The Houston ISD experiment: The good, the bad and the TBD

February 10, 2025

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Imagine being responsible for the education of 194,000 students (roughly the population of Salt Lake City) in a system where nearly half your schools are failing. That’s the challenge the Houston Independent School District (ISD) faced, making it more than just another struggling school system; it was an educational crisis affecting America’s fourth-largest city.

After years of declining performance, Texas took an unprecedented step: seizing control of the nation’s 8th largest school district and appointing Mike Miles as superintendent. What followed was either a bold renaissance or a controversial upheaval, depending on who you ask. Within months, Miles implemented sweeping changes that produced both dramatic improvements and fierce backlash.

The Houston experiment reveals an uncomfortable truth about education reform: what works often doesn’t feel right, and what feels right often doesn’t work. The changes represent one of the most ambitious educational overhauls in recent American history. But in an era where educational debates have become proxy battles in America’s culture wars, we need to look past both the enthusiastic praise and vitriolic criticism to examine what’s actually happening in Houston’s classrooms.

This analysis isn’t about picking political sides.

It’s about understanding what happens when theory meets reality in American education. Because while adults argue about ideology, 194,000 students are sitting in classrooms right now, and their futures can’t wait for us to resolve our political differences.

(Note: I’ve taken these practices as detailed in an article in the NYT titled “Is Micromanaging Classes a Recipe for School Success?” (The article title tells you what the NYT thinks of the changes)

The good: Evidence-based practices

Some of Miles’s most criticized changes are actually supported by cognitive science.

Take the regular quizzing that’s become a cornerstone of the new system.

While critics see it as teaching to the test, research on retrieval practice consistently shows that frequent testing enhances long-term learning. A comprehensive meta-analysis by Adesope et al. (2017) found that retrieval practice improves both factual and higher-order learning across different subjects and grade levels.

The emphasis on immediate feedback is another evidence-based practice.

When students who perform poorly on quizzes immediately receive targeted instruction, while others move on to independent work, it’s essentially a structured implementation of mastery learning. Research by Bloom and later scholars has shown this approach can significantly reduce achievement gaps.

The renewed focus on classroom discipline, while strangely controversial, addresses a real problem that many educators have been reluctant to confront. Studies consistently show that disruptive behavior significantly impacts learning outcomes, particularly for disadvantaged students.

The structured environment Miles implemented might feel rigid, but it creates predictability that many students, especially those from chaotic environments, benefit from. The previous approach of keeping disruptive students in classrooms, often to game graduation rate targets or out of ill-formed equity concerns, effectively sacrificed the learning environment for the majority of students who want to learn. This isn’t about being punitive; it’s about protecting every student’s right to an education.

The unclear: System-level changes

Some of Miles’s changes present complex trade-offs that defy simple evaluation.

The rapid pace of implementation is perhaps the most contentious. Traditional change management wisdom suggests gradual implementation with extensive stakeholder buy-in.

However, this conventional approach has a hidden cost: every year of delay means another cohort of students receiving subpar education. When a system is failing its students as dramatically as Houston was, the “safe” approach of gradual change might actually be the riskier choice for students’ futures.

The use of uncertified learning coaches to supervise high-performing students is another novel approach that lacks direct research support.

However, it could be seen as a pragmatic solution to resource constraints, allowing certified teachers to focus on struggling students.

The standardized curriculum presents similar trade-offs: while it might limit teacher creativity, it ensures consistent quality across classrooms and reduces the burden on teachers to develop materials.

The concerning: Potential pitfalls

Some aspects of the Houston experiment raise legitimate concerns, particularly regarding long-term educational outcomes.

The removal of school libraries and reduction in novel reading seems particularly short-sighted. Long-form reading has been shown to develop critical thinking skills and vocabulary in ways that shorter passages can’t replicate. This might be a case where the pursuit of immediate test score improvements could hamper longer-term learning outcomes.

The missing perspectives: Beyond political tribalism

The response to Houston’s reforms reveals an uncomfortable truth about education policy in America: often, the merits of changes matter less than who implements them because we prefer ideological and tribal lines of thinking over what actually helps our students. Because these reforms were initiated by Republican state leadership in a Democratic city, they faced immediate skepticism from traditional education advocates who might otherwise support similar interventions.

The failed bond measure vote, where Democrats opposed needed facility improvements largely to protest state control, perfectly illustrates how tribal politics can harm student interests.

This political lens distorts media coverage and public discourse with the coverage overwhelmingly amplifying voices opposing the changes, particularly dissatisfied teachers and parents, while neglecting potential beneficiaries.

High-performing students, for instance, might thrive under this system. The ability to move quickly through material once mastered, rather than waiting for the whole class, could prevent the boredom that often plagues advanced learners in traditional classrooms.

Similarly, parents of struggling students might appreciate the structured approach, even if they’re less vocal than critics. In a system where their children previously fell through the cracks, the new model’s emphasis on immediate intervention and consistent monitoring could provide much-needed support. But these perspectives rarely make headlines, as they don’t fit the prevailing narrative of resistance to Republican-led reform.

Educational reforms should be evaluated on their merits, not their political origins.

The fact that traditional Democratic allies opposed even basic infrastructure improvements suggests that some criticism stems more from tribal allegiance than genuine concern for student outcomes. This political tribalism particularly hurts disadvantaged students, who can’t afford to wait for their preferred political party to implement needed changes.

The pragmatic reality

The Houston experiment forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth: in a system constrained by standardized testing and limited resources, perfect solutions don’t exist.

Miles’s approach might be seen as educational pragmatism. He is doing what works within existing constraints rather than waiting for ideal conditions and years ultimately failing more students.

The early results are dramatic including reductions in failing schools and improved test scores. This suggests that this pragmatic approach might be working, even if it doesn’t align with traditional educational ideals. It’s worth noting that Houston maintained its reading scores while national trends declined, suggesting the new system provides some resilience against learning loss.

Looking forward

The real test of Houston’s experiment will be its sustainability and scalability.

Can the system maintain its improvements while addressing teacher burnout? Conversely, given past results, perhaps new teachers are required? Can it evolve to incorporate more holistic educational goals without losing its effectiveness?

These questions remain unanswered.

What’s clear is that the Houston experiment offers valuable lessons about educational reform. It shows that dramatic improvement is possible, even in struggling systems, but also highlights the complex trade-offs involved in achieving those improvements.

Perhaps the most important lesson is that effective education reform might require us to challenge our assumptions about what good education looks like.

Sometimes, the practices that feel most educational might not be the ones that help students learn most effectively. And in a system with real constraints and struggling students, pragmatic solutions that work might be preferable to idealistic approaches that don’t.

The path forward likely lies not in wholesale adoption or rejection of Houston’s model, but in carefully evaluating which elements work, for whom, and why. This requires moving past emotional reactions to examine evidence, while remaining mindful of the complex human factors involved in education. After all, the goal should not be to win ideological battles, but to help students learn more effectively.

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Anand Sanwal