In 2023, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) saw over 40% of its districts receive a grade of “D” or “F” from the Texas Education Agency (TEA). Today, Houston is no longer independent, having been taken over by the state, and the results have been stunning. Of the 121 failing schools (56 received an “F”) in the 274-school district that year, none received an “F” at the end of the 2025 school year.
Acting on state regulations that allow a takeover of schools found to be failing in multiple consecutive years (one high school received the failing grade seven years in a row), the TEA assumed control of the 200,000-student district, the largest in the state, that had been plagued by declining test scores in reading, post-pandemic. It fired the superintendent and dissolved the elected school board. In their place, a state-appointed Board of Managers was installed to run the district, and appointed Mike Miles as superintendent. Miles is an educator, former Army Ranger, and diplomat to Poland and Russia.
Miles implemented his New Education System (NES) in the lowest-performing schools. NES features centrally created lessons, a district-approved model of instruction, higher pay for teachers, and a shakeup to staffing models. It’s a significant departure from Houston ISD’s previous decentralized approach, where campuses had more autonomy over instruction and staff.
Houston New Education System
Rejecting a piecemeal approach to reform, Miles describes the six components of what he calls “Wholescale System Reform”:
“We use a unique instructional model that combines grade-level instruction with scaffolds and a highly differentiated model of instruction.
“The second is the quality of instruction. Instruction is key for us. We do a lot of on-the-job coaching. We do a lot of short spot observations and immediate feedback. We do a lot of training on what grade-level instruction looks like for principals and teachers and executive directors. We insist on that continuous improvement mindset.
“The third thing is high-quality instructional materials. We have designed our own curriculum for the wholescale systemic reform. We call it NES, New Education System. For those 85, and now 130, [NES] schools, we have our own curriculum, which means we also provide the teacher with the PowerPoint, the quizzes — or what we call “demonstrations of learning” — the lesson objective, the differentiated assignments. They’re tightly aligned with the standards, and they’ve been vetted.
“Fourth is staffing. Our staffing model’s a little bit different. We have teacher apprentices, we have learning coaches, we have smaller class sizes. And then we have just a lot of focus on ensuring that anybody who steps in the classroom, whether it’s a teacher apprentice or learning coach, is prepared to teach well — even if the teacher is absent that day or goes on long-term maternity leave or something like that.
“Then there’s leadership. We have principal apprentices. We have a principal’s academy of about 70 people who are learning to be principals, and they get paid just to learn how to be principals for that year. And then they become a principal or assistant principal at the end of that.
“And then there’s culture — and culture is not innovative. Culture is just something we actually do instead of just say. Culture is high accountability with lots of support, because accountability without support is just fear. But there’s lots of support, higher expectations and continuous improvement. All of those things we insist on, and we support.”
The Houston school district website trumpets the successes so far for the NES approach:
- Student achievement is rising with double-digit gains in math and reading proficiency in many NES schools.
- Campus ratings have dramatically improved. In 2023, only 11 NES schools earned an “A” or “B” rating. In 2024, that number jumped to 53—a remarkable 480% increase.
- Teachers and principals are better supported, receiving clear guidance and ongoing coaching on what high-quality instruction looks like.
Dave Trabert, CEO of Kansas Policy Institute and the Sentinel, says Houston’s New Education System might be an option for Kansas school boards to consider.”
“The state can’t take over districts in Kansas, but local school boards might think about implementing the NES system under the state’s Innovative District law and be exempt from many state laws, rules, and regulations that get in teachers’ way.”
The 2024 state assessment showed that more than 150,000 Kansas students have a limited ability to read and may be functionally illiterate.
