Spectrum News recently published a story that has gained attention in the community. The story included numerous allegations of wrongdoing related to Mike Miles’s involvement with Third Future Schools, his former place of employment.
Setting the Record Straight:
Despite the sensational story and aggregation of information to create a misleading narrative, it appears that TFS operated entirely within the bounds of Texas law.
The big picture:
The Houston Chronicle
provides useful explanation of how charter schools operate,
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"Chapter 45 of the Texas Education Code states that public schools, including charter schools, can use state funds that are “not designated for a specific purpose” for any other purposes “necessary in the conduct of the public schools determined by the board of trustees.”
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Toni Templeton, a senior research scientist at the University of Houston Education Research Center, said this language gives school boards broad flexibility to approve spending funds on nearly anything they determine is necessary for the benefit of the students, including purchasing services from other institutions and paying management or network fees.
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“It’s not uncommon for (state) funds to go out of state,” said Templeton. “I can understand how in the context of this particular conversation, people can be concerned, but no, it’s not an uncommon occurrence.”
Superintendent Mike Miles said Tuesday,
“Third Future Schools have been very careful, and they’ve always passed their audits easily…they do audits in Texas. They do audits in Colorado. … so they’re a good organization. They’re very careful about not commingling funds. They follow the law very carefully, and anything else is just to be dismissed out of hand.”
Bottom Line:
The allegations put forth in the Spectrum News report are misleading, and in some case, demonstrably false.
Sadly, it is not surprising that opponents of turning around HISD and those that have used Miles to distract from the urgent need to improve student outcomes would use these tactics to sow fear and spread misinformation.
