Not in five years. Like, immediately.”

HISD Superintendent Mike Miles Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles. (Houston Landing file photo / Antranik Tavitian)

Miles, the chief architect of HISD’s new blueprint, has pointed to early successes — including strong improvement in state test scores this year — as evidence that his model works where others have failed. For decades, Black and Latino children in urban school districts like Houston have trailed well behind wealthier and white students in school.

Miles’ critics, however, have blasted his approach as an unproven, unwanted siege on the district orchestrated by Texas Republicans. They cite high teacher turnover headed into the next school year and long-term questions about the affordability of Miles’ plans as indicators the effort may be doomed.

Regardless of whether the HISD intervention becomes a shining success, a historic failure or something in between, it could help answer one of the most pressing questions in education: Can a large, urban public school district dramatically raise student achievement and shrink decades-old performance gaps, ultimately helping to close America’s class divide?

'Back to the future'

The HISD intervention represents “by far the most bizarre state takeover that we’ve ever seen,” said Jonathan Collins, a Columbia University Teachers College associate professor who has worked with another takeover district, Providence Public Schools.

Typically, states take the reins of districts following major academic or financial scandals. HISD, by comparison, has scored at a “B” level in recent years under Texas’ A-through-F rating system and kept its financial house in order.

But in 2019, HISD allowed one campus, Wheatley High School in Greater Fifth Ward, to receive a seventh straight failing grade from the state. Wheatley’s scores triggered a Texas law — authored in 2015 by a Houston-area Democrat fed up with years of poor outcomes at some HISD schools — that gave Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath the right to replace the district’s school board.

Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath. (Houston Landing file photo / Sergio Flores)

After three years of legal battles with HISD trustees, who tried to halt the takeover, Morath emerged victorious. He appointed Miles and nine local residents to run the district in June 2023.

Rather than focusing on the handful of HISD schools with the most flagrant academic underperformance, Miles overhauled a huge swath of the district — 85 out of roughly 270 schools — in his first year.

In doing so, Miles relied heavily on practices pioneered in the 2000s and 2010s by the so-called “education reform” movement, a loose collection of politicians, charter school organizers and district chiefs.

The group argued that instilling a “no-excuses” attitude toward student achievement and partially tying teacher pay to test score growth could dramatically improve American education. Miles implemented a similar playbook during his three-year stint leading Dallas ISD, an approach that helped improve student test scores but contributed to a near-doubling of the district’s teacher turnover rate.

In recent years, the reform movement that inspired Miles’ policies has largely fallen out of favor. The changes haven’t consistently moved the needle on exam results nationwide, while high-stakes testing has become less popular.

What hisd families say

The Houston Landing spoke to about 30 family members of children attending campuses overhauled this year, asking for their thoughts on the changes. Some of their thoughts are featured throughout this story.

Mary Daughtery, grandmother, Hilliard Elementary School

Daughtery’s four grandchildren at Hilliard Elementary spent the year complaining: Classes were harder, school culture was more militant and, at the end of the year, school leaders skipped the campus’ typical end-of-year celebrations to squeeze in more instruction.

“They used to have a graduation march and awards … but they’re not doing it this year,” Daughtery said. “It’s like, pick up and leave.”

One grandchild, Lauren Daughtery, who just finished fourth grade, said she hadn’t made up her mind on the demanding classes — the assignments were tougher not in a good or bad way, but in a “medium way.” Lauren had learned “a little bit” more than usual this year, she said, but her teacher was “too mean,” sometimes raising her voice.

But to Miles, the movement fell short for one main reason: It didn’t go big enough.

So Miles required over 1,000 HISD teachers at over two dozen campuses to reapply for their jobs, ultimately replacing about half of them. He rearranged how educators teach students, requiring them to use an approach that mandates students must participate in class roughly every four minutes. And he rolled out new lesson plans for about a third of the district’s schools that included short, daily quizzes in nearly all subjects.

