State-appointed Houston Independent School District Superintendent Mike Miles responded to recent criticism from several Democratic state lawmakers by sending a letter telling them to “lead, follow, or get out of the way.”
The letter calls for lawmakers to “put aside the politics of grievance and divisiveness” and join him in celebrating the district’s “miraculous” results on the Texas Education Agency’s unofficial 2024 accountability results, where 55 schools jumped from a D or F rating in unofficial 2023 ratings to an A or B this year.
“Let’s end the distracting public fighting and work together,” Miles wrote in the letter published by the Quorum Report. “HISD will not stop fighting for our students. We will not stop working to change the parts of a broken system that hold too many students back. We will not stop putting our students first.”
HISD did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the undated letter.
The letter was addressed to the same nine legislators who publicly shared a letter Monday asking Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to investigate Third Future Schools, the Colorado-based charter school network Miles founded. Spectrum News reported in May that the network moved money from Texas public schools to Colorado campuses while Miles led the organization as CEO.
Lawmakers wrote that they had “deep concern regarding the financial mismanagement and lack of transparency” associated with Miles. Their letter called for an audit of Third Future Schools Texas, an investigation into potential conflicts of interest and a closer monitoring of the organization’s governance practices to ensure the highest standards of accountability and transparency.
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Miles told lawmakers he hoped they could work together to give HISD students “an example of what real leadership looks like.” He said that while they may have disagreements about some of the changes he has made in HISD, the district was changing students’ lives and futures and bringing hope back.
“I am not a politician, and I am not running for election, but I know about leadership,” Miles said. “I suspect we all strive to be leaders who bring people to their best hopes rather than play on their worst fears. We want to be leaders that get things done. I know as leaders we must fight the fights that need fighting, not just those we know we can win.”
See here for the background. I could write on and on about how thin-skinned this guy is and all, but I’ll spare us both the grief. Suffice it to say that he’s the guy in charge, he can damn well take the heat. The day may come when we’ll all owe Mike Miles an apology for his wisdom and leadership and whatever else, but today is not that day and tomorrow isn’t looking good, either. Whatever eventually happens with the test scores and accountability ratings, I will never stop having things to say about how Miles went about doing what he did and what he could and should have done better. And neither should you or anyone else.