Houston ISD parents and students chastised Superintendent Mike Miles during a Thursday board meeting for championing “data over anecdotes” as justification for his sweeping reforms.
The critics said cherry-picked statistics don’t outweigh their lived experience. Miles has said that data-driven initiatives such as standardized test scores are the only reliable way to measure student improvement, and it’s working: HISD recently announced it has zero F-rated campuses and doubled the number of A- and B-rated schools.
In a mid-September Houston City Council meeting, the state-appointed superintendent doubled down when Mayor Pro Tem Martha Castex-Tatum said she’d heard from residents who don’t believe Miles’ data. Some have accused HISD of manipulating the numbers by pulling strong students from college-prep courses to artificially inflate test scores.
“We’ve been at this for two years,” Miles said at the time. “You can have all the conspiracy theories you want. The fact is the fact and the data comes from TEA, and the people who do believe it are the parents and the kids who are succeeding.”
When a crowd at the council meeting jeered at Miles, the superintendent dismissed the audience as “unprofessional” and said they represented a small number of HISD stakeholders.
More than 60 people registered to speak at Thursday’s school board meeting, several of whom were opposed to an agenda item that proposed changes to the district’s temporary goal progress measures. The item passed unanimously.
Current goals are focused on achievement measured by the STAAR test and College, Career and Military Readiness test and tied to the Measures of Academic Progress assessment given three times a year, said Alison LiVecchi, a strategic innovation leader with HISD.
LiVecchi proposed updating metrics to revise targets and reflect changes within the MAP program and using the current academic year as a “baseline year,” noting that the progress measures would be re-evaluated again in August 2026.
Many parents and students took issue with the changes, with one saying she wasn’t opposed to change; she was opposed to chaos.
Some held signs that said, “Fire the Liar.” When a child referred to Miles as an “evil character,” the crowd applauded and one audience member shouted, “You go, girl!” A woman who tried to translate for one of the speakers was asked to leave because she used profanity after being told the interpreter had to be an HISD employee.
Sixth-grader Edita-Sage Bitner said she didn’t think MAP scores should be used to measure progress.
“We can’t look back to see what we missed or how to improve,” she said. “It just gives us a number. Learning is so much more than that. I may do well on tests but the skills that matter most — creativity, teamwork, problem-solving and communication aren’t measured by MAP or STAAR. Real learning happens through teacher feedback, reflection and meaningful projects, not computer tests.”
Several parents said they felt dismissed by Miles’ public statements that data matters more than anecdotes.
Trey Comstock said an anecdote is the story of one person, but “when hundreds and thousands of people across socioeconomic status and ethnicity tell very similar stories, that is a significant trend in the qualitative data that something powerful, generalizable and, in this case, negative, is happening in our city.”
Other parents complained about families and teachers leaving the district due to “endless worksheets” and unconventional learning methods.
During Thursday’s meeting, Miles highlighted the results of a report in which 9,300 principals and teachers were surveyed anonymously.
“Principals are overwhelmingly in support of the things that we’re doing,” he said. “They understand what we’re doing and the path we’re headed on and principals very favorably think that their work is connected to the district’s plan. They think they’re adding value, and they are.”
The same parents who chastised Miles at the beginning of the meeting scoffed as he reviewed data showing approval ratings well above 90 percent. “It’s not credible,” one woman shouted.
Almost 100 percent of leaders believe that working at HISD has grown their instructional leadership, Miles said.
“Overall, you can see our leaders are well bought-in, they’re well supported and they’re doing the work,” Miles said.
When the numbers skewed low, such as 44 percent of teachers saying the district was headed in the right direction, Miles said the response was improving and higher than the national average.
“Teaching is a tough job and it’s probably never going to get easier in this day and age when there’s so much that has to be done to help our kids,” he said.
Durham Elementary School parent Jill Tucker suggested an independent survey of teachers, parents and students.
“Over the past several months, you’ve heard our story,” she said. “You’ve heard about the chaos that began before the first day of school, the high-performing teachers who were reassigned and the students left behind to substitutes and screens. Teachers have been pushed out of jobs they loved; families left schools they helped build and sustain; children lost stability and connection.”
“Your leadership has created a culture driven by fear and compliance,” Tucker added. “Our stories aren’t isolated incidents but they are districtwide trends, and we are living proof of what your policies have done to our schools.”
The post HISD Students and Parents Challenge Mike Miles on Data Versus Anecdotes appeared first on Houston Press.
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