Thomas Toch, the director of Georgetown University’s FutureEd think tank, said Miles’ approach “feels like sort of a ‘back to the future’ moment.” The HISD overhaul currently represents “the largest effort to implement school improvement at scale,” Toch said.

While major public school reforms aren’t new, the scope and speed of HISD’s overhaul stand out.

Former District of Columbia Public Schools chancellor Michelle Rhee famously fought in the late 2000s to partially tie pay to exam score growth, but she didn’t dictate classroom instruction techniques and school staffing models. New Orleans turned its 45,000-student district into an all-charter school system post-Hurricane Katrina, but fewer children saw big changes than in HISD. Even Miles’ most ambitious reforms in Dallas targeted a fraction of the students as HISD.

“This is an effort, the largest in the country, to turn around a traditional, urban district,” Miles said. “That’s what we’re engaged in.”

A student works on classwork in a team center Aug. 31 at Houston ISD's Sugar Grove Academy in Houston's Sharpstown neighborhood A student works at a team center, Aug. 31, 2023, at Houston ISD's Sugar Grove Academy in Houston. (Houston Landing file photo / Antranik Tavitian)

David Espinoza, at right, looks over his students’ work during an Art of Thinking class Jan. 25 at Houston Math, Science, and Technology Center High School in Houston. (Houston Landing file photo / Antranik Tavitian)

A teacher helps a student in one of the team centers Aug. 31, 2023 at Sugar Grove Academy in Houston. (Houston Landing file photo / Antranik Tavitian)

Wider model?

One year in, Miles’ administration has scored some key victories.

The elementary and middle schools Miles targeted for changes saw, on average, a 7 percentage point increase in the share of students scoring at or above grade level on statewide reading and math tests, commonly known as the STAAR exams. Other HISD schools saw a 1 percentage point increase, while state averages slid in math and remained flat in reading.

“I think you can say pretty clearly that (the transformation model) has been working well,” Miles said when the scores came out.

HISD also has made some progress in meeting legal requirements for serving students with disabilities, an area in which the district has struggled for more than a decade, according to state-appointed conservators monitoring the district.

But other indicators could spell trouble for Miles’ administration in year two and beyond.

As of early June, four weeks before educators’ deadline to resign without penalty, roughly one-quarter of HISD’s 11,000-plus teachers had left their positions ahead of the upcoming school year, district administrators said. Historically, HISD’s teacher turnover rate has hovered around 15 to 20 percent.

The departures follow widespread complaints that, under Miles’ leadership, district administrators micromanage teachers by frequently observing classroom instruction and providing feedback. David Berry, a former journalism teacher at Wisdom High School, recalled a fall meeting where district administrators scolded teachers for using student engagement strategies too infrequently.

“They proceeded to rip us apart,” said Berry, who plans to teach in a neighboring district next year. “I’ve never been talked to like that as a teacher, really, as a grown up.”

The financial viability of Miles’ plans also remains in question. HISD ran a nearly $200 million deficit on a roughly $2.2 billion budget in Miles’ first year, with much of the shortfall tied to dramatic increases in staffing and pay at overhauled schools. The district is budgeting a similar deficit next year, though it plans to use $80 million in unspecified property sales to lessen the blow.

what hisd families say

Maria Colunga, mother, Raul Martinez Elementary School

Colunga’s fourth grade son had always earned As and Bs, but under new lesson plans with daily quizzes and extra work packets, his grades slid to Cs and Ds. The trend spooked Colunga, and she mulled alternatives, such as transferring her son to a different school next year. But the child’s teacher assured the family that he would adjust and get back on track.

“Sure enough, by the second progress report he started bringing up his grades,” Colunga said. “But I would ask him and he would say, ‘It’s hard, it’s fast, the pace is really fast for me.’”

Colunga added: “I’m like, ‘As long as it works and you stay at your grade level that I’m used to seeing you in,’ then I’m happy.’”

