At Love Elementary in the Heights area of Houston’s Northside, parents filled the cafeteria on Thursday, Jan. 25 to hear administrators pitch the New Education System (NES). Love is among 24 Houston ISD campuses that would have performed poorly on the Texas Education Agency’s revamped accountability system and now have the option to apply for the NES reform program — but most folks at Love weren’t very interested in the pitch.
“It was very clear that 99.9% of the parents wanted to keep this school the way that it is,” said Pablo Lambea, parent of a Love Elementary first grader, arguing that “NES is eliminating basically any human element from the classroom and only teaching towards the test results.”
Several parents invited Houston Public Media to a second NES information meeting on Feb. 1, but the district denied access. A Houston ISD spokesperson wrote that “these are meetings for the school community and are not open to the press.” The first meeting at Love Elementary was recorded and can be viewed at this link.