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Houston, We're Solving a Problem · Mom Wars

0:01
Speaker 1: From the front lines of the mom Wars. Here's Bethany
0:04
Speaker 1: Mandel and Kara Kennedy.
0:07
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to another episode of your favorite podcast
0:11
Speaker 2: that's becoming more reliable. I will say I am not
0:15
Speaker 2: joined by my beautiful co host, Kara, she's dealing with
0:19
Speaker 2: sleep regression, no fun. But I am joined by a
0:23
Speaker 2: wonderful man who I'm having dinner with later. I think
0:27
Speaker 2: he is the superintendent of Houston Independent School District and
0:31
Speaker 2: his name is Mike Miles. I In the show notes,
0:34
Speaker 2: I will put a piece that I wrote about the
0:37
Speaker 2: work that he's doing in Houston. I wrote it for
0:39
Speaker 2: the New York Post. I think it was like three
0:41
Speaker 2: weeks ago. But I have my sort of finger on
0:45
Speaker 2: the pulse of what's actually working across the country, and
0:50
Speaker 2: it seems that what you're doing over there in Houston
0:53
Speaker 2: is actually working. So I wanted to have you on
0:56
Speaker 2: to sort of talk about the situation that we're seeing
0:59
Speaker 2: in public school districts across the country, especially in urban ones.
1:03
Speaker 2: I'm hearing a lot of fatalism when people talk about
1:05
Speaker 2: what's happening in New York City, which was the topic
1:08
Speaker 2: of my column, because people are kind of throwing up
1:10
Speaker 2: their arms and saying, well, what can be done? How
1:12
Speaker 2: could we possibly and you over there in Houston really
1:16
Speaker 2: hold my beer, let me show you how it's done.
1:20
Speaker 2: So I wanted to sort of chat with you about,
1:23
Speaker 2: you know, how your appointment came to be, and what
1:26
Speaker 2: your mandate is in Houston and what you're accomplishing over there.
1:30
Speaker 2: So any of those questions if you want to jump
1:33
Speaker 2: in and just sort of give my listeners some background
1:35
Speaker 2: into what you're doing.
1:37
Speaker 3: Sure, the story of Houston is very similar to every
1:41
Speaker 3: large urban district. And over the last two decades there's
1:47
Speaker 3: some people say a learning recession, and we as a
1:51
Speaker 3: profession have not done well. We haven't narrowed achievement gaps,
1:56
Speaker 3: we haven't raised a level of proficient proficiency signific significantly,
2:02
Speaker 3: especially for African American and Hispanic students. And so there
2:07
Speaker 3: is a lot of throwing up your arms and saying,
2:10
Speaker 3: you know, what can be done. It doesn't seem to work,
2:13
Speaker 3: and so I want to pause.
2:16
Speaker 2: I want to push this real quick. What is your background, like,
2:19
Speaker 2: how do you compare to the average superintendent of an independent,
2:23
Speaker 2: you know, urban district around the country. What makes you unique?
2:28
Speaker 3: So I am a non traditional superintendent in the sense
2:31
Speaker 3: that I started as an army officer. That was my
2:35
Speaker 3: first career. I graduated from West Point, went to the army,
2:41
Speaker 3: was a company commander, army ranger, and then left there,
2:47
Speaker 3: went back to get more education at Berkeley and then Columbia,
2:52
Speaker 3: and then joined the State Department, and I was a
2:55
Speaker 3: diplomat to Poland and Russia back in the day. And
3:01
Speaker 3: then I left there and then became a teacher, principal,
3:05
Speaker 3: superintendent and been in the education profession the longest now
3:10
Speaker 3: and a superintendent or a CEO of a network charter
3:12
Speaker 3: network for the last twenty years.
3:16
Speaker 2: That's okay, So I feel like I'm starting to get
3:19
Speaker 2: whispers of why you might be an interesting, tough cookie
3:23
Speaker 2: with your military background. Do you feel like that translates.
3:27
Speaker 3: I think when it comes to organizational effectiveness, having been
3:33
Speaker 3: in the military, having been at the State Department does
3:36
Speaker 3: apply to the field of education because it's a it's
3:40
Speaker 3: a complex organization to have twenty four thousand employees and
3:44
Speaker 3: one hundred and seventy thousand students, ten thousand, five hundred teachers,
3:47
Speaker 3: and so yeah, you need to have some experience on
3:52
Speaker 3: how good organizations work. I think I borrow a lot
3:55
Speaker 3: from the military and the State Department, and all three
4:00
Speaker 3: professions need leadership, and leadership is that there are some
4:05
Speaker 3: real strong commonalities between leadership and the military, State Department,
4:09
Speaker 3: and an education.
4:12
Speaker 2: So okay, So I interrupted you when you were talking
4:14
Speaker 2: about sort of people are throwing up their hands in
4:18
Speaker 2: large urban districts, and you were talking about especially with
4:22
Speaker 2: Hispanic and African American students, and I was thinking about
4:26
Speaker 2: your geography down there in Texas, and you probably have
4:31
Speaker 2: even bigger hurdles to jump when it comes to ESL
4:35
Speaker 2: students than most school districts where I live. Our zoned
4:40
Speaker 2: elementary school is vast majority EESL students, and that's kind
4:46
Speaker 2: of the reason why people in our school district threw
4:49
Speaker 2: up their hands at the particularly bad scores that come
4:52
Speaker 2: out of our out of our elementary school. How much
4:56
Speaker 2: of that is sort of a hurdle that you guys
4:59
Speaker 2: are facing down in Houston.
5:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're similar to a lot of urban districts, and
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Speaker 3: we're very diverse. We have twenty two percent or so
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Speaker 3: African American students, sixty two percent Hispanic students, many of
5:12
Speaker 3: them are emerging bilingual students, and then the others are
5:17
Speaker 3: either white or Asian, and so we do have a
5:20
Speaker 3: large population and diverse population of students, and many of
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Speaker 3: them three years ago were way behind in their proficiency,
5:29
Speaker 3: not reading at grade level, not doing math at grade level.
5:32
Speaker 3: So we've had all those challenges and we've been able
5:35
Speaker 3: to overcome those challenges. Now, out of twenty state exams,
5:42
Speaker 3: we were behind the state average on every single one
5:46
Speaker 3: of those twenty exams. Now we're above the state average
5:50
Speaker 3: in thirteen. So this urban district is pulling up the
5:54
Speaker 3: state average rather than bringing it down.
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Speaker 2: Wow, So how did you what was is your report
6:01
Speaker 2: sort of process?
6:02
Speaker 3: Like?
6:02
Speaker 2: Was were you welcomed with open arms and you know,
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Speaker 2: told God bless you, thank you for being here.
6:10
Speaker 3: So yes, because quite the opposite is why laughing. So
6:15
Speaker 3: three years ago, look, the district was in trouble academically, financially,
6:22
Speaker 3: with regard to board governance, with regard to special education services.
6:27
Speaker 3: Three years ago, we had one hundred and twenty one
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Speaker 3: D and F campuses. So in Texas there's an ABC
6:33
Speaker 3: DNF rating, several states have that sort of rating, and
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Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty one DNF campuses. Financially, we're in trouble,
6:44
Speaker 3: a lot of money put into the estra, dollars placed
6:47
Speaker 3: in recurrent expenses, et cetera, et cetera. So the state
6:51
Speaker 3: took over the district. Governor Abbot, Commissioner Mike Marath, Commissioner
6:57
Speaker 3: of Education, took over Houston in the school district, appointed
7:01
Speaker 3: me the superintendent, and replaced the elected board with the
7:05
Speaker 3: board of managers. And so, yes, there was a lot
7:08
Speaker 3: of ants, There was a lot of protests. There was
7:12
Speaker 3: a lot of people who were not in favor of
7:14
Speaker 3: the intervention. Even people internal to the school districts, teachers
7:19
Speaker 3: and principles, many of them were not in favor of
7:22
Speaker 3: the intervention. So this notion being welcome with open arms,
7:27
Speaker 3: that it was just the opposite of that.
7:29
Speaker 2: It sounds like what they call in the business sector,
7:32
Speaker 2: a hostile takeover.
7:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's actually not that. That is the
7:38
Speaker 3: perception that many people had hostile takeover.
7:41
Speaker 2: My favorite thing when I was sort of looking into,
7:45
Speaker 2: you know, the success story in Houston, my favorite little
7:48
Speaker 2: nugget was that a declaration that in doing this and
7:52
Speaker 2: taking this over, you were racist because you wanted to
7:56
Speaker 2: save a school district that was vast majority black and brown,
8:01
Speaker 2: students in eighty ninety percent of these students. So do
8:05
Speaker 2: you have, off the top of your head some of
8:07
Speaker 2: the data points showing how racist you are? With three
8:11
Speaker 2: years later, what have you done to these poor students?
8:14
Speaker 3: So that the two parts of the vision statement that
8:19
Speaker 3: I created for the intervention period was one, we were
8:24
Speaker 3: going to significantly narrow the achievement gap. That's big idea
8:30
Speaker 3: number one and number two was we're going to better
8:33
Speaker 3: prepare students for the year twenty thirty year twenty thirty
8:36
Speaker 3: five world and workplace. So and we have done just
8:40
Speaker 3: that talking about trying to support black and brown kids.
8:44
Speaker 3: Our achievement gap has narrowed somewhere between twelve and fifteen
8:50
Speaker 3: percentage points based on the exam. So if you take
8:55
Speaker 3: eighth grade reading, for example, our black and brown students
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Speaker 3: have proved I think nineteen points percentage points over three years.
9:06
Speaker 2: Wow, that you are bad at racism is.
9:09
Speaker 3: A lesson there, that's the lesson. But you know, I
9:14
Speaker 3: think when you talk to our parents, Yeah, parents put
9:19
Speaker 3: aside a lot of that noise. They just want their
9:22
Speaker 3: students to be able to read, rite, and do math
9:23
Speaker 3: at the grade level. Yeah, And they want their kids
9:27
Speaker 3: to be able to read well, and they don't mind
9:30
Speaker 3: a rigorous assessment to see whether that's true or not.
9:33
Speaker 3: They don't want any inflation of scores. They want the
9:39
Speaker 3: abilities and skills to be real. So that improvement has
9:43
Speaker 3: really helped us with our families who are very pleased
9:47
Speaker 3: at what's happening in the district.
9:50
Speaker 2: So one of the things I remember when I was
9:52
Speaker 2: a k I grew up in New York City. Actually
9:54
Speaker 2: I went I graduated from high school from New York City,
9:57
Speaker 2: and one of the things that I remember sho fucking
10:00
Speaker 2: me hearing as a kid was that better teachers didn't
10:05
Speaker 2: get paid more. And it seemed wild to me that
10:09
Speaker 2: you were paid by how long you've been sitting in
10:12
Speaker 2: that seat versus how effective you were. And that was
10:16
Speaker 2: I think one of the like red pilling moments for
10:18
Speaker 2: me when I was seventeen eighteen years old, when I realized, like,
10:20
Speaker 2: this system isn't isn't built for success. And so when
10:24
Speaker 2: I was reading through this like you know, cash of data,
10:28
Speaker 2: one of the things that struck me with you know,
10:30
Speaker 2: how you guys have been able to be successful is
10:34
Speaker 2: that you're doing that that you're incentivizing job performance in
10:39
Speaker 2: your in sort of how you how you're paying teachers
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Speaker 2: and retaining them. Can you get into a little bit
10:47
Speaker 2: of the hurdles you must have faced, especially with teachers' unions,
10:51
Speaker 2: and how that how that sort of incentive structure is
10:55
Speaker 2: working out for you.