Still, if HISD can continue to post strong test scores, history suggests Miles’ model could soon spread beyond Houston.

Texas lawmakers, inspired by Miles’ work, passed legislation in 2019 that allocated money to school districts that adopted teacher evaluation systems like the one he used in Dallas. Texas districts received nearly $140 million in 2022-23 under the law.

They also passed a law that allowed long-struggling campuses to skirt closure by replicating a turnaround plan Miles implemented in Dallas. Participating schools have to provide high levels of feedback on instruction, extend school hours and offer incentives for top-rated teachers and principals.

Miles last fall said his Houston work is “not a test case” for statewide policy. More recently, however, he alluded to the possibility of his model being implemented more widely.

“There's a lot of interest across the country, mostly from people who are educators, of what's happening here,” Miles said in a May interview. “This actually could be a proof point for others if it can be done."

Harvard Graduate School of Education economist Thomas Kane, who has researched students struggling to rebound from the pandemic nationwide, said he believes HISD’s overhaul could interest many district leaders.

“If there have been substantial improvements in student achievement gains simultaneously with improvements in student attendance, I think that will grab a lot of attention nationally and will make people curious about the Houston reforms," Kane said.

Kourtney Revels, at center, the mother of a third-grade student at Houston ISD's Elmore Elementary School, confronts district staff limiting public access to a June 2023 school board meeting at HISD headquarters in northwest Houston. (Houston Landing file photo / Annie Mulligan)
Houston ISD teacher Jonathan Bryant holds a sign showing his disapproval of the district's newly appointed board during a June 2023 public meeting at the HISD headquarters in northwest Houston. (Houston Landing file photo / Annie Mulligan)
Standing on a chair, Rosalie Longoria spoke to the Houston ISD board members during an August 2023 school board meeting in Houston. (Houston Landing file photo / Marie D. De Jesús)
Community members attending Houston ISD's school board meeting stand and hold ‘thumbs down” signage in opposition to Superintendent Mike Miles' plans announced in June 2023 at the district's headquarters in northwest Houston. (Houston Landing file photo / Douglas Sweet Jr.)

Community appetite

Even if HISD produces remarkable gains in the coming years, many elected school boards — which answer directly to local voters, unlike Miles and the state-appointed board — might not stomach upheaval on the level of Houston.

Miles’ policies, coupled with his bulldozer style of leadership, have prompted family protests and student walkouts throughout his first year. Typically, more than 100 community members criticize his administration during school board meetings. In one particularly heated exchange from June, a district administrator repeatedly yelled “scoreboard” at a group of jeering audience members while pointing to a screen displaying student test scores.

Even some families that approached Miles’ arrival with hopefulness have turned against the district’s leadership. Tish Ochoa, the mother of an HISD middle schooler, said she began the school year “cautiously optimistic” but soured on Miles’ plans as she heard reports of stressed-out teachers and changes to high-performing schools.

“I wouldn’t say that I was like, ‘Rah-rah takeover,’ but I was also like, ‘I hope this works.’ I was supportive of the new administration coming in,” Ochoa said. “I don’t feel that way anymore.”

Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles observes a classroom on Aug. 11, 2023, at Sugar Grove Academy in Houston's Sharpstown neighborhood. (Houston Landing file photo / Antranik Tavitian)

Miles has argued that many families quietly back his administration. However, few community members have spoken out in support of his efforts, save for a handful of nonprofits and civic groups largely backed by big-dollar philanthropy or business organizations.

At HISD’s overhauled schools, many parents said they’re open to timers ticking in classroom corners and rapid-fire quizzes — so long as their children aren’t left behind.

“I don’t care about the changes,” McReynolds Middle School mother Christina Balderas said. “The only thing I care about is when my daughter gets home and she tells me, ‘This is what I learned today, mom.’ They can have all the changes in the world that they need.”

what hisd families say

Sheena Washington, mother, Bruce Elementary School

Washington’s son typically looked forward to summer after finishing at the top of his class. But after completing fourth grade this year, he had to attend summer school because his grades slipped in math — a penalty Washington found out about last-minute in a call from the school, she said.

