Rules for thee, but not for me

Houston Chronicle’s Nusaiba Mizan recently uncovered some breaking news tucked away in this week’s Houston ISD Board of Managers agenda: The board intended to seek a waiver of state superintendent certification requirements for Mike Miles for the third time since Miles and the state took over HISD.  

Superintendent certification is important for many of the same reasons educator certification is important. This is neither a cushy vanity position nor an entry-level job. Alongside the now state-appointed board, the HISD superintendent sets the direction for the largest public school district in the state. Their decisions have enormous stakes for the nearly 170,000 Texas students in HISD classrooms. We need an experienced, thoughtful leader with a steady hand at the helm.  

Of course, that’s never been Mike Miles. Since the state appointed him superintendent in 2023, Miles has proven to be a disaster. He has unceremoniously fired educators, in one case terminating the district’s autism services team just days before the first day of school. He has boosted test scores by funneling kids into less rigorous STEM courses. Outside the classroom, Miles kept a lucrative side contract with his charter school network, Third Future Schools, in a direct and deeply unethical violation of state law, only backing down when he started getting bad press. And now he has embroiled HISD in a federal investigation over his plans to consolidate all special education programming onto a single campus, in blatant violation of federal law. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg after three years of the state takeover.  

Certification alone is unlikely to change bad judgement and poor leadership. Still, Miles owes it to HISD students, educators, and our entire community to try.  

What’s worse, Miles just got done firing an unknown number of uncertified educators, building on the 400+ he fired last year. He knew they were uncertified when he hired them, but he did it anyway to cut costs and corners. Now those teachers, many of whom are working toward their credentials, are being let go for lack of sufficient progress toward certification.  

"We want to see certified teachers. I just think that that's the best way to make sure children receive high-quality instruction," said HFT President Jackie Anderson in an interview with the Houston Chronicle. "But it's ironic that the district hired such a large number of uncertified teachers in the beginning, especially if they were not going to support them through the process to become certified." 

Some progress is certainly better than zero progress, which appears to be what Miles has made in his three years at the district. This certification waiver would be the third pursued by the district since Miles was appointed. 

At a recent HISD board meeting, HFT President Jackie Anderson joined HISD educators and parents to demand answers and urge the board to abandon their plans to seek the certification waiver. Thanks to the outpouring of community support, the board pulled the item from consideration and postponed the discussion for June.  

No matter when they bring this back up, we must continue to push back. We can’t rely on TEA to reject a waiver application from the state-appointed board covering for the state-appointed superintendent. Rallying the community and building public pressure on Miles to get certified is the only way to make sure the people leading our largest public school district are actually qualified to do so.