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Speaker 3: Yes, So, so first, you're your wisdom at seventeen didn't
11:04
Speaker 3: dawn on me until I was like thirty five. But
11:07
Speaker 3: for a long time I've known what you also figured out,
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Speaker 3: and that is you do need a level of accountability
11:15
Speaker 3: and teachers should be paid for their effectiveness. I think
11:18
Speaker 3: I started to learn that when I became a teacher
11:20
Speaker 3: and said, looks me, you know.
11:22
Speaker 2: It's like you're working in sales. You're paid more if
11:25
Speaker 2: you make more.
11:26
Speaker 3: Sense, if you're getting the job done, if you're getting
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Speaker 3: the outcomes. And so the first pay for performance plan
11:31
Speaker 3: I started was in two thousand and eight in the
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Speaker 3: Harrison School District. I was a superintendent. That's a school
11:38
Speaker 3: district in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and so we started it there.
11:43
Speaker 3: I brought the pay for Performance to Dallas and now
11:47
Speaker 3: in Houston, and it has really helped because teachers know
11:53
Speaker 3: that you have to get outcomes, you have to be
11:56
Speaker 3: an effective teacher, and if you are then you will
11:59
Speaker 3: get paid well. In Houston, the a proficient teacher is
12:06
Speaker 3: going to be paid is paid eighty thousand dollars, and
12:11
Speaker 3: an exemplar teacher is paid ninety two thousand dollars, and
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Speaker 3: a progressing one teacher is paid seventy four thousand dollars.
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Speaker 3: And it changes like that, And if you are in
12:24
Speaker 3: what we call the NES program, the proficient teacher is
12:28
Speaker 3: paid eighty nine thousand dollars and the exemplar teachers paid
12:31
Speaker 3: one hundred and one thousand dollars. So the more proficient
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Speaker 3: you are, the higher your wage. And there's six categories
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Speaker 3: of six levels.
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Speaker 2: So something that I hear, like when I've approached this
12:46
Speaker 2: idea to people before, is that teachers can only do
12:50
Speaker 2: so much because what's happening at home is really hampering
12:55
Speaker 2: student abilities. And has that have you observed buy in
13:01
Speaker 2: from parents, like what sort of what barriers are there
13:06
Speaker 2: between a school district's succeeding and failing because the like
13:11
Speaker 2: throw up in arms stuff I see kind of it
13:15
Speaker 2: reminds me of that meme where everyone's pointing at each
13:18
Speaker 2: other and the parents are pointing at the teachers and
13:20
Speaker 2: the teachers are pointing at the parents. How much truth
13:22
Speaker 2: is there in that?
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Speaker 3: I you know, I think I was. I was about
13:27
Speaker 3: to say before you told me about that meme that Look,
13:31
Speaker 3: we can blame parents, we can blame teachers, we can
13:34
Speaker 3: blame kids, we can blame the system, we can blame
13:39
Speaker 3: the government, we can blame all kinds of people. And
13:41
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, if you're an effective teacher,
13:44
Speaker 3: you take the students who are in front of you,
13:47
Speaker 3: and if you're supported with the good system, which is
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Speaker 3: the job that I have. It's put the enabling conditions
13:52
Speaker 3: in and make sure there's good curriculum and all that.
13:57
Speaker 3: Your job is to take those students and help them
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Speaker 3: reach their proficiency level. And in the end of the day,
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Speaker 3: you have the biggest variable, and how well that student
14:10
Speaker 3: will do, how proficient that student will will learn, is
14:14
Speaker 3: an effective teacher and the quality of that teacher's instruction.
14:19
Speaker 3: And if you believe that, and if you put your
14:21
Speaker 3: effort behind that and don't make any excuses for anything else,
14:26
Speaker 3: then you will succeed and the system will succeed. As
14:29
Speaker 3: we have shown, that doesn't mean there aren't particular challenges
14:35
Speaker 3: for teachers whose students come in, you know, classroom full
14:38
Speaker 3: of kids who are behind. We know that there's their challenges.
14:42
Speaker 3: That's why part of the evaluation system is based on
14:45
Speaker 3: growth of the student, because we don't want just the
14:49
Speaker 3: honors classes to get the you know, the highest rating.
14:55
Speaker 3: We get it. There are some challenges, but that shouldn't
14:59
Speaker 3: be the thing that holds us back from saying, look,
15:04
Speaker 3: you need to perform with the kids that you have.
15:15
Speaker 1: This week on Conservative Crossroads, should conservatives support tax increases
15:21
Speaker 1: or in Casts says yes.
15:23
Speaker 2: There is no political path to achieving spending cuts without
15:27
Speaker 2: any tax increase.
15:29
Speaker 1: Groover Norquist says no.
15:33
Speaker 2: We're winning and we're not going to raise taxes because
15:35
Speaker 2: that would stop us from being in a position to
15:37
Speaker 2: do anything.
15:39
Speaker 1: Conservatives backing tax increases. Coming on Conservative Crossroads.
15:44
Speaker 2: Ricochet.
