Texas Gov Gifts Houston Schools Orderly, Robotic Efficiency, Stomping On Their Faces Forever

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is a small government conservative who simply can’t stand it when local small governments do anything he dislikes, so he uses state power to stomp that stuff flat, as he did with local mask mandates during the pandemic. As part of that commitment to very large small government, back in April, the Texas Education Agency seized control of the public school districts in Houston and Austin, firing their superintendents and elected school boards on the pretext that the schools were failing.

In Houston, Abbott appointed former charter school guy Mike Miles as the new superintendent, and Miles set to work implementing a new system of total control over education that he promised would improve student performance and close educational gaps. Modeled on a system he came up with for his charter schools, its name reflects the efficiency and clean straight lines of Brutalist architecture: the “New Education System” (NES). Eighty-five of Houston’s 274 campuses are currently in the system “voluntarily,” and more will be added if they know what’s good for ‘em.

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Among other efficiencies, the system involves all teachers working from the same PowerPoint curriculum prepared for them each day, and extremely structured class periods. To keep the focus on learning the predigested materials, 28 of the NES schools determined to be most in need of improvement have converted the school libraries into “team centers,” where students who’ve stepped out of line will be sent to do their work, and also where other kids will work individually or in groups for “enrichment” shit. More about that in a moment; here’s a pretty eye-opening report from MSNBC on all this mess:

In what reads like a news dispatch from a dystopian future novel, except without a charismatic young rebel who was born to lead everyone to freedom, the Houston Chronicle went along with Miles to visit some schools using The New Order (gift link) on the first day of school Monday. We learn that instead of wasting time with “‘what I did this summer’ activities or getting-to-know-you games,” the kids got promptly to work, all neat and orderly:

Students sat silently, pencils scratching, as they worked on the “demonstration of learning” worksheets that they’ll be required to complete every day in their core classes. Teachers taught from PowerPoint presentations developed by HISD’s central office, with a livestream of the class projected on an adjacent wall — the same stream a student would watch from a laptop were they to act out in class and be sent to one of the school’s “Team Centers,” some of which have replaced their school’s libraries.

Happily, nobody had go to the team center for discipline Monday, because the classes themselves seem entirely punitive enough. In a 90-minute class, each day’s lesson is presented to the whole class, from the PowerPoint, and then they complete their “demonstrations of learning,” because that’s a noun in the New Conformity.

Students who need more time to demonstrate that they are learning anything stay the last 35 minutes of class with their teacher, while the students who got the idea or are actually well ahead of the day’s objective are sent to the Team Center to do additional work to make sure the lesson is embedded in their heads, or even to do more advanced work on the same stuff, with a “Learning Coach” to help out.

The idea is that by separating everyone up into groups, the kids who need more work will soon be working at grade level on that topic and can go to the former library too, but not to read. So take that, libs, the closed libraries aren’t only detention centers, because they’re also used every day by the kids doing enrichment, and there’s no way any kids would know exactly who’s in stir Team Center for discipline, no never.

Also, there’s no risk that the kids who keep staying with their teachers each class, day after day, will be teased or bullied, because as far as we can tell, nobody is allowed to talk much at all, except maybe at recess, which is only for grades K-5. Parents had to fight to get Miles to allow that much recess; the original plan was two 15-minute breaks (including time to get to the playgrounds), and only for K-4.

Superintendent Gradgrind is a real stickler for staying on task and on the clock, too. The Chronicle notes that as he visited classes Monday with school principals, Miles offered “mild but firm” suggestions for improvement.

While he was glad to see that teachers appeared to be implementing his directives — engaging students every four minutes through “multiple response strategies,” and using a timer to keep lessons moving — there was no misstep too small that it couldn’t be improved upon. After one teacher at Forest Brook spent about 30 seconds trying to get her electronic whiteboard to work, Miles lamented the loss of time that could have been spent learning.

“While she’s working on things, there’s no reason why the kid can’t be working. Even if the technology goes down, that’s wasted time for kids if you don’t have them reading, annotating, or something like that,” Miles told the principal.

Now that teacher will have to make up those 30 seconds in Hell. Or maybe have 30 seconds deducted from her lifespan by the Master Timekeeper, just like in that great Harlan Ellison story “‘Repent Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” — a story that’s presumably not part of the approved high school literature curriculum, but which all Texas colleges and universities should quietly add to theirs.

Update: Now that I think about it, I think it would be fun to do a one-time Wonkette Book Club on Ellison’s grouchy little 1965 classic, which the brilliant asshole wrote in six hours. I’ll be on vacation next week, but when I’m back I’ll make some kind of announcement.

I need to do a little more research, because I honestly don’t know whether Brave New Curriculum high school English classes will be allowed to waste time on something as unpredictable and unprogrammed as “discussing” a book or story. I’ll look into it.

Oh, also, when children need to use the restroom — officially discouraged during the first 45 minutes of class, when everyone is getting the day’s lesson pumped into their heads — kids need to drag a full-sized orange traffic cone with them as their bathroom pass, and I swear I am not making this up.

It’s just possible this may not be an ideal system of education, but Miles is sure teachers simply need to give it a chance, because it is actually scientific and will result in achievement.

Some teachers have said that the command to jump right into lessons without getting to know their students, knowing that a superior from central office might walk in at any moment, has led to a culture of fear in their schools. Miles said the mandate was necessary to start students off on the right foot and ensure high-quality instruction in the classrooms.

“Discipline and order and high-quality instruction is not the enemy of enthusiasm or fun, and I think we have to shift our mindset a little bit and see that relationships can be built and kids can have fun, even if there’s high-quality instruction,” Miles said. 

They’ll grow to like it, and they will have fun, as directed. And by god, they WILL color inside the lines.

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[Houston Chronicle (gift link) / Mendez Middle School / University of Minnesota Duluth]

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