When Washington asked her son about his grades, he said he struggled to finish his classwork on time.

“I was like, ‘But it’s their fault because they timed everything,’” Washington said. “It was chaotic this year as far as the kids getting to learn the new system with the new superintendent.”

In the next few years, Morath likely will begin gradually bringing some of HISD’s elected trustees back onto the school board, as outlined in state law. From there, they will decide which Miles policies to keep or dismantle.

Three of HISD’s nine elected trustees responded to interview requests for this story: Sue Deigaard, Plácido Gómez and Dani Hernandez. They said they want to see multiple years of data on the impact of Miles’ approach before solidifying their impressions.

Most said they would reverse unpopular details of Miles’ plan, such as requiring some children to carry a traffic cone to the bathroom as a hall pass, but they found early evidence of the academic impact promising.

“If I had to make a decision right now of whether to continue (the overhaul model), I would,” said Gómez, who represents parts of eastern and central HISD. “There isn’t enough data to say, ‘This definitely works,’ but there’s enough for me to want to continue on this path.”

Asher Lehrer-Small covers Houston ISD for the Landing and Danya Pérez covers diverse communities. Reach them at asher@houstonlanding.org and danya@houstonlanding.org.

Texas schools illegally suspended thousands of homeless students — and nobody stopped them

This article first appeared on Houston Landing and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Channelview High School senior Danielle Stephen trudged out of the assistant principal’s office, defeated and desperate. In the fall of 2021, an administrator at the east Harris County campus had just suspended Stephen, sending her home for breaking a rule requiring students to carry backpacks made of see-through material.

But Stephen, who had lived on the streets for much of the past three years, didn’t have a home to go to. The 100-liter camouflage hiking backpack that got her kicked off campus held all her possessions. And she would now miss lunch at school, the place she relied on for hot meals.

“That was my way of showering,” Stephen said. “That was my way of eating.”

Stephen was one of thousands of homeless students banned from school despite the passage of a 2019 state law that made it illegal for school administrators to kick Texas’ most vulnerable children off campus for most offenses, a Houston Landing investigation shows.

School employees in hundreds of districts have illegally suspended students over the past five years, according to data obtained from the Texas Education Agency, denying students access to the food, shelter and education often found only on campus.

Texas lawmakers took those concerns into account when they crafted the bipartisan 2019 law, which bans schools from issuing out-of-school suspensions to homeless students, except for when they commit infractions that include violence, weapons, drugs or alcohol. The law passed with over 95 percent support in the Texas Legislature and the backing of Gov. Greg Abbott.

But a Landing analysis of public records and five years’ worth of suspension data found:

The illegal suspensions have continued largely because school leaders have failed to ensure their campus administrators follow the law. Houston ISD, the state’s largest district, has acknowledged breaking the law on hundreds of occasions in its annual reports on school discipline.

Texas legislators did not give the 2019 law teeth, such as punishment for school employees or districts that violate it, or dedicate any money toward enforcement.

Meanwhile, the Texas Education Agency has not taken an active role in enforcing the law, largely arguing it doesn’t have the legal authority to investigate and punish districts. The agency also has held few training sessions that inform school employees about the rules.

A quirk in Texas’ data tracking of homeless students and suspensions makes it impossible to measure the exact number of illegal suspensions and pinpoint which districts are the worst offenders.

When presented with the Landing’s findings, one of the 2019 bill’s co-sponsors, state Rep. Eugene Wu, D-Houston, said the Legislature should make changes to the law when lawmakers return to session next year. Wu said the Legislature “laid out clear direction in the law” but left out enforcement measures, allowing districts to skirt it without consequences.

“If we need to make revisions to the law to force compliance, we will,” Wu said.