15:46
Speaker 3: Join the conversation.
15:56
Speaker 2: Again playing Devil's Advocate. I heard a lot. So I
15:59
Speaker 2: ran first board actually here in Montgomery County, Maryland, about
16:02
Speaker 2: a year ago, and yeah, it was actually it was
16:06
Speaker 2: really it was the most informative and instructive loss of
16:11
Speaker 2: my life. I felt like I took a lot out
16:13
Speaker 2: of it, and I heard from a lot of parents
16:16
Speaker 2: that the number one thing and I thought of this
16:18
Speaker 2: actually when you said, like the systems standing behind teachers.
16:22
Speaker 2: The number one thing I heard from parents and teachers
16:24
Speaker 2: alike that was a barrier to kids being able to
16:28
Speaker 2: succeed in the classroom was restorative justice. And the idea
16:32
Speaker 2: of it, is how it was described to me by
16:35
Speaker 2: like very frustrated parents, was that there are just no
16:38
Speaker 2: consequences anymore. And that idea of like, there's just no
16:43
Speaker 2: consequences is something that I've seen crop up a lot
16:47
Speaker 2: in parenting spaces, from you know, conversations about toddlers all
16:51
Speaker 2: the way through grown adults, that there's just no such
16:55
Speaker 2: thing as consequences anymore. And so, for example, a parent
16:58
Speaker 2: came to me and said, my kid was being bullied.
17:01
Speaker 2: They were hit on the playground and then they were
17:04
Speaker 2: forced to sit down with their bully and everyone was
17:07
Speaker 2: told to talk about their feelings. And the parent was like,
17:10
Speaker 2: I think that that kid who hit my child with
17:15
Speaker 2: a blunt object in the head should have just gone
17:18
Speaker 2: to detention instead of my child being forced to sit
17:21
Speaker 2: down across the table with that kid and talk about
17:23
Speaker 2: the other kids feelings. What are you hearing sort of
17:27
Speaker 2: in education spaces about the problem of violence in schools,
17:32
Speaker 2: in classrooms and restorative justice, Like, how much of that
17:36
Speaker 2: is a real serious problem in our education system now?
17:41
Speaker 3: I think in the education system as a whole, it
17:43
Speaker 3: is a problem. And there's the other side of that
17:46
Speaker 3: coin too, there's a balance somewhere. But the other side
17:49
Speaker 3: of that coin is in many school districts, the kids
17:53
Speaker 3: who get in a little bit of trouble are immediately
17:57
Speaker 3: denied a good education, They're kicked out, they're suspense and
18:01
Speaker 3: in many cases it's you know, it's seen through the
18:04
Speaker 3: lens of race or culture, and so you have to
18:08
Speaker 3: be careful about saying, look, Johnny, you you were tapping
18:13
Speaker 3: your pencil, so you get suspended. It's like, okay, that's
18:16
Speaker 3: that's not the way to do. So what we've done
18:19
Speaker 3: here in Houston are discipline is much stronger now. In
18:24
Speaker 3: other words, orderly environment, a safe, an orderly environment is
18:29
Speaker 3: stronger now in our schools, especially in the schools what
18:33
Speaker 3: we call the n S schools, New Education System schools.
18:36
Speaker 3: These are totally transformed schools in Houston, one hundred and
18:40
Speaker 3: thirty of them. And the rule in those schools is
18:44
Speaker 3: the following. Students have to follow three big rules. You
18:49
Speaker 3: can't disrespect any adult. You can't disrupt the learning environment,
18:55
Speaker 3: and you cannot be a bully. You try to keep
18:58
Speaker 3: it simple for kids. For teachers. If a child in
19:02
Speaker 3: a classroom, which is sacrosanct to the teacher, a sacrosanc environment,
19:08
Speaker 3: if the child does any of those three things, they're
19:10
Speaker 3: removed from the classroom, not necessarily the school. And then
19:16
Speaker 3: that let's say a kid gets upset and knocks over,
19:19
Speaker 3: you know, several books and throws them on the floor.
19:24
Speaker 3: That's not a suspendable offense, but it is a disruption
19:27
Speaker 3: of learning environment. That child will be removed and go
19:30
Speaker 3: to a place where they zoom back into the classroom
19:35
Speaker 3: on a chromebook so they don't miss the lesson. Oh
19:39
Speaker 3: interesting taken from the classroom. Yeah, every classroom of one
19:43
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty schools has a has a webcam and
19:48
Speaker 3: the class and so the child can zoom back in
19:52
Speaker 3: and that way they don't miss school. But they're taking
19:55
Speaker 3: they don't they can't violate these three rules. Right now,
19:58
Speaker 3: there's some.
19:59
Speaker 2: Parents zoom in, like can they just drop in on
20:01
Speaker 2: their kids classroom at any point?
20:04
Speaker 3: No, they have to have the ID and we keep
20:08
Speaker 3: those because that's it's not open to parents. It's open
20:13
Speaker 3: to any administrator, but not to parents. So anyway, that's
20:17
Speaker 3: one of the ways where we find that balance. Right,
20:20
Speaker 3: you don't want to just start kicking kids out. And
20:23
Speaker 3: let's say a kid got into a fight. Now that's different,
20:26
Speaker 3: that's not just zoom back in that we would we
20:29
Speaker 3: will adjudicate that and a student will most likely be
20:32
Speaker 3: suspended for that restorative justice. I think in some schools
20:37
Speaker 3: have gone too far. I think in other times it
20:41
Speaker 3: can be managed well, but there's always the administrator trying
20:46
Speaker 3: to do trying to get the student to miss as
20:51
Speaker 3: few days as possible and not to be isolated from
20:55
Speaker 3: the rest of their classmates as little as possible. Look,
20:59
Speaker 3: but if if you're a bully, if you're getting the fights,
21:02
Speaker 3: and yeah, you should be removed from the environment and
21:04
Speaker 3: probably from the school for at least some period of time.
