In February 2024, Texas education commissioner Mike Morath spent a day touring classrooms in the Houston Independent School District. Wearing a brown sport coat and tortoiseshell glasses, the pale, ectomorphic former software developer was captured by local news cameras awkwardly shaking hands with a student at Kashmere High School, in Houston's Trinity Gardens neighborhood. "What was really heartening to see is the quality of instruction, the quality of rigor," he later enthused to a reporter. It was Morath's first visit to the district since the state had wrested control of HISD from its elected board of trustees the previous year, partly because of Kashmere's poor academic performance. Joining him on the tour was the superintendent he handpicked, Mike Miles, a West Point–educated former diplomat and founder of the Third Future charter school network.
READ MORE
------------------------------
Michael Spurlin
ATPE
------------------------------