Military man Mike Miles has launched his overhaul of Houston’s public schools, and parents and teachers are alarmed. Miles previously failed in Dallas, but that has not dimmed his authoritarian style. Trained for school leadership by the Broad Academy, which admires authoritarian style, Miles was imposed on Houston as part of a state takeover.

The state education department is led by non-educator Mike Morath but controlled by Governor Greg Abbott. Abbott hates Houston, because its a Democratic city. The takeover was triggered by the “failure” of one high school, Wheatley, which enrolls higher proportions of students with disabilities than other high schools. Miles, however, has far exceeded his mandate by firing the staff at 29 schools—not just Wheatley—and telling staff to re-apply for their jobs. Miles now sees himself as an education expert and has declared his grandiose ambition to create a “New Education System” (NES), to show the nation…