21:08
Speaker 2: In the beginning, you were a racist, and you know,
21:11
Speaker 2: lots of different large groups were against you. But now
21:17
Speaker 2: you know, fast forwarding three years, you've seen success, not
21:20
Speaker 2: just in the test scores, but also it sounds like
21:22
Speaker 2: in classroom environment, sounds like a place I would want
21:25
Speaker 2: to work more than a place that you know, is
21:28
Speaker 2: fully on board with restorative justice. What what's the feeling
21:31
Speaker 2: from teachers on the ground. Are you retaining teachers? Are
21:35
Speaker 2: you like, what what does that look like from sort
21:38
Speaker 2: of a workpace perspective.
21:40
Speaker 3: I think you'll see this year our retention rates will
21:43
Speaker 3: be even better. But in the last couple of years,
21:46
Speaker 3: we have retained our most effective teachers. And that's what
21:50
Speaker 3: matters most. Is if you were to tell me, look,
21:53
Speaker 3: I have one hundred retention rate, it's like, and you're
21:56
Speaker 3: not getting outcomes. It's like, Okay, is that the metric
22:00
Speaker 3: we really want to use? I don't think so, you
22:03
Speaker 3: know so, But if you're retaining your proficient teachers at
22:08
Speaker 3: eighty five eighty eight percent, if you're retaining your examplar
22:12
Speaker 3: teachers at ninety two ninety three percent, that's the metric
22:16
Speaker 3: I want for my kids and for the kids in
22:19
Speaker 3: the system. And that's what's happened. Those numbers I just
22:22
Speaker 3: quoted your other ones from last year. We'll see what
22:25
Speaker 3: happens this year. We'll get the metrics are pretty soon
22:29
Speaker 3: because school starts in four weeks.
22:31
Speaker 2: Right. You talked for a minute there about zoom and screens.
22:37
Speaker 2: This is a topic of conversation that I'm hearing a
22:40
Speaker 2: lot from my parent friends these days, more obviously, like
22:44
Speaker 2: upper middle class folks who are reading Jonathan Height, who
22:47
Speaker 2: are really concerned about, you know, the influence of technology
22:50
Speaker 2: and social media and their kids, you know, minds and lives.
22:55
Speaker 2: What steps are you taking, if any, and if you've
22:59
Speaker 2: taken steps, like are they effective? Like to what extent?
23:03
Speaker 2: Is this a concern of yours in Houston?
23:06
Speaker 3: Not a big concern in Houston. First, we've ban we
23:09
Speaker 3: have banned cell phones for two years, so this last
23:13
Speaker 3: year and the year before.
23:15
Speaker 2: So you're an early adopter of Jonathan Hyde.
23:17
Speaker 3: Then well, at least for cell phones, that's true. And
23:22
Speaker 3: then for the core subjects in these one hundred and
23:25
Speaker 3: thirty schools and in most other schools. The other schools
23:29
Speaker 3: have some autonomy over their curriculum. They don't have a
23:33
Speaker 3: lot of autonomy over instructional quality. But that's why I
23:37
Speaker 3: can say, for a fact, for the one hundred and
23:38
Speaker 3: thirty schools, the core subjects are done mostly on paper
23:45
Speaker 3: and have been for the last three years. Yes, we
23:48
Speaker 3: do some of it online. Yes we do some of
23:51
Speaker 3: the testing on a screen. That's because the state exams
23:55
Speaker 3: are on screens, and we don't want zero uses of screens.
23:59
Speaker 3: But also in some of the intervention programs we are
24:03
Speaker 3: using online programs. You may have heard of Zern for example,
24:08
Speaker 3: that's a math program. So for thirty minutes a day,
24:13
Speaker 3: the kids are usually on a screen or for another
24:16
Speaker 3: product called the mirror. In any case, there is some
24:19
Speaker 3: screen time. We are moving. We have a pilot program
24:24
Speaker 3: nine schools will move to what we call future TiO programming,
24:28
Speaker 3: and there it's not more screen time. What it is
24:32
Speaker 3: is getting kids ready for year twenty thirty five environment
24:36
Speaker 3: where AI will be ubiquitous. And so what does that mean.
24:42
Speaker 3: That means kids need to learn. They need to learn
24:46
Speaker 3: how to work in teams, they need to learn how
24:48
Speaker 3: to learn, They need critical thinking, information, literacy, problem solving,
24:54
Speaker 3: decision making, adaptive learning, all of those things that the
24:59
Speaker 3: student will take in the afternoon using experiences, different activities,
25:06
Speaker 3: all without AI. It's getting them ready for an AI
25:11
Speaker 3: enabled world. On top of that, the only screen time
25:15
Speaker 3: that I think people may may be worried about is
25:19
Speaker 3: we will have them in one seminar class learn how
25:23
Speaker 3: to use AI tools, and so in that case they
25:27
Speaker 3: probably will be on AI on a screen, and they
25:30
Speaker 3: probably will be using some AI enabled tool.
