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The Texas Training Company has cleared appearing Houston faculty district Superintendent Mike Miles of wrongdoing after he was accused of improperly diverting tens of millions of {dollars} in state funds to his Colorado constitution faculty system.
After reporting from Spectrum Information and The Texas Observer prompted requires an investigation earlier this 12 months, the schooling company concluded on Tuesday that neither Miles — who the company picked to guide the state’s largest faculty district final 12 months — nor his constitution faculty community, Third Future Colleges, “violated any applicable Texas laws,” in keeping with the 29-page investigation report.
The investigation discovered, partly, that checks directed from a partnering Texas faculty district to Third Future Colleges’ Colorado tackle went there as a result of the Colorado location handles accounting providers for the community’s Texas department, which is run independently. However, the checks had been ultimately deposited within the Texas department’s checking account.
“Based on the evidence obtained and analyzed during the investigation, there is no merit to the allegations contained in the media reports that state funds were being inappropriately diverted from public school students in Texas,” the report notes.
The company is closing the investigation, and “no further action will be taken” right now, the report says.
In an electronic mail despatched to the Houston faculty district group on Tuesday, Miles known as the sooner reporting “a baseless distraction and an attempt to undermine and discredit the good work happening” within the colleges.
“Now we can do what we always do and move forward on behalf of our students,” Miles stated.
Earlier this 12 months, Spectrum Information reported that the Texas department of Third Future Colleges — which receives funding from a number of Texas faculty districts to run campuses within the state — was doubtlessly utilizing public funds from its faculty in Odessa to offset monetary losses at a sister faculty in Colorado.
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The Texas Observer later reported that it had recognized “additional irregularities” associated to the disclosure of bills by the constitution community.
Miles denied wrongdoing and accused the earlier reporting of mischaracterizing “common place financial arrangements between charter schools and the charter management organizations that support them” and welcomed an investigation into the community’s actions.
The state’s investigators agreed with Miles, saying they discovered no proof that Texas faculty districts deposited funds into the checking account of Third Future Colleges in Colorado. Third Future Colleges-Texas reimburses the Colorado location for administrative providers it offers to all the constitution community, the report says.
The report additionally states that there’s usually no state or native coverage requiring Third Future Colleges-Texas to reveal any agreements with the Colorado workplace concerning the buying of providers, although it provides that there was no effort to cover the partnership from Texas faculty districts.
The allegations “cannot be substantiated, or have been proven to be false,” the report says.
Miles has been a polarizing determine for the reason that Texas Training Company charged him and an unelected faculty board with taking the helm of the Houston faculty district final 12 months. Rationalizing the takeover, the state pointed to misconduct by the earlier board and the unsatisfactory educational efficiency ranking of Wheatley Excessive Faculty situated in Houston’s Fifth Ward, the place an amazing majority of scholars are Black and Hispanic and reside in low-income households.
Beneath Miles’ management, the district has skilled extraordinary workers turnover and plummeting pupil enrollment. Miles has confronted accusations of shepherding a military-style education surroundings the place academics have restricted freedom to show in methods they see match and youngsters are exhausted and disengaged from studying.
Miles, alternatively, has touted pupil enchancment on the state’s standardized exams as proof that his mannequin is efficient, an achievement that Texas Training Company Commissioner Mike Morath has additionally publicly acknowledged and recommended. In November, Houston voters will resolve on whether or not to approve $4.4 million in educational and infrastructure enhancements for the varsity district — the most important proposal of its form in state historical past — which some see as a litmus take a look at for Miles’ assist among the many public.
