From KPRC to this
is Houston. Newsmakers with khambrel Marshall.
Good morning. It is my pleasure to welcome,
HISD superintendent. Mike miles to Houston newsmakers.
Thank you for making this time.
Thank you for inviting me. You new to the area. You’ve accepted this
leadership role during what is a very challenging time for all Educators,
but especially HISD. They’ve been under microscope for so
long. Why did you decide that you want this challenge?
So, I’m
A public servant. I’m a professional public servant. I’ve served
as a
army officer.
Diplomat the Poland, Russia
was a teacher
principal
and in my education career it’s always
survive. Always serve the underserved
and so when the call came out,
I knew that this was an opportunity to serve a whole bunch
of kids.
Many of whom are underserved
or underprivileged.
And
so I wanted to help.
What about your upbringing has prepared
Aired you for some of this. Sometimes when people take these kind of jobs or something
about their background,
the kind of tells you, okay? This person was made to do this or not.
Whatever. What about your background is prepared you for what you’re doing now?
Yeah I think we’re all,
you know, partly a product of our experiences so
I guess.
First of all I grew up. Poor
one of eight kids,
my father’s, black my mother’s Japanese, she didn’t speak English.
So I
If I a lot with
people whose first language is not English,
my dad was in
Korea and Vietnam quite a bit in those days.
And
so,
we didn’t have a lot,
but the one thing I did have
was education
and my parents pushed education. My mom couldn’t speak English, but
she knew that education
was
the way
to change your stars
and I had teachers who helped me. I had a speech impediment, I
couldn’t
pronounce words.
Words, I couldn’t speak properly or be understood
and I had a couple first grade teachers who took me by the hand
and they did not say,
you know,
poor kid. Let’s cut him some slack. You know, he’s one of
eight, he can’t speak and he
comes from poverty.
Broken phone Homer.
It wasn’t really broken but my dad wasn’t there
and
they didn’t say that
what they did say is
you can
achieve, we’re going to teach you
and they did
so that I think that helped a lot.
Lat, we talked a little bit before we start taping, you know, my background is
around Educators and I know what they push toward me as
well. T EA
has said that’s what they want for HISD as well. But as it has happened,
there’s been protests and those protests have been visible
for quite some time.
They happened many months before
the state stepped in and really heated up when it looked like
a
certain he was going to happen. The community meetings that you set up.
They were set up really to give information
to the parents. They turned into a shouting
Matches in some places by parents and activists
your board meetings with the new board of managers and the place got off
to a rough start with some of the people, they’re
being dragged off the premises and now with the rest, having them made
for a disruptor people. Now, the most recent meetings have been less
tumultuous,
but I want you to listen to this, he these people have been holding signs up
thumbs down to let you know what they’re thinking,
watch and listen. As you talked about the need to focus on
the task ahead.
Let’s not make light of the fact that this job is going
to require
all of our team. All of you.
And actually members of the community have courage
to do things differently
to hear things that are not true.
So how challenging is it for you to conduct business?
With all of that going on? It’s quieter now. But it’s still
pretty obvious. People holding up signs and it sort of thing. Yes. So
it’s
totally understandable that
when people don’t have information
and there’s going to be change
that,
you know, there’s going to be anxiety, fear and protest
that that I’m used to and I understand it.
And so, the
task is to
provide information and even last night, you saw that,
the further we got in
and they are,
they heard more about destination 2035?
It actually calm down. At least I could sense that, right? I had
my back to the audience because it’s a
it’s a board meeting.
It’s not I’m not performing for the public.
I am presenting information
to the board in public
and so
that was that was a test and as long as we can get our work
done
and we can
explain to the board so that they can make good decisions
around what we have to do the path forward.
Then it’s fine. And I thought last night was a good board meeting.
So one of the things that you brought up in the meeting and I want
to ask you to but how long it’s going to take for you.
To
get things done, where it’s going to make a difference and how long do you think is
going to take for the community
to start supporting the things you want to do?
Yeah, I think you know,
getting out,
not just me, but the board and explaining what we’re trying to
do.
I think, also
showing that
what we’re trying to do is actually
build equity, right? Grow
Equity, because it is a
tale of two
districts.
So if we can do that
a lot this summer and in the fall,
I think
giving the information
so that they have
true understanding of what we’re trying to do because
what we’re trying to do, I think most people in the public
want,
right? They want
services
that are more Equitable,
they want us to improve
reading,
ability of our kids,
they want us to prepare for the future. So all the things that I’m
talking about,
I think, in general, most people want
one of the things you did
at one of your
Board means you talked about some of the specific challenges as it relates to
suggested,
you talked about the data
from the national assessment
of educational progress. And that was interesting because it showed
that only 32%
of United States fourth graders
are reading at grade level
Texas. Is it by the way? That’s not good 30%. Exactly
a good. All right,
Texas is at thirty percent
Urban cities are a little bit less than that, but H is dies at 19
percent of fourth graders.
A great level, you what plan specifically are you proposing
to deal with that? What is a steep deficit? There’s no way to look at it.
Otherwise, yeah,
and
I’m glad you asked me about data and, and it’s, you know, I gave
data last night
and
it’s not just about numbers on a spreadsheet.
The
real question is,
can our kids read
and that’s that’s, that’s real question. Can they do math?
Are they prepared
for
Jobs
that will provide them a living wage.
You know, once they graduate,
are they prepared for the year 2035
those are the questions of data that suggests that Ryan and
any
you can you can look at data and a lot of different ways.
I think there’s
no way to look at
the mass amount of data in HISD and say we’re
doing great.
It’s not that we don’t have great schools. Okay? So
I’ve said that a lot because
because I do want to validate the hard work that
That people
have put into the district
and there are schools that are doing well
but then there are a lot of schools that are not doing well. We have to
face those brutal facts.
So I’m going to
ask you some questions about that along those lines.
And I have a unique opportunity to get input from other people
as well. So we’re going to talk about that more
for major. I see superintendent Mike miles in a bit.
We’re going to take questions posed by our KPRC, to insiders.