25:36
Speaker 2: Did you see this piece in the free press from
25:39
Speaker 2: a university professor at Brown. He's an economics professor. Did
25:44
Speaker 2: you see this? No, I'm really really interesting. He basically
25:49
Speaker 2: he did a test where and these are students at Brown,
25:52
Speaker 2: like this is not you know, a community college. And
25:55
Speaker 2: he let his students take home there do their their
25:59
Speaker 2: mid term at home, and then he made them come
26:04
Speaker 2: in and do the final on paper and compared the
26:07
Speaker 2: numbers and it looked it looked like ninety six percent
26:11
Speaker 2: of his students cheated, like the first of all, twenty
26:15
Speaker 2: of them wouldn't even show up for the final and
26:17
Speaker 2: when they realized that was the format. But the like
26:20
Speaker 2: average score for the final was like ninety and then
26:24
Speaker 2: the or midterm I'm sorry, was ninety and then the
26:27
Speaker 2: average score on the final was like fifty. And that
26:31
Speaker 2: was that was pretty scary to me as a parent,
26:32
Speaker 2: because I realized, like the hurdle that the teaching profession
26:37
Speaker 2: is going to have in the age of AI. So
26:41
Speaker 2: how do you balance teaching like had to tango with AI,
26:47
Speaker 2: but also teaching and making sure that students are able
26:51
Speaker 2: to you know, absorb information.
26:55
Speaker 3: So right now you have to do two things. You
26:58
Speaker 3: have to protect that connection between the teacher and child
27:02
Speaker 3: and ensure that that you have an effective teacher who
27:05
Speaker 3: can deliver high quality instruction. And that connection is really
27:10
Speaker 3: important still going ten years, Board number two, you have
27:13
Speaker 3: to do what we're trying to do in our future
27:15
Speaker 3: two schools, which is there are competencies that kids need
27:21
Speaker 3: if they're going to enter an AI nable world. To
27:23
Speaker 3: say that there's not going to be AI or they
27:25
Speaker 3: don't need to learn it in school or anything like that,
27:28
Speaker 3: I think that's shortsighted. To have kids who are third
27:33
Speaker 3: grade through eighth graders learning things like working in teams, yeah,
27:40
Speaker 3: you know, having adaptive learning, learning how to learn all
27:45
Speaker 3: without the use of AI, so that they will be
27:48
Speaker 3: prepared to use AI or you know, enter an AI
27:52
Speaker 3: nabled world. I think those are important. So we don't
27:56
Speaker 3: need to go as far as to say no screens
27:58
Speaker 3: or no AI. That is totally short sighted in my mind.
28:04
Speaker 3: Ensuring that kids do have nonscreen time and get those
28:08
Speaker 3: skills that will help them with an AI naval world.
28:11
Speaker 3: I think that's different. The other thing I'd say is this, yes,
28:16
Speaker 3: we are going to have to grapple with it, and
28:18
Speaker 3: going to either extreme is going to be bad. We're
28:20
Speaker 3: going to have to grapple with the use of AI.
28:23
Speaker 3: And so, for example, for kids who are at the
28:28
Speaker 3: high school level or in college, instead of saying no AI,
28:34
Speaker 3: how about this, how about this for a junior or
28:37
Speaker 3: senior on a project and say, look, you're going to
28:39
Speaker 3: have an exam and this project is designed for you
28:45
Speaker 3: to use AI in a responsible way. We're going to
28:48
Speaker 3: give you an exam that's a real world situation. You're
28:51
Speaker 3: going to have to look at a water pollution issue
28:57
Speaker 3: or like in the water system, some contaminant in the
29:01
Speaker 3: water system for this actual city, and you're going to
29:05
Speaker 3: have to devise a solution for it. Okay, and I
29:09
Speaker 3: want to see your notes in the planning for it,
29:12
Speaker 3: because you're only you're only going to get a couple
29:14
Speaker 3: hours to do this, and you're going to work with
29:15
Speaker 3: others and we're going to watch you do this. We're
29:18
Speaker 3: going to watch you plan and then we're going to
29:20
Speaker 3: watch you use AI responsibly to do the research that
29:24
Speaker 3: you need because it's a real world situation. And then
29:28
Speaker 3: you're going to jot down a quick summary you know,
29:32
Speaker 3: in writing right there on the spot. The point is this,
29:36
Speaker 3: I just made that up on the spot. The point
29:39
Speaker 3: is this, you can't say let's not use AI and
29:43
Speaker 3: expect then once a kid tries to be competitive after
29:46
Speaker 3: he leaves college or the high school, be competitive with
29:50
Speaker 3: the peers who are using AI in a responsible way.
29:54
Speaker 3: So that's that's what the education profession is going to
29:57
Speaker 3: have to deal with in the next several year. Hi,
30:09
Speaker 3: I'm Ben Sass and I'm Chris Steierwaldt. And this is
30:12
Speaker 3: not dead yet.
30:14
Speaker 1: We're all dying, but some of us have been brought
30:16
Speaker 1: face to face with that reality.
30:18
Speaker 2: However long each of us have to do it though.
30:21
Speaker 1: We all want to live a good life, one with meaning,
30:24
Speaker 1: love and joy, and our guests are here to help
30:27
Speaker 1: us do exactly that.
30:28
Speaker 3: Now available for download and streaming at ricochet dot com.
30:32
Speaker 2: Ricochet, Ye join the conversation. You seem to be unique
30:47
Speaker 2: in the education sphere as far as like how you're
30:50
Speaker 2: taking battles on head on versus you know, picking and
30:55
Speaker 2: choosing what your what your priorities are. What is the
30:59
Speaker 2: what is the feeling among sort of the education establishment
31:02
Speaker 2: in you know, teachers' unions and teachers colleges on your methodology,
31:09
Speaker 2: are they are they on board with some of it
31:12
Speaker 2: or is it still like very adversarial.
