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Topics: Leadership · Trends in Education · Urban Education · Professional Development · Archive
Systematically Identifying and Pursuing Value in Every Aspect of Public Education
In this episode, Dr. Karen Garza, Chief Academic Officer of the Houston Independent School District, is interviewed by District Leader’s Podcast host Jason Marshall. Dr. Garza discusses the academic vision of the Houston Independent school district. District success related curriculum and alignment to Texas state academic standards.
Communication and Leadership Development are then discussed, including the implementation of HISD’s 3rd annual summer Leadership Institute which takes place at Reliant Center. There are thousands participants in this Leadership Institute in which best practices, planning, strategy are discussed.
HISD has a unique, and very successful, professional development apparatus, which is connected to the priorities of the district. Dr. Garza discusses the professional development program, and how it has evolved over the last few years. Dr. Garza goes on to discuss how HISD determines which teachers are most successful with students over time, and which are struggling. What follows is a discussion related to how HISD evaluates value in all of its processes.
Lastly, Dr. Garza shares her philosophy on the role of districts leader’s visibility in the district and the community.
Enjoy this power packed interview with one of the nation’s foremost academic leaders.
HISD educates approximately 202,000 students within the greater Houston metropolitan area. The district serves a diverse student population, which is 58 percent Hispanic, 30 percent African-American, 9 percent White, and 3 percent Asian/Pacific Islander.
Approximately 78 percent of HISD students participate in free or reduced-price meal programs. HISD also serves more than 55,000 limited-English-proficient students who, combined, speak more than 90 different native languages.
Biographical Background
Dr. Abe Saavedra, Superintendent of Houston Independent School District, recruited Dr. Garza in the summer of 2005, and she has directed the steady academic improvement of the district since then. After her first year on the job, the average reading scores of HISD students on the SAT test increased five points while the Texas and national averages fell. The progress continued in 2007, with HISD’s reading and math scores rising again while the national averages fell and the Texas average made smaller gains.
Since Dr. Garza began leading HISD’s academic effort, her work with the board and Dr. Saavedra to focus on establishing a “college-bound culture” at every HISD school has helped lead the district to significant improvement in college-level work by high-school students. HISD students took and passed record numbers of college-level Advanced Placement courses in 2006 and again in 2007.
HISD now has 84 “Exemplary” or “Recognized” schools this year, a record number of high-rated schools for the district since the start of the new Texas accountability system in 2004. The number of “Academically Unacceptable” schools in HISD was cut by more than half in 2007, from 33 in 2006 to 15. Most other urban districts in Texas saw an increase in their number of unacceptable schools, so HISD’s improvement under the leadership of Dr. Garza, the superintendent, and the school board is bucking the statewide trend.
Houston ISD hired Dr. Garza in June of 2005. She had been the deputy superintendent of the Corpus Christi Independent School District since August 2004, was associate executive director for governmental relations at the Texas Association of School Administrators from 2002 to 2004, and was executive director for curriculum, staff development, and accountability for the Katy Independent School District from 1999 to 2002.
Dr. Garza holds a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Master’s and Bachelor’s in Education from the University of Houston-Victoria.
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