Who knows why he and three others were streeted. But we can speculate.
Adam Rivon, one of the four recently ousted members of the Houston ISD Board of Managers, won’t speculate on why he was suddenly removed from his role this week, though he said “people are intelligent and they can make their own assumptions.”
Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath unexpectedly removed Rivon, along with three other appointees, from their roles on the Board of Managers this week, and replaced them with four new board members. Morath also announced the extension of the state intervention of the district through June 1, 2027.
In an interview with the Chronicle, Rivon said the TEA told him they “wanted to bring in a new team,” but he wasn’t given any specific reasons why they decided to remove him from the appointed board after serving in the role since the state takeover of Texas’ largest school district in June 2023.
“I was a little shocked when I was told. I think that I’d be more than happy to serve four more years or two more years, or whatever number was right, but you have to learn to control what you’re controlling,” Rivon said. “Me being upset about a thing or trying to throw gas or what have you on the situation, I don’t think that helps the students.”
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Rivon, along with the other replaced board members, have almost always approved proposals from state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles’ administration, although they have voted no in a few rare occasions. Rivon said he has no regrets and went to sleep after every board meeting feeling comfortable with every decision, including all of his “no” votes.
“There were times when I was like, ‘OK, I’m gonna be the only no vote on this thing. Should I really vote no, right? It doesn’t really change anything if I vote no,’” Rivon said. “It probably, politically, would have been better if I didn’t vote no, but … I wasn’t seeking political gain through my votes.”
Rivon was one of four board members to vote against the district’s $2.1 billion budget in a narrow 5-4 vote in June 2024 — one of the school board’s first public rebukes of Miles. Rivon said he voted against the budget due to concerns about a growing deficit and feeling like the district was trying to “plug” a budget hole through future property sales.
“It was important to me that what we communicated to the stakeholders, the community and to ourselves, that we maintain the integrity of our word, and I didn’t see that happening,” Rivon said. “I didn’t see effectively that budget achieving the outcomes that we wanted and staying within the bounds that we’ve set for ourselves, so that’s why I voted no.”
Rivon said he had entered into the budget process for the 2025-26 year with the expectation of voting yes on the budget. However, he said Miles’ reform program known as the New Education System is “costly,” and he was concerned about the projected fund balance declines and HISD’s ability to achieve its objectives going forward without more spending discipline.
The planned base funding per student in the 2025-26 year is $8,566 at NES schools compared to $6,133 at non-NES schools, which doesn’t include special education funding. Much of the difference is due to higher salaries for NES teachers and the addition of “learning coaches” and “teacher apprentices” in NES schools, according to the district.
“I don’t know what adjustments they’re going to make (at) this next meeting (or) if they’re going to make any adjustments at all, but based on what was on the page, I was not comfortable with the state of the budget,” Rivon said.
See here for the background. We have understood from the beginning that the Board can’t have oversight over Mike Miles if Mike Miles can get Board members removed by asking Mike Morath to remove them. We don’t know that is what happened here – like with so many other things related to this takeover, there’s zero transparency about the processes involved – but like I said, we can speculate. If Morath and Miles would like for there to be less speculation, they are free to provide more information.
And as long as we’re singing the greatest hits here, we see again that the secret to the success of the NES program is spending a bunch more money on those schools. You get better outcomes with more resources, who could have possibly seen that coming? And hey, while I strongly approve of spending more money on our public schools, that really only works in the long term if the Legislature does its part. Which it most definitely has not done, thanks in large part to Greg Abbott. If one of the legacies Mike Miles leaves is the district’s finances in shambles and a future Board needing to make drastic cuts to stave off financial ruin, that would be bad. Having a Board in place that can ask questions and vote No when it doesn’t get satisfactory answers would help avoid that situation. Too bad that’s not what we have.