9.12.25
“Scrutiny of TX Public Schools by Com. Morath”
By Donna Garner
On 9.10.25, TX. Education Commissioner Mike Morath gave a visual presentation to the elected members of the Texas State Board of Education and to all the public.
URL: http://www.adminmonitor.com/tx/tea/committee_of_the_full_board/20250910/
[From Donna Garner: By putting your mouse underneath the scroll bar in the above URL, you will be able to see the timestamp in white numbers. My timestamps may not be exactly accurate but hopefully they will help get you close enough to your chosen topic. Of course, the best thing to do is to view the entire audio clip.]
0:34 – introduction
1:03 – Performance on A – F System
1:42 – Why A – F System exists
2:30 – Math TEKS examples – (Whatever national company gets the contract to replace the STAAR test in the future will still have to align the test questions so that they are based on the TEKS (curriculum standards) developed and voted on by the elected members of the Texas State Board of Education.
9:15 – Explanation illustrating that STAAR test questions/A-F Report Card results are absolutely NOT tied to “federally subsidized areas of Texas”
9:17 – A – F Report Card based upon (1) achievement and (2) progress
14:49 – Public website which is very user-friendly -- TXSchools.gov website -- https://txschools.gov/?lng=en -- shows parents how their children’s schools are doing – also gives helpful information about other schools located nearby – Be sure to click on TELL ME MORE to get even more extensive information.
[Comments from Donna Garner: The Texas Legislature in 2015 passed a law that required TX. Comm. Morath (1) to replace the Houston ISD School Board with a governing board and (2) to hire a new superintendent because a Houston school had failing grades on the STAAR test for five years in a row. Morath knew firsthand about Mike Miles and his amazing leadership to turn districts around; therefore, Morath tapped Miles and supported his efforts.]
17.25 – Houston ISD 2025 STAAR results – compares scores before new Supt. Mike Miles came and two years after he came – before: 39% of students on grade level – two years after Miles came (2025 results): 46% of students on grade level -- statewide (2025): 48% of students on grade level
18:44 – How well a person learns math has been shown to be the prime factor in lifetime salary.
20:18 – Houston ISD A – F Report Card for 2025 – in two years Houston ISD exceeds state average in math (175,000 students in Houston ISD).
20:41 – A – F Report Card – 2025 -- zero percent of schools in Houston ISD rated F – most outstanding results of anywhere in America over a two-year span
Students’ academic success also impacts their behavior, character, and interaction between students and faculty.
23:06 – Assessment Equating – Explains how the TEA makes sure the different questions from year to year on the STAAR test are equal in level of difficulty
5 of the questions on a student’s STAAR test are field-test questions that do not count on student’s grades – results from field-test questions help to decide whether to put those questions on the next year’s STAAR test.
28:30 – How the TEA bundles questions together to get the same level of difficulty from STAAR test to STAAR test
Explanation of the terms Masters, Meets, Approaches Grade Level
Three categories explained:
Masters – 75% chance of a student’s passing next level up STAAR test (e.g., 3rd grade student’s chances of passing 4th grade STAAR test)
Meets – 60% chance of student’s passing the next grade level STAAR test
Approaches Grade Level – student SOMEWHAT LIKELY to pass next grade-level STAAR test
31:02 – Requirement for developing assessments for new STAAR test (passed by TX Legislature in 2025 session) – whatever national entity gets contract -- each STAAR test question must be based upon the curriculum standards (TEKS) approved by the elected members of Texas State Board of Education
35:04 – Discussion of which curriculum individual, local school districts choose to use from SBOE-approved list (e.g., how many districts have chosen to use Bluebonnet Learning?)
41:50 – Comm. Morath answers questions from individual SBOE members
TO FIND YOUR CHILD’S 2025 STAAR TEST RESULTS:
The following statement from the TEA is particularly helpful for parents who want to know exactly how their child performed on this year’s STAAR tests:
“Along with the statewide release, individual STAAR report cards are now available for parents across Texas by visiting their school district’s family portal or TexasAssessment.gov.
Using the unique access code provided by their child’s school, parents can view their child’s STAAR results for grades 3–8.
These reports include detailed insights into each test question, how their child responded and personalized recommendations to support their academic progress.”
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6.21.25 – “How Texas’ Largest School District Turned Things Around” – by Jim Schutze – Dallas Morning News -- https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2025/06/21/how-texas-largest-school-district-turned-things-around/
Mike Miles has turned things around at Houston ISD. What can the rest of the state learn from the transformation?
The news from the Houston Independent School District at the end of the 2025 school year is wonderful for Houston, wonderful for Texas, and wonderful for the nation…
In two short years — far faster than even he thought possible — Superintendent Mike Miles has chalked up numbers that simply cannot be mistaken or quibbled.
In the ninth largest school district in America with around 180,000 students, 85% of whom fall within the federal standard for poverty, the progress students have made has significant national implications.
…Houston students had been so far behind students in the rest of Texas for so long that the district finally fell afoul of standards imposed by statute.
State law required the Texas Education Agency to seize control, fire the school board, and appoint a new superintendent.
Before Supt. Miles was hired in all five statewide end-of-course exams, the percentage of passing high school students fell far below statewide averages, often by percentage points in the double digits. Results were equally dismal on third through eighth grade reading and math tests.