31:16
Speaker 3: Mostly adversary adversary. Look, my measure of success is not
31:23
Speaker 3: what the teachers' unions think. In my mind, the teachers'
31:27
Speaker 3: union have been one of the worst things for American
31:31
Speaker 3: public education system over the last two or three decades,
31:35
Speaker 3: partly because they put adult issues first, and they had
31:41
Speaker 3: that right. But what they don't have the right to
31:43
Speaker 3: do is put adult issues before student issues and keep
31:49
Speaker 3: job employment based on doing that on the backs of
31:55
Speaker 3: kids and kids' success. They don't have the right to
31:58
Speaker 3: do that, And so I don't don't really care much
32:01
Speaker 3: about what the teachers' union think. What I do care
32:03
Speaker 3: is the other educational professionals you're talking about, the people
32:07
Speaker 3: who are leaders, who are experts in the field, who
32:10
Speaker 3: also are focused on outcomes and what we do for kids,
32:15
Speaker 3: trying to close the gap and making sure that all
32:17
Speaker 3: means all. The people who are focused on the outcomes
32:22
Speaker 3: for kids and the kids' success and their success now
32:26
Speaker 3: and in the future. Those are the people who are
32:29
Speaker 3: who are finding what we're doing in Houston has interest
32:33
Speaker 3: to them and is exciting them as far as something
32:38
Speaker 3: that looks promising for being looked at across the field,
32:43
Speaker 3: not just in.
32:43
Speaker 2: Houston, Are you able? So, I mean rewinding back to
32:48
Speaker 2: my run for school board, A lot of the reason
32:51
Speaker 2: I lost was because teachers' union representatives were staffing every
32:56
Speaker 2: single polling site and telling people to vote for their candidate.
33:00
Speaker 2: And that was how any anyone who was reform minded lost.
33:06
Speaker 2: But in your case, it sounds like you had an
33:08
Speaker 2: abbot just takeover. Is that?
33:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, the governor and the Commission of of Education in
33:17
Speaker 3: Texas took over the district and so the union has
33:21
Speaker 3: doesn't have a lot of power and authority here in Houston.
33:25
Speaker 3: And let me just say this as a you know,
33:27
Speaker 3: I'm a I'm a professional public servant, right, I mean,
33:31
Speaker 3: I've been a soldier and a diplomat and educating my
33:34
Speaker 3: whole my whole life, and so I'm you know, I'm
33:39
Speaker 3: very supportive of people who spend their time on public
33:44
Speaker 3: service work, right, very supportive of people trying to fight
33:48
Speaker 3: for wages and working conditions. At the same time, I
33:55
Speaker 3: get frustrated with organizations that undermine public service, and in
34:01
Speaker 3: my mind, that's what the union has has done, you know,
34:07
Speaker 3: and I say that just as it not just as
34:09
Speaker 3: a superintendent in Houston, but as a long time public servant.
34:12
Speaker 3: And somebody's spent thirty years in educ thirty two years
34:16
Speaker 3: in education, twenty of those as a superintendent or a
34:18
Speaker 3: CEO of a network, charter network. And we we in
34:22
Speaker 3: America need to grapple with the Union as a as
34:29
Speaker 3: a as a influencer in education, especially of governance board governance.
34:37
Speaker 3: And if we don't, then we're not going to get
34:40
Speaker 3: the outcomes we need for our kids. You know, it,
34:43
Speaker 3: had it hadn't done anything in the last twenty thirty years,
34:47
Speaker 3: it's not going to change.
34:48
Speaker 2: If the So here's here's the question. Is it possible
34:51
Speaker 2: to replicate what you've done without this hostile takeover or
34:55
Speaker 2: is that what it takes.
34:57
Speaker 3: I think if we want it, if we want what
35:01
Speaker 3: is happening in hid to be scalable across the country
35:04
Speaker 3: at speed, then yes, there has to be reform of
35:09
Speaker 3: unions or at least union influence in education and of
35:15
Speaker 3: elected boards. There does have to be school governance reform.
35:21
Speaker 3: And so if one of those in Texas, one of
35:24
Speaker 3: those reform elements is UH interventions takeovers. Are there are
35:29
Speaker 3: there districts that's a good thing.
35:31
Speaker 2: Are there districts who have reached out to you or
35:33
Speaker 2: governors or anyone who have sort of quietly reached out
35:36
Speaker 2: to you or Governor Abbot's office and be like, how
35:38
Speaker 2: can we do this?
35:40
Speaker 3: Because there has there has been, and there's a there's
35:45
Speaker 3: a there's there's plenty of people who are interested in
35:48
Speaker 3: how we're doing it. The latest group, I don't think
35:51
Speaker 3: they'll mind me saying is, you know, in Tennessee, they
35:55
Speaker 3: the state legislature just took over Memphish and they got
36:01
Speaker 3: or Shelby County, which is that has Memphis as is
36:05
Speaker 3: the largest city there, and they have gotten some advice
36:11
Speaker 3: from I'm sure from the commissioner, probably from the probably
36:16
Speaker 3: from the governor, I don't know for sure, but also
36:19
Speaker 3: for me and several other people to try to help
36:23
Speaker 3: turn around that that district.
36:27
Speaker 2: Is this only a sort of priority for red state
36:32
Speaker 2: leadership or is there are there any folks that have
36:35
Speaker 2: reached out to you from Berkeley, for example, or somewhere
36:39
Speaker 2: more blue leaning that you know, care enough about their
36:42
Speaker 2: kids to go head to head with a union.
36:45
Speaker 3: Yes, there are, but I would say this though there's
36:48
Speaker 3: no question that an intervention or even a transformation at
36:54
Speaker 3: scale is going to be tough for a lot of people.
