Houston ISD superintendent scandal: ‘Students Against Mike Miles’ plan walkout as Texas Education Agency launches investigation

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Calls for Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles’ resignation are growing louder amid scathing allegations.

The latest controversy surrounds a Spectrum News report that accuses Miles of funneling money to charter schools out of state. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) is pledging to investigate.

TEA Commissioner Mike Morath appointed Miles to his current position.

Miles said he welcomes the investigation and hopes it results in clarity for the HISD community.

“Right now, at this moment, I am so excited that people are waking up in Houston,” Jessica Campos, an HISD parent, said.

Campos added that the alarms are sounding everywhere to warn the community of trouble in the district.

One of her children attends Pugh Elementary and the other DeBakey High School.

“Moms are mad. We are done. We are finally out there screaming and saying, ‘We are done with this. This guy has got to go,'” Campos said.

The calls for Miles to be shown the door came just a year after he walked through it.

A variety of issues have led to the upheaval.

The Spectrum News report alleges Miles sent Texas public school tax dollars out of state to his network of charter schools in Colorado.

Miles forcefully denied the allegations on Wednesday, calling the report irresponsibly inaccurate.

The TEA said it would investigate the claims but also seemed to defend Miles in a lengthy statement.

“The limited information included in the news story does not in of itself constitute evidence of a misappropriation of funds,” Morath wrote. You can see the full statement at the end of this story.

However, parents and students ABC13 talked to on Wednesday said they are more worried about budget cuts, layoffs, and school restructuring.

“There’s been a complete overhaul of the way teachers are allowed to teach, it is completely ineffective to my mind. They are being forced to use specific strategies that don’t actually help with learning,” Helen Repass, who attends an HISD school in Midtown, said.

Repass is one of dozens of students planning to walk out of their schools on Friday as part of the “Students Against Mike Miles” movement.

“I am proud of our kids because our kids are starting to voice their opinions about what the adults are doing for their future because we are ruining their future,” Campos said.

TEA’s full statement to ABC13:

“Under state law, TEA receives complaints about allegations of violations of law among public schools operating in the state of Texas. You have asked for an investigation based on a news report about Third Future Schools and Mike Miles. However, the news report left out some significant context. I’m writing this letter to acknowledge receipt of your request to review the matter and to note that I have referred the complaint to our complaints team, although as noted below this complaint will involve a review of Midland ISD, Ector County ISD, and Austin ISD.

Third Future Schools is a non-profit 501(c)(3) based in Colorado with an affiliated non-profit 501(c)3 based in Texas, and has a non-profit mission focused on serving low-income students. It is not a charter school operating under Texas Education Code Chapter 12, Subchapter D, approved by the state of Texas, and so does not receive state funds. Instead, Third Future Schools operates schools in Texas with authority granted by performance contracts signed with Texas independent school districts.

The news story referred to three schools. Third Future Schools has run three campuses under performance contracts with Midland ISD, Ector County ISD, and Austin ISD. In all three cases, the districts engaged Third Future Schools to turn around chronically low-performing (i.e., F rated) campuses in those districts. All schools performed at the equivalent of a B within the first rating year of operation by Third Future Schools on behalf of those districts, indicating the non-profit organization has been successfully executing its core obligation for those districts and positively impacting their students.

School districts have autonomy to engage with vendors to provide educational services. As a vendor of the school district, Third Future Schools would have latitude afforded under its contract with each district to spend its funds in service of the contract. Information in the news story discusses administrative expenditures made by Third Future Schools in support of the academic turnaround of the three campuses it was operating for those districts, but no information was provided in the story related to Texas school system fund balance transfers out of state. The limited information included in the news story does not in of itself constitute evidence of a misappropriation of funds in Austin ISD, Midland ISD, or Ector County ISD nor a contracting violation by any of those districts. However, as noted above, we are referring your letter to our complaints team to review the allegation against those districts.”

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