When Mike Miles' Plan for HISD Fails, He'll Have No One to Blame but Himself
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses the risks of Houston ISD's approach under Mike Miles and why failure would fall squarely on his shoulders.
Key Takeaways
- Accountability runs both ways - Leaders who demand authority must accept responsibility when things don't work
- The approach has significant risks - HISD's dramatic reforms could backfire spectacularly
- Documentation matters - When a leader's approach is well-documented, there's no room to shift blame
Transcript
Mike Miles is doing his level best to run Houston Independent School District into the ground.
But here is why I think it is not going to work.
Frankly, the systems and plans that Miles is putting in place in Houston are so incompetent, so ridiculous.
so ill-conceived that when they fail, not if, but when they fail, I think it'll be impossible to credibly pin that failure on the district, on the employees, on the teachers, on the principals, and it will be very, very obvious that the blame lies in only one place, and that is Mike Miles and his plan itself.
This is the stupidest plan that I have ever seen.
If you've seen the observation form that principals are being required to use, not just like once a year or for formal observations, but every single day.
Principals are being told to do dozens and dozens of these between 20 and 30 a week.
Some teachers are being observed multiple times per day or even multiple times per period with this form that is supposed to give them a score based on all of these things.
And I'll zoom in here a little bit.
A digital timer is used, no loss of instructional time.
There are all these things that are supposed to happen throughout the lesson and every four minutes throughout the lesson that you could not even observe unless you stayed for the whole lesson.
And because of the number of these things that principals are being required to do, there's no way they can stay for the whole lesson.
They're only staying for a few minutes to assess what people are doing.
But really what's happening is they're policing what teachers are doing.
And this whole approach of supervising people to death, of micromanaging people to death has no basis in any research, has no basis in any books.
And I have to seriously wonder if Mike Miles has even ever read a book on education, how to teach, how to lead, or a book on leadership and management in general.
This is not a credible plan.
This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of.
And when it fails, again, not if, but when it fails, I want to make sure that everybody is very clear on where the blame lies.
And that is Mike Miles and his plan itself.