36:58
Speaker 3: That's you know, and probably harder in a blue state
37:02
Speaker 3: or any state that has a strong union environment, it's
37:06
Speaker 3: going to be tougher. And so, you know, I hope
37:11
Speaker 3: people understand though, that serious transformation is in order right now. Transformation, bold,
37:19
Speaker 3: drastic change. We can't keep doing the same things we've
37:23
Speaker 3: always done. I mean, people say that they know that,
37:27
Speaker 3: and then they continue to do the things that we've
37:29
Speaker 3: always done. The deity, yes, yeah, And so I tell
37:34
Speaker 3: my colleagues, look, I get it. I did bold things
37:39
Speaker 3: in Dallas and that that was an elected board and
37:43
Speaker 3: we all need to do some bold things. It comes
37:45
Speaker 3: out of cost, there's no question about that. And I'm
37:48
Speaker 3: very sympathetic to superintendent and senior leaders. There's a personal
37:52
Speaker 3: cost to transformation. There's a personal cost when when with
37:56
Speaker 3: all the pushback and just negativity and in the social
38:00
Speaker 3: media environment of these days, hate, hate mail and everything else.
38:05
Speaker 3: But that's what the kids need now, and there's no time.
38:10
Speaker 3: I tell my colleagues and adults and you know, the adults,
38:13
Speaker 3: and we have all the time in the world. The
38:17
Speaker 3: kids have no time. Yeah, they get one shot at
38:21
Speaker 3: being a first grader. They get, you know, three years
38:25
Speaker 3: to learn how to read. And if we're not willing
38:28
Speaker 3: to do both changes, then we're not putting them first.
38:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you I think final question and then I'll
38:36
Speaker 2: let you go. If you sort of get a call
38:39
Speaker 2: from a superintendent who doesn't have who doesn't have the
38:43
Speaker 2: backing that you have, and doesn't have the mandate that
38:46
Speaker 2: you have, what is your best advice for how they
38:48
Speaker 2: can move forward with affecting change in their district absent.
38:52
Speaker 3: That two things. Number one, only go to a district
38:57
Speaker 3: where you've talked to the board and said, look, are
38:59
Speaker 3: you willing to do bold reformative change? You know? If not,
39:04
Speaker 3: then you know then you have no chance anyway. And
39:08
Speaker 3: number two, if you get into a position where the
39:11
Speaker 3: board had said, okay, yes we do, and then they
39:14
Speaker 3: change their mind, because everybody wants to change until you change.
39:19
Speaker 3: Then and maybe it's easy for me to say, but
39:23
Speaker 3: do the right thing for kids. If your intention is
39:27
Speaker 3: that and you stick to it, then to me, everything's
39:32
Speaker 3: okay and you can put up with all the crazy
39:37
Speaker 3: and you might have to be willing to lose your job,
39:42
Speaker 3: but do the right thing for kids and you'll everything
39:44
Speaker 3: will be fine. I mean again, I know it's easy
39:48
Speaker 3: to say, but superintendents, that's what's required right now. That's
39:54
Speaker 3: what we need, That's what the kids need.
39:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much. This was really interest staying
40:00
Speaker 2: and very informative. So I'm going to put in the
40:03
Speaker 2: show notes the article that I wrote for the New
40:05
Speaker 2: York Post sort of comparing your district in New York City.
40:09
Speaker 2: Is there anything else that like you would recommend to
40:12
Speaker 2: either parents or administrators who are listening to sort of
40:15
Speaker 2: read more about, you know, what motivates you as you know,
40:19
Speaker 2: as an education person, but also like what you're doing
40:23
Speaker 2: actually in Houston.
40:25
Speaker 3: I mean, I think if they watch your podcasts, look
40:30
Speaker 3: at other educational become more a little bit more familiar
40:34
Speaker 3: about the state of education in America. I mean, I
40:39
Speaker 3: know it's all local, but we do live in a
40:42
Speaker 3: broader context. And the broader context is the country as
40:46
Speaker 3: a whole. We are behind as far as educating kids,
40:53
Speaker 3: and the world's just moving faster, right, Technology is moving
40:56
Speaker 3: even faster, and so kids don't have time. If a
41:00
Speaker 3: student graduates today without being able to read a grade
41:04
Speaker 3: level or do math at grade level, their opportunities are
41:07
Speaker 3: limited drastically five years from now if they graduate. The
41:12
Speaker 3: graduates who can't read or do math is even further
41:15
Speaker 3: limited in their opportunities. So we don't have any time.
41:20
Speaker 3: They don't have any time. And I think the more
41:23
Speaker 3: people can realize that, the more they will call for
41:27
Speaker 3: bold reform and look past the politics and say, are
41:33
Speaker 3: our kids learning? Even if you don't have kids in school,
41:37
Speaker 3: Even if you don't have kids in school, your city
41:40
Speaker 3: needs a good education. The country needs kids to be educated.
41:45
Speaker 3: So get involved, read up on what's happening, and then
41:50
Speaker 3: call for bold change.
41:52
Speaker 2: Hey man, well, the kids of Houston Independent School District
41:55
Speaker 2: are likely to have you. And thank you for stepping
41:57
Speaker 2: into the fire, because it doesn't sound like it's been fun.
42:01
Speaker 3: Thank you. I really appreciate that. That's right, but you
42:03
Speaker 3: know that's that's what's called for good.
42:06
Speaker 2: All right, Well, thank you so much for your time
42:09
Speaker 2: and for your insights. Folks, you can subscribe to the
42:12
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42:20
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42:31
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