TEA spokesperson Jake Kobersky said the agency is “conducting a thorough review” of the suspension data for homeless students in response to issues highlighted by the Landing. The review may prompt further state oversight of districts not in compliance, Kobersky said.

And several Houston-area school districts and charter school networks, including HISD and International Leadership of Texas, committed to improving their compliance with the law and support of homeless students in response to inquiries from the Landing.

Danielle Stephen, 20, found herself homeless during her teenage years. Stephen now serves in organizations supporting homeless youth and is working to get her psychology degree from Houston Christian University. (Marie D. De Jesús / Houston Landing)

A well-intentioned law

Texas lawmakers stressed the need for the 2019 bill, in part, by highlighting the perils faced by the state’s tens of thousands of homeless children, who historically have made up roughly 1.5 percent of all K-12 students.

Children experiencing homelessness drop out of school more frequently than nearly any other student group in Texas, state data shows. Research from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center also found 1 in 3 youth report being solicited into prostitution or human trafficking within 48 hours on the street.

Stephen faced those dangers when she became homeless at the end of eighth grade. That spring, she left an adoptive family that she said abused and neglected her, ultimately drifting between bus stops, parking lots and friends’ couches.

“I’ve stayed with so many people, I can’t count,” Stephen said. “But they started expecting things from me, you know, money, sexual favors. So, I had to leave.”

In high school, Stephen found refuge on campus. It was where she showered in the morning, ate two hot meals and joined after-school clubs like the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps.

(Top left) Danielle Stephen, 20, has a beverage she received May 8 at Montrose Street Reach. Montrose Street Reach is an organization dedicated to transitioning at-risk people off the streets. (Top right) Stephen holds a few dollars before offering the cash to Montrose Street Reach. (Bottom left) Stephen attends a Montrose Street Reach service, which she calls "street church." (Bottom right) Stephen closes her eyes while Mike MacLaughlin prays for her at a Montrose Street Reach service. (Marie D. De Jesús / Houston Landing)

Yet Stephen said Channelview officials suspended her several times, often sending her home in the middle of the school day. (Stephen’s student records show three instances of formal discipline, with no out-of-school suspensions. Channelview officials disputed Stephen’s recollection of her discipline history, though they declined to comment in detail, citing privacy rules.)

The experiences of students like Stephen inspired progressive and conservative groups in 2019 to call for change. The former emphasized that vulnerable youth should keep access to campus resources, while the latter called for limiting harmful government overreach.

“If they're homeless, where are they going?” former state Rep. James White, an East Texas Republican and ex-educator who co-sponsored the bill, said in a late March interview. “We could be making the situation less safe and more dangerous for some folks.”

Prince Hayward, a traditional support specialist at University of Houston’s Charge Up program, at center, says hello to a friend while grabbing lunch with “Spider,” at left, a young adult he is mentoring, on April 26 at Chipotle Mexican Grill in Houston. (Antranik Tavitian / Houston Landing)

Incomplete implementation

For Prince Hayward, a formerly homeless student, the bill’s passage felt like a huge win — at first.

While living in a homeless shelter in the early 2010s, Hayward dropped out of HISD’s Lamar High School following a three-day suspension for fighting. The experience helped him understand the stakes of the new law, which passed while he worked as a policy specialist for the nonprofit Texas Network of Youth Services.

But today, Hayward, now 28, wonders if he celebrated the 2019 law too early, given that many of Texas’ largest school districts continue to issue the outlawed suspensions.

The available TEA data show out-of-school suspensions issued to homeless students for minor offenses now occur at about two-thirds the rate they did before the law — well short of eliminating the practice as lawmakers intended.

“In essence, that’s like, the school district is literally spitting in the law’s face,” Hayward said.

The full extent of Texas’ failure to follow the law isn’t clear, largely because of how the state collects data on homeless students and suspensions.

Texas classifies a student as homeless if they spent any amount of time during the school year without housing. As a result, it’s possible some students were legally suspended at a time when they had housing, yet their suspensions would appear in the data as illegal if they later became homeless. (For this reason, the Landing decided to only publish broad state-level data, which is also an imperfect count of illegal suspensions.)

