Hours after Houston ISD residents delivered the sharpest rebuke to date of Superintendent Mike Miles, shooting down a $4.4 billion bond proposal that became a referendum on his administration, the district’s state-appointed leader made one thing clear.

He’s not bending to voters.

Faced with the clearest evidence yet that a large swath of HISD families oppose his drastic overhaul of HISD, Miles on Wednesday blamed the bond’s resounding failure on his critics, accusing them of “misleading the community” and “intentionally putting politics and other things in the way of kids.”

Miles’ comments followed nearly 60 percent of about 441,000 voters rejecting the bond proposal — a result that two state-appointed HISD school board members described as a “wake-up call” for the district.

“Changing course is not even a question. It’s not even in the cards,” Miles said.

The superintendent’s defiant tone Wednesday sets the stage for continued clashes with community members and local leaders, many of whom saw the bond vote as a first opportunity to rebuff Miles’ administration. With the result, HISD earned the undesirable distinction of becoming the first Texas district to see a billion-dollar bond fail after the previous 23 elections all succeeded.

The Texas Education Agency installed Miles as HISD superintendent when it took over the district in June 2023 and, since then, his hard-charging leadership style has been the subject of ongoing community protest. Many families have objected to Miles’ mandate of fast-paced classroom instruction in some schools, strict student discipline standards and high teacher turnover across the district.

Throughout the uproar, Miles has shown little interest in pleasing his critics. He has described the 2023-24 school year, which unofficially saw the number of top-rated campuses nearly double under Texas’ academic accountability system, as “one of the most successful years the district has ever seen.” He has also clashed with teachers union leaders and mostly characterized his opposition as a small, loud contingent that doesn’t represent families districtwide.

Yet Tuesday’s bond results leave no doubt that resistance to Miles’ approach extends to tens of thousands of voters across HISD. In interviews Wednesday, school board members Adam Rivon and Rolando Martinez said the bond vote opened their eyes to potential blind spots in their understanding of family concerns.

“I think that there’s something that people are saying that we need to listen to,” Rivon said. “I believe that it’s about how we bring people along, and not drag them along.”

Miles: No return to ‘status quo’

From the moment Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath replaced HISD’s superintendent and elected school board, the result of state sanctions against the district, voters have had virtually no say in how HISD is run. 

The bond election, however, marked the community’s highest-profile opportunity to vote on a key aspect of HISD operations.

Miles and HISD board members assembled the $4.4 billion proposal earlier this year, arguing the district was long overdue for major upgrades after 12 years without a bond. The money would pay for renovating or rebuilding three dozen schools, modernizing old campuses across the district and buying new technology, among other costs.

Miles said he believed HISD residents would put aside their feelings about him and approve spending for students. Opponents, however, framed the vote as an opportunity to send a message about their anger with the state takeover, rallying behind the slogan “No trust, no bond.” 

In the wake of its defeat, HISD’s leadership and critics remain on vastly different pages.

For Miles’ part, his bond post-mortem included painting the bond result as “unfortunate and wrong. In a written message to the HISD community late Tuesday, he invoked a quote from Nelson Mandela: “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”

In an interview Wednesday, Miles doubled down against the district’s largest employee union, the Houston Federation of Teachers, accusing it of spreading misinformation about the bond. When asked whether HISD leaders had gleaned any lessons from the bond vote, Miles vowed not to “let the naysayers or the people who are bad actors gain the narrative.”

“We’re not going to let the union keep lying without calling them out,” Miles said. “They’ve got no ideas. Have you heard one idea from the union? They just want to go back to the status quo. That’s their idea. And we’re not going to do that.”

Board: ‘Back to the drawing board’

But Rivon and Martinez, the two board members, said they are reflecting on how to adjust tactics and better work with families following the bond’s failure. 

Martinez said HISD is at a complex juncture, with student test scores rising at rarely-seen rates yet many families opposing the means used to achieve those results.

“I understand how some communities feel like they’re not being heard,” Martinez said. “The administration is going to have to go back to the drawing board and say, ‘How do we make sure that communities are getting updates and that we actually follow through on that which we are committing to.’”

Rivon and Martinez said they didn’t believe the bond vote represented a decisive blow to the HISD administration, and neither indicated that it would lead to immediate policy changes. Both hedged when asked whether the election result represented widespread opposition to Miles, each suggesting other factors could have motivated voters.

“I would not see (the bond result) alone as a major igniting force for change,” Rivon said.

Two other board members, Ric Campo and Janette Garza Lindner, declined to comment on the bond result when reached Wednesday, while efforts to reach four other board members were unsuccessful. Board President Audrey Momanaee sent a short written statement saying the board would “continue its work to build relationships with those in our community.” 

Community: Miles playing ‘blame game’

While HISD’s leadership foresees more of the same, bond opponents — and even some supporters — hoped the result would spur change in attitude.

Jackie Anderson, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers and leading opponent of HISD’s state-appointed leadership, said her celebrations of the bond’s failure were “bittersweet.” Choosing between leadership she distrusts and delays to school facility upgrades is “nothing to be happy about,” Anderson said.

Anderson added that Miles’ response to the bond vote discouraged her. Initially, she had hoped the community’s decision might show Miles he needed to listen more to union members and families, but the superintendent’s statements convinced her otherwise.

“It wasn’t adult politics. It’s parents who care about their children. He doesn’t get it,” Anderson said. “It’s really alarming to me that he feels he could lead this district without parent input, without teacher input. And he’s still playing the blame game. Nothing will change until he changes.”

Judith Cruz, a former HISD trustee who supported the bond and served as a co-chair of an advisory committee that provided feedback on the proposal, said she believes the decisive vote should prompt soul-searching on the district’s part.

“This goes far beyond the folks that show up to board meetings, or are emailing board members or the superintendent. This is a much larger community that is speaking up with their vote,” Cruz said. 

“I hope that the district will take the opportunity to take a step back and engage with community leaders and families across the district in a very intentional way of understanding how we all get to our north star, which is making sure that our kids reach their potential.”

Team Leader Jacob Carpenter contributed to this report.

Asher Lehrer-Small covers Houston ISD for the Landing. Find him @by_ash_ls on Instagram and @small_asher on X, or reach him directly at asher@houstonlanding.org.

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