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| CASE Report
Smart Brevity ®
count: 6 mins...1602 words
CASE is a collective of Houstonians committed to ensuring every student within Houston Independent School District (HISD) has the opportunity to receive a high-quality education.
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Different Day, Same Story: Chronicle Misleads as Scores Rise
 No matter how high the test scores
, how improved the student support systems
, or how glowing the reports
from students, teachers, and families, the Houston Chronicle just can’t seem to bring themselves to give HISD’s leadership an unequivocal “congratulations.”
For example, consider their latest puzzling headline: HISD's failing schools have made major academic gains. Local leaders say Miles shouldn't take credit.
In the article, the author explores how prior administrations might be the true driver of HISD’s current academic success - not Superintendent Miles and his NES system. The same author failed to provide the same historical context when the news was negative, such as dilapidated buildings or transportation problems.
History Repeats:
This new dose of unfounded skepticism is brought to you by the same outlet that gave you gems such as:
Outright Lies: The Houston Chronicle is really having trouble writing accurate headlines. Remember when they gave us this whopper? “
HISD's Miles will convert some libraries into discipline areas, eliminate librarians.
”
That story turned out to be completely false. Even as other outlets correctly reported
on the “Team Centers” that were housed within the still-existing libraries, the Houston Chronicle decided to double down and re-upped the “discipline center” lie with yet another unfortunate headline, “
Mayor Turner, city leaders condemn HISD plans to convert some libraries to discipline centers”.
Again, for the record, there is no such thing as a “discipline center” in HISD.
Other journalists even called out
this “false narrative” peddled by the Chronicle:
“We saw in real time that the Team Centers were not just detention centers. They were there not only for a kid who was acting up but also students who had done particularly well and were given extra worksheets to do higher level work. But some members of the media — not the Houston Press — allowed that false narrative to keep going for weeks.” – Margaret Downing, Houston Press.
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Undisclosed Conflict Taints Houston Public Media’s HISD Coverage
 Imagine if a reporter wrote numerous negative, scary articles about how awful Coke is, but never disclosed to the reader that they own significant stock in Pepsi - should anyone take those negative articles seriously?
This is exactly what happened at Houston Public Media regarding their HISD reporter, Dominic Anthony Walsh. Walsh spent over a year writing some of the most negative, biased, and false stories about HISD for Houston Public Media, but never once disclosed to the readership that he was in a relationship with an HISD teacher.
Despite having direct personal interests in the subject of his stories, Walsh and HPM ignored journalistic ethics and continued to mislead the public on their impartiality regarding HISD. Texas Monthly’s full expose is here.
Here’s a sample of Walsh’s stories:
Houston ISD requires remaining human resources staffers work overtime and weekends, without pay, one week after layoffs.
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The word “remaining” here gives the connotation of understaffing, which is misleading.
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Working on weekends is what the staffers agreed to by becoming “exempt” employees - they knew this was a requirement when they started.
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Exempt employees do not get extra pay simply for working outside of normal hours - as is normal at any educational institution.
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“one week after layoffs” is a gratuitous shot at HISD administration, who were forced to make tough personnel decisions after years of overstaffing and using one-time federal money to fund new, recurring salaries.
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The article itself contradicts the headline. The headline says HISD is requiring overtime, but the article quotes Miles as saying "That doesn’t mean that they should work overtime or anything like that."
TEA-appointed Houston ISD board wants to lengthen the school year through controversial process rejected in 2021
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Walsh reminds the reader that the board of managers was appointed, despite it being irrelevant to the story.
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District of Innovation (DOI) is not “controversial” to those without a stake in the status quo. There are roughly 1,000 school districts in Texas, and 965 are DOI. Every single Houston-area school district is DOI. Source.
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The process was “rejected” by an underfilled District Advisory Committee in 2021 that was overrepresented by the local teacher union. Once the committee was filled and more representative of the actual Houston community, there was overwhelming support for DOI.
Mike Miles gains power as Houston ISD Board of Managers approves major policy changes, union files grievances and community members protest
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Walsh directly comments on teacher pay, which undeniably affects his personal life since he is engaged to an HISD teacher that will presumably be paid under the framework he is commenting on. Walsh adds a note on “the community’s” skepticism.
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Walsh takes a surprise left turn in the middle of the article to stop covering policy changes in order to repeat the debunked trope that HISD is closing libraries. By the time Walsh wrote this article, the “detention center” lie had been corrected
several times by other media outlets, but Walsh keeps it going.
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Without a shred of evidence, Walsh insinuates that teacher’s grievances would not be fairly heard because the Texas Education Agency would not be impartial.
Why it matters:
Public media is important to society because it is supposed to be free from the influence of special interests, bias, or favoritism. Since our tax dollars fund public media, we all have a stake in ensuring its impartiality.
When we can no longer trust our public media outlets to be impartial, they become no different than a boosted Facebook post - only believable to the extent you can decipher the personal interests of the poster.
HPM still refuses to place a simple disclaimer on Walsh’s stories to inform the reader that the author could have a personal agenda behind his writing.
The bottom line:
It is disappointing that Houston Public Media would allow an objectively biased reporter to write articles about such an important topic as public education. Going forward, it will be difficult to forget that they consciously misrepresent their impartiality.
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Fed Rate Cut Benefits Bond
The Federal Reserve's recent decision to reduce interest rates
is a welcome development for HISD, which has the largest school bond in state history at $4.4 billion on the Nov. 5 ballot.
HBJ’s full article is here.
Why it Matters:
Despite the district’s overwhelming needs, some have expressed hesitation at the bond’s price tag. Since the fed has reduced rates, the bond, if passed, will now be much less expensive over time.
What They’re Saying: "The Fed's action and signals have the potential to lower the district's long-term borrowing costs for our planned issuances in 2025, 2026, 2027 and 2028, especially if there are additional future cuts," said HISD spokesperson Jose A. Irizarry.
For more: Click here
for more information on HISD’s bond package, including a school-by-school list of proposed upgrades.
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“Some parents cheered” - Enthusiasm Abounds for Bond’s Co-location Plans
 Houston ISD's proposed $4.4 billion school bond would bring a new, expanded building to Project Chrysalis Middle and Cage Elementary schools' shared campus, district officials said at a Thursday meeting at Cage.
According to reporters, “some parents cheered” when the plans were laid out, and principals called it a “huge upgrade”. Like many HISD facilities, the Cage/Chrysalis location was severely lacking and in disrepair, but the bond’s proposed investments would fully resolve that problem.
Houston Chronicle’s story is here.
Why it matters:
The article’s demure headline belies the content’s significance: If the bond passes, HISD plans to make a massive, generational investment into a co-located school in a predominantly minority, disadvantaged neighborhood.
Houston’s historic East End community has suffered from underinvestment for decades, but that changes if the bond passes this November.
More Context:
There has been a lot of noise about co-locations lately. Some anti-bond groups are repeatedly conflating “co-locations” with “closures”
, which is misleading. Despite the rhetoric, actual parents of co-located HISD students are enthusiastically welcoming the arrangement.
What they’re saying:
“It was just high schools, and no one else got anything in the (2012) bond. And we also felt like it was really important in those foundational discussions that everyone got safe and healthy upgrades to their campus. So co-location is part of what is allowing us to do those things that we value.”
By the numbers:
The full rebuild for Cage, built in 1983
, would cost $39 million, with an expansion to accommodate Project Chrysalis for $27 million. Heating, air conditioning and ventilation updates, lead abatement, and safety updates would cost an additional $7 million.
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