It’s also possible that district employees suspended students who were not listed as homeless, yet who lacked stable housing. Those suspensions are still illegal, yet they wouldn’t show up in the state data.

“(Young people) who are experiencing homelessness are often hiding in plain sight,” said Felicia Broussard, chief development officer for the Houston-based youth shelter Covenant House. “You wouldn't recognize them as homeless, and that's intentional because they know they're vulnerable.”

Prince Hayward, a traditional support specialist at the University of Houston’s Charge Up program, takes a meeting while getting a haircut by Walter White III on April 18 in Houston. (Antranik Tavitian / Houston Landing)

No excuse

Several local school leaders acknowledged in recent interviews that their districts made insufficient effort to comply with the law.

Some said their districts crammed information about the 2019 law into beginning-of-year training slideshows at the time, with no follow-up. Others didn’t implement technological changes that would flag when staff members tried to illegally suspend a homeless student.

A Houston ISD report from 2024 detailed the district's continued practice of suspending homeless students for discretionary reasons, which are illegal under Texas law.

International Leadership of Texas Superintendent Eddie Conger said there’s “no excuse” for his charter school network continuing to illegally suspend homeless students. Conger said campus leaders were briefly informed that they shouldn’t kick out homeless students for minor offenses, but he guessed that the message got buried in hours-long presentations before the start of the school year.

“There’s not a doubt in my mind that we’ve briefed this,” Conger said. “But for that week of training, it’s a fire-hose effect.”

Conger said he plans to make changes to the district’s internal data systems, so that administrators’ computers produce error messages when they try to log illegal suspensions of homeless students.

Aldine Independent School District made a technical change similar to the one Conger suggested after the law went into effect, Assistant Superintendent of Student Support Diaka Melendez said. The state data suggests the change helped — but didn’t eliminate — Aldine’s use of illegal suspensions.

“We have multiple safeguards in place,” Melendez said. “We’re very diligent about making sure that we do not do that level of suspension.”

No state sanctions

Minimal state oversight and scant guidance from the Texas education officials has played a part in the continued use of illegal suspensions, according to records obtained by the Landing and interviews with district and political leaders.

Despite the repeated violations, the TEA has not sanctioned any districts that broke the rules, according to the agency.

Kobersky, the TEA spokesperson, said the new law didn’t give agency staff the legal right to collect the precise data needed to prove districts were illegally suspending homeless students. Kobersky added that the agency can launch an investigation into misconduct allegations, but only in response to complaints from the public.

The law related to school district investigations doesn’t list excessive or illegal suspensions as a reason for TEA to launch a probe, but it does give the state’s education commissioner — who leads the TEA — broad power to start an investigation when they determine “necessary.”

TEA staff also have largely left training on the law to regional and district administrators. Since 2019, the TEA has held only two training sessions that inform K-12 staff of the law’s provisions, with a more than three-year gap between the bill’s passage and the first session held by the state.

Kobersky said he would “push back” on the idea that the TEA has provided inadequate education around the law’s provisions. Schools’ homeless liaisons have access to “robust” training from the state, but the agency does not have the legal authority to require K-12 staff to participate in the sessions, he said. Regional officials have also held separate training opportunities for districts’ homeless liaisons, Kobersky said.

The Landing requested a list of district staff who participated in TEA-held trainings, but the agency said it did not take attendance.

(Top left) Brandon Williams looks at a positive affirmation card during a Youth Voices Empowered event at Montrose Grace Place on May 1 in Houston. Williams was suspended multiple times from Houston ISD's Yates High School while he was homeless. (Top right) Williams plays a group game during a Youth Voices Empowered gathering. (Bottom left) Kenny Easley leads a discussion during a Youth Voices Empowered event. (Bottom right) Alicia Bain, at left, and Williams hug and laugh during a Youth Voices Empowered gathering. (Antranik Tavitian / Houston Landing)

‘It’s just words’

The lack of emphasis on training and rollout puzzles Courtney Sellers, who works with dozens of homeless youth as executive director of Houston’s Montrose Grace Place.

