HOUSTON – It’s the last day of the school year for students in Houston ISD and Superintendent Mike Miles was nearly gushing as he talked about how the district’s high school students performed on the state-mandated STAAR tests this year.
“So this is a great year for the district and especially our kids,” Miles said. “The headline for me is the students and teachers did great. Really good job, it’s one of the highest years of academic growth the district has ever experienced.” Miles said results for grades 3 through 8 are even stronger and those come out next week. “And in reading and math, that’s probably the highest growth of any urban district in the history of Texas.”
For HISD high schools, Miles said students at the NES schools scored almost twice what the average district student scored.
“So they had unbelievable results,” he said.
“These results far exceeded expectations for one year’s growth,” Miles added, adding the district is narrowing the achievement gap.
High school students take end-of-course tests for Algebra I, English I, English II, Biology and U.S. History.
Their proficiency in the subjects is scored in four ways:
- Does Not Meet
- Approaches
- Meets or Exceeds
- Exceeds
Miles said proficiency scores in biology were the biggest surprise and that HISD students outperformed the state by quite a bit in biology scores, and those state results are available to compare next week.
HISD high school students scored 14 points higher in biology than last year. NES students scored 18 points better than last year.
A closer look at data from the last 7 years shows greater gains in other years for every course except Biology.
Algebra I:
- Scores grew 6 points from 2018-2019 compared to 5 points from 2023-2024.
- Peak score: 50 in 2019
English I:
- Scores grew 4 points from 2019-2021 compared to 3 points from 2023-2024.
- Peak score: 44 in 2024, highest level in 7 years of data provided
English II:
- Scores grew 7 points from 2019-2021 compared to 5 points from 2023-2024
- Peak score: 50 in 2021 and 2022
U.S. History
- Scores grew 6 points from 2021-2022 and were flat from 2023-2024
- Peak score: 68 in 2019
Biology
- Scores grew 14 points from 2023-2024, compared to 4 points from 2019-2019, the next highest growth year.
- Peak score: 54 in 2024, highest level in 7 years of data provided
Miles gave a lot of credit to teachers for setting a high bar for students and helping them reach it, even though the district is parting ways with an undisclosed number of teachers and principals.
For some, that might come across as a mixed message.
This school year is ending with a lot of emotion for many students, parents, and educators with the district’s recent job cuts and many teachers and principals finding out late in the Spring that they won’t be back next year because their contracts are not being renewed.
The administration ahead of time said Miles would also answer questions on other topics, but he said at the top of his news conference that he’ll hold any other questions until next week.
Here is the data Mike Miles released:
On the Agenda
Miles and the school board have two big financial decisions ahead of them in the weeks ahead.
First, finalizing a budget and closing the $528M gap, which is the reason Miles said they’ve made cuts to every department while trying to keep cuts as far away from students as possible. The superintendent vowed in a news conference last month that no teacher or principal jobs were being eliminated; they’ll all be replaced by new educators with the mindset for ‘continued improvement.’
The new fiscal year begins July 1.
Second, is the $4.5B bond proposal Miles and the school board want to put before voters in November. The public has one more opportunity for input on Monday, June 10 from 6 - 8 p.m. at Forest Brook Middle School.