Falkenberg says what we all know about Mike Miles

He’s a terrible leader, and as a result the changes he’s implemented will probably not last beyond his tenure.

Something clicked as I listened to former Louisiana state schools superintendent John White talk about how he built support for his controversial education reforms a decade ago.

It wasn’t just that he had taken the time to visit every parish to meet with teachers who were skeptical of the youngish outsider pushing tectonic shifts in rigor, quality and accountability.

It wasn’t how he gathered their input, enlisted them to review curriculum or helped assemble thousands for a state conference that still empowers teachers as leaders and evangelists for high quality in their own communities.

What struck me was how White talked about the teachers.

“You would meet people out there in the middle of Louisiana who, you’re just like, ‘my God, you’re so freaking smart,’ and they literally would tell you exactly what’s needed,” said White, now CEO of a public benefit corporation that makes high-quality curricula.

As he described how he got grassroots buy-in from teachers for reforms that have garnered national attention for maintaining student progress, I felt inspiration – and then a pang of sadness.

I couldn’t imagine Houston ISD’s state-appointed superintendent Mike Miles talking about teachers that way.

And that, I believe after months of reporting, illustrates the key flaw of Miles’ approach in the state takeover of HISD. Anyone can impose mandates, especially with practically a free hand by the state. Only leaders can get others to follow and sustain changes long after the change agent is gone.

For all Miles’ well-intended haste, and his remarkable early results in performance on state tests that reduced the district’s 56 “F” campuses to zero, I wonder if the superintendent has considered how enduring his revolution will be.

All these shifts in curriculum, instruction, teacher evaluations and pay won’t be tectonic in Houston – only temporary, as long as so many teachers and parents don’t actually believe in them.

Given the mass exodus of more than 13,000 students and thousands more teachers over two-and-a-half years, I don’t see much believing or staying power.

It’s a gift link, so read the rest. I’ve been saying this since very early on in Miles’ tenure, as it became painfully obvious that he had no interest in getting buy-in to his ideas or earning the trust of the people he was imposed upon. I’ve pointed to the number of prominent supporters who are now critics, the mass exodus of students, which continues apace this year, and of course the failed 2024 bond referendum. I’m a multi-decade veteran of the corporate world, and I’m here to tell you, you don’t achieve lasting change if the people was are being asked to change don’t believe in it. Way too many people don’t believe in Mike Miles, because he has actively and at every opportunity refused to give them a reason to believe in him. And that is 100% on him.

It’s a gift article, and Falkenberg has a lot of receipts, so read the rest. She recently wrote about his self-ballyhooed yet unvetted curriculum, which is another example of his arrogance and indifference to anyone who isn’t one of his toadies. We will be singing “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” on his last day here, and I hope it makes him mad.

Related Posts:

• Fort Worth ISD loses its appeal
• Fort Worth ISD takes its own lessons from the HISD experience
• What the Fort Worth Chambers of Commerce learned from visiting HISD