The STAAR Strategy: How Houston Boosted Scores

Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles is touting a major boost in student performance, pointing to significant gains on STAAR exam results since the Texas Education Agency appointed him in 2023. Reading and math scores across elementary and middle school grades have risen by 3 to 15 points, while high school performance saw even sharper jumps, biology scores increased by 17 points and Algebra I by 23. Miles credits these improvements to his tightly structured New Education System (NES), now implemented in nearly half the district’s schools, calling the growth unprecedented for both Houston and Texas.

However, deeper analysis reveals that the path to these impressive numbers may come at a hidden cost. To boost performance metrics, HISD has significantly altered the academic tracks of students in NES schools, delaying their exposure to more advanced coursework, as reported by Texas Monthly. Eighth-grade Algebra I offerings have been cut or severely restricted at several campuses, despite past student success in the course. Similarly, ninth-grade students are being rerouted from biology into a remedial Integrated Physics and Chemistry class, a move that pushes state testing back a year. These decisions inflate performance results while stalling academic advancement for students who may be ready for more rigorous challenges.

District leaders say the changes provide necessary support for English-language learners and under-resourced schools, giving students more time to build foundational skills. But critics, including former board members and current teachers, argue the strategy prioritizes test scores over real learning. Educators within NES schools report a culture of fear, high turnover, and loss of autonomy, pressures that pushed veteran teachers like Minh-Dan Tran to leave. Many warn that Miles’s focus on optics and data manipulation undermines both student growth and public trust in the education system.

“But if we are going to use STAAR as some kind of benchmark, we need to be able to compare apples to apples, right? Like, I’m a science person-we need controls and variables. They’re throwing way too many variables into this and then cherry-picking the data to match what they want the story to be,” Tran told Texas Monthly.

While Miles and his supporters hail the results as unprecedented, education experts caution against equating short-term score improvements with genuine learning. The disparities between NES and non-NES schools, where more privileged students continue on accelerated tracks, raise questions about equity.