“Once you pass a law, you have to implement it. You should definitely go in and make sure it’s happening,” Sellers said. “Otherwise, it’s just words.”

Even districts that were mindful of the law at times struggled to follow it, administrators’ emails with the TEA reveal.

For example, Bastrop Independent School District Director of Student Services Laura Baker emailed TEA officials in 2019, asking for advice on how to stop administrators in her Austin-area district from continuing to issue illegal suspensions.

“If I find out in a timely manner, I contact the administrator and have them attempt to get the student back on campus,” Baker wrote. “Is there anything else we should be doing, other than providing ongoing training, as a district?

TEA Student Discipline Specialist Mary Scott responded by suggesting Baker refer administrators who issue the illegal suspensions to her, “not as a reprimand but as a resource to come up with a solution for this problem.” Scott did not suggest structural changes to the districts’ internal discipline tracking systems.

Looking ahead

Children’s advocates hope that with renewed scrutiny and support, school districts can do more to protect the homeless students they serve.

Brett Merfish, who pushed for the 2019 bill as director of youth justice for the Austin-based nonprofit Texas Appleseed, said she believes the pandemic overwhelmed districts and distracted from the rollout of the suspension law.

Merfish also said school leaders need more guidance on how to respond to homeless students who act out in class, she said. Finding ways to keep disruptive students in school — rather than kicking them off campus — can be challenging and expensive for districts.

“My gut isn’t that people don’t want to do this,” Merfish said of following the 2019 law. “I just think they probably don’t know what else to do, sometimes.”

Hayward, the former Texas Network of Youth Services policy specialist, argued it’s time for state leaders to revisit the 2019 law. Educators should attend mandatory training sessions on its provisions and the state should punish districts that don’t comply, he said. Hayward also said schools need more staff to help homeless students process the traumas they experience on the streets.

“I feel like you need some type of accountability,” Hayward said. “Whatever that looks like, something needs to happen behind it.”

Asher Lehrer-Small covers education for the Landing and would love to hear your tips, questions and story ideas about Houston ISD. Reach him at asher@houstonlanding.org.

In Houston, public school teachers are quitting in droves

Thousands of Houston ISD students have lost a teacher already this school year as the district experiences a spike in educator resignations.

About twice as many teachers left HISD in the first six weeks of school this year than has been typical in recent years, according to data obtained by the Houston Landing through a public records request.

The records show 170 teachers resigned during the first six weeks this school year, while an average of 84 left during the same time span from 2019 to 2022. As Texas’ largest district, HISD employs roughly 13,000 teachers, meaning the early-year resignations account for about 1 percent of HISD’s classroom instructors.

The new data confirm the number of teachers who have resigned so far this year is a stark outlier from recent precedent. A late October analysis from the Houston Chronicle suggested a similar jump, but only compared this year’s figures to one previous year of resignation data.

Including all staff, 559 employees resigned from HISD in the first six weeks of school this year, compared to an average of 346 during the same period from 2019 to 2022.

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The numbers come as HISD begins its third month of classes under Superintendent Mike Miles, who was installed in early June by Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath amid sanctions against the district. For months, teachers unions and some outspoken educators have characterized the new environment in HISD as toxic, but until the resignation numbers came into focus, few concrete data points existed to back up those claims.

Of the 170 voluntary teacher departures, 93 came from schools Miles is overhauling this year under his “New Education System.”

In a written statement, HISD did not address a question over whether the resignations might signal higher levels of teacher frustration this year.

“HISD has adopted a culture of high expectations and accountability,” spokesperson Jose Irizarry said. “All across the district, there are teachers, principals, and other staff who know this is true and understand the urgency.”

