Houston Independent School District (HISD) Superintendent Mike Miles claims to be a financial wizard. But controversy has followed the former military man-turned-school administrator to nearly every Texas school district he’s served. In 2012, he was hired as superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) and was found the following year to have violated district policies. Miles avoided termination, but he resigned in 2015 shortly after the DISD board did not approve changes to his contract that he’d requested.
In June 2023, the Texas Education Agency took over HISD and Commissioner Mike Morath, a former DISD board member who had supported Miles, tapped Miles to serve as superintendent. All year long, Miles’ actions have drawn protests from Houston parents, teachers, and students.
But in between running two of Texas’ largest school districts, from 2016 to 2023, Miles served as CEO of a charter school nonprofit called Third Future Schools in Colorado and accumulated debts while simultaneously expanding its operations into Texas, according to nonprofit tax documents. Under Morath’s leadership, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) approved Texas Partnership applications for extra funding and waivers of accountability standards for districts who entered into charter partnerships with Miles’ nonprofit to take over three public schools otherwise subject to TEA takeover. The districts entered into agreements with a related nonprofit entity registered to do business in Texas called Third Future Schools-Texas.