In a protracted and often bitter court fight to resist the state takeover, the elected school board, the administration, and the teachers’ unions were united in throwing the poverty and race of Houston students in the court’s face.
Their insistent refrain was that it was unfair, even cruel to expect mere teachers to overcome the severe social, moral and intellectual deficiencies that marched into the schoolhouse doors every morning from a world no school could hope to control.
Beginning with a brief tenure in Dallas as a reform superintendent a decade ago, Miles has maintained a core tenet directly counter to the Houston district’s courthouse defenses.
The Miles reforms turn on a strict premise that the adults responsible for the teaching of children can never have any excuse for failure.
Under Miles, educators must take students exactly as they come.
The Miles New Education System or NES provides teachers with deeply evidenced, tried and true methods of teaching.
The assumption is that a powerful learning engine resides in the brains of all children no matter where they come from and that it is the work of the adults to find it.
NES [Miles New Education System] is a tough, rigorous, very intense way to run a school.
Not a moment is wasted. Every kid is watched and checked through every hour of every class.
Those who get it are bumped ahead.
Those who don’t get it are given special attention until they do.
No child is ever lost or left behind.
…The 2025 end-of-year numbers in Houston prove unmistakably that the Miles NES system doesn’t just work.
It works gloriously.
On all of the end-of-course high school exams this year [2025]— the ones on which Houston high school students did so poorly two years ago — the percentage of students who now meet or exceed the standard has soared, in some cases by double digits.
On every single reading and math exam from third through eighth grade, the percentage of passing students increased over the two-year period, on two tests by double digits.
…These improvements, which far outstrip statewide averages on the same tests in the same period, are all the more startling when viewed against the backdrop of a stubborn decades-long decline before Miles showed up.
Supt. Mike Miles offers the example of the percentage of high school test-takers who passed the end-of-course Algebra I exam:
“If you look at Algebra I,” Miles told me, “the state was at 45% ‘meets and exceeds’ (the standard) in 2023.
Then look at HISD in 2023, we were at 34.
That means we were 11 points behind.
“Well now look at today.
We’re at 51.
The state’s at 47.
That’s a 17-point increase for us.
That’s a gain on the state of 15.
We are above the state average in two years.
We went from 11 points behind to 4 points ahead in just two years.
“And by the way, the Hispanic students in Houston are at 50. So the Hispanic kids in a district with high poverty are beating the state average in Algebra.”
…Children must learn to read from pre-school through the third grade.
That’s pretty much true everywhere, tied in part to brain development.
From the fourth grade on, children must read to learn.
Poor or not, minority or not, the kids who can read at fluent grade level at the beginning of the fourth grade are the ones who stay in school, graduate, go on to higher learning, to a trade or the military and wind up earning a living…
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[PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING EXCERPTS FROM A HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHER WHO EXPLAINS HOW SUPT. MILES’ NES WORKS IN THE CLASSROOM.]
2.17.25 – “Two Years Into Mike Miles’s HISD Tenure, Parents Are Still Mad” -- By Uvie Bikomo – Houstonian -- https://www.houstoniamag.com/news-and-city-life/2025/02/hisd-nes-protest-mike-miles
Mary Davis, a veteran English teacher at one NES high school (whose name was changed for this story due to fears for her job security), describes days filled with meticulously timed slides, packets for every lesson…
“[Teachers are] given slide decks, student activity packets… a test [students] have to take within 10 minutes, and then a follow-up activity sheet set…”
“There’s a camera in my classroom…”
Davis says her classroom door must remain open at all times (allowing administrators to walk in at any moment to monitor instruction).
Bathroom breaks are restricted…minor deviations from the scripted curriculum can result in write-ups or reprimands.
…With the NES model, (1) students follow along with their teachers timed district-prepared PowerPoint instruction, (2) which is followed by a 10-minute, five-question DOL (Demonstration of Learning) -- a quiz that tests how students understand the information they learned during the lesson.
The students who master the DOL are sent to the Team Centers to continue on with another more advanced assignment, while the students who had trouble with the quiz continue learning one-on-one with the teacher.
While [students] are switching classes, during class, and at lunch, much of the day the students are asked to operate at a “level 0,” which essentially means no talking [keeping their voices at level zero in the hallways and at lunch]
…Students are given a thirty-minute lunch break.
…In the second half of the day…the classes change from 90 minutes to 60 minutes, and electives are mixed in with the day’s final instruction.
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Excerpts from this article:
6.17.25 – “Texas Education Agency Releases Spring 2025 STAAR Results for Grades 3-8” – by Texas Education Agency -- https://tea.texas.gov/about-tea/news-and-multimedia/news-releases/news-2025/texas-education-agency-releases-spring-2025-staarr-results-for-grades-3-8
Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath stated:
“These results are encouraging and reflect the impact of the strategic supports we’ve implemented in recent years.
“With RLA scores now surpassing pre-pandemic levels, we are seeing meaningful signs of academic recovery and progress.
While this year also saw some improvements in math, clearly more work is needed.”
A more detailed statewide summary of 2025 STAAR 3-8 results is available on TEA’s website…
STAAR aggregate level data by state, region, district or campus is available to view and download on the Texas Assessment Research Portal
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MORE INFORMATION
6.23.25 – “Houston ISD’s Good News Is a Map for Texas Schools” – Dallas Morning News Editorial Board – Dallas Morning News -- https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2025/06/23/houston-isds-good-news-is-a-map-for-texas-schools/