Though the departures represent just a small share of educators in the district, they still could be an indicator of increased discontent among the ranks of HISD’s teachers and staff. Mid-year resignation is one of the most extreme actions a staff member can take, and teachers who do so can be barred from teaching in a Texas public school district for a year. HISD declined to specify whether it will pursue penalties against teachers who do so.

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Nathaly Reyna is among the 559 staff who have fled HISD this school year. Despite not being certified as a teacher and being hired to serve as a teacher apprentice at Gallegos Elementary, one of 85 campuses being overhauled this year, Reyna was told on the first day of classes that they would temporarily fill in as lead teacher due to a vacancy.

In the four weeks the assignment lasted, the teacher watched as students with learning disabilities and students who were not proficient in English — the very students Reyna had gone into education with the intention of helping — fell behind due to the fast-paced nature of the lessons. School administrators forbade Reyna from slowing down to make sure all students understood the lesson. So, the educator made the difficult choice to leave the school.

“It was heartbreaking seeing them struggle though and just not be able to help them,” Reyna said. “(School administrators) kept describing this sense of urgency, right? And it just doesn't feel like it's for the students.”

Sakis Brown is another educator who submitted his resignation papers after the year began. After a more than two decade-long career at Westside High School, which included more than a dozen coach of the year awards for his role leading the soccer team, a series of policies from the Miles administration frustrated him. The veteran physical education teacher and coach now serves as a part-time organizer for the Houston Federation of Teachers, the district’s largest employee union.

Former HISD teacher and soccer coach Sakis Brown poses in front of some his teaching and coaching awards, Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023, in Richmond. (Douglas Sweet Jr. for Houston Landing)

“Teaching is supposed to be very rewarding. It's supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be creative,” Brown said. “(Miles) has taken every joy of being a teacher. … For my sanity, and to be the type of parent and husband and father that I need to be my family, I decided to walk away.”

Jackie Anderson, president of the HFT, said teachers in her union now fear retribution if they express concerns with Miles’ vision for the district and are considering seeking employment elsewhere.

“His leadership style is turning people off and turning people away,” Anderson said.

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Long considered a polarizing leader, Miles has a history of angering educators. Before becoming HISD superintendent, he served as superintendent of Dallas Independent School District from 2012 to 2015, and his reforms prompted many teachers to leave.

Over his time at the helm of Dallas ISD, the rate of teacher turnover nearly doubled, jumping from 12 percent in 2011-12, the school year before he assumed his role, to 21 percent in 2014-15, the year he left, according to state data. The statewide average rate of educator churn in that span hovered around 16 percent.

Meanwhile, the results of a survey posted on a prominent HISD Facebook page suggest many teachers still in the district may already have one foot out the door. About half of the roughly 860 respondents who self-identified as HISD teachers said they are planning to leave at the end of the school year or earlier. Another third said they are unsure, while only 14 percent said they plan to stay in the district next year.

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Though there is no way to vet the validity of the survey, which was administered anonymously, Tracy Lisewsky, an HISD parent who created the form and runs the Facebook page, said the demographic information input by respondents closely matched the actual makeup of the district. She believes the results may be an indication of further workforce issues to come for HISD, even if just a fraction of those who say they’re planning to leave actually follow through.

“Do I think that the number (of teachers who quit at the end of the year) is gonna be 50 percent? I have no idea. But do I think it'll be somewhere between 25 and 50 percent? Yes,” Lisewsky said.

Anderson argued the superintendent should spend more time listening to the concerns of educators. In July, Miles scaled back the number of required meetings with union leaders and has been criticized for moving forward with his agenda despite negative feedback from those who work in the classroom.

“If you want a successful district, you’re going to have to work with the people that work in the district,” Anderson said.

Asher Lehrer-Small covers education for the Landing and would love to hear your tips, questions and story ideas about Houston ISD. Reach him at asher@houstonlanding.org.

This article first appeared on Houston Landing and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.