[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 172 (Tuesday, December 21, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2216-E2217]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       IN HONOR OF F. MIKE MILES

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. DOUG LAMBORN

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, December 21, 2010

  Mr. LAMBORN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Mr. F. Mike Miles--
the Superintendent of Harrison School District Two in Colorado Springs, 
Colorado. Mike is an innovative educator who has brought sweeping 
changes to the students and teachers in his district. Our local 
newspaper, the Colorado Springs Gazette notes, ``local and state 
educators are watching because Miles is in the vanguard of educators 
nationwide who are using controversial techniques in an attempt to turn 
around failing schools.'' Most recently, Miles implemented the most 
rigorous and innovative pay-for-performance plan in the Nation.
  Mike, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone, was one of eight 
children born to retired Army Sergeant Major Floyd Miles and his wife, 
Chiyo. Mike and his siblings worked hard in school and promised their 
father when he deployed to Vietnam that they would all graduate from 
college. All of them did.
  After graduating as valedictorian from Fountain-Fort Carson High 
School, he earned a degree in engineering from West Point, where he was 
eighth in his class. He then joined the ranks of the officer corps at 
Fort Lewis, Washington, where he served in the Army's elite

[[Page E2217]]

Ranger Battalion and commanded an Infantry Rifle Company.
  During a night training exercise at Fort Lewis, Mike was nearly 
killed in a C-130 crash. The fuselage of the plane split open as the 
plane skidded 200 yards and embedded in the desert floor. Mike recalls, 
``I felt my hand break, in three places, and smelled dirt and was 
knocked unconscious.'' He was buried under the dirt with only his arm 
showing. Two fellow rangers dug him out and helped him crawl from the 
wreckage as the plane exploded into flames.
  After the Army, Mike studied Slavic languages at the University of 
California at Berkeley and the University of Leningrad in Russia. Mike 
then pursued advanced study of Soviet affairs and public policy at 
Columbia University after being selected as a Mellon Fellow in the 
Humanities and winning a National Science Foundation Graduate 
Scholarship.
  Mike graduated from Columbia University in 1989 and joined the U.S. 
State Department as a Presidential Management Intern. He handled a 
portfolio usually reserved for more senior officials at the Soviet 
Desk, making policy recommendations and writing talking points for the 
Secretary of State regarding German reunification, chemical weapons, 
NATO, and other issues. While at the State Department, Mike became a 
Foreign Service Officer.
  As a diplomat in Warsaw, Poland, Mike tracked Poland's evolving 
relations with Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe. He analyzed 
the strength of the post-Communist Party, correctly predicting its 
return to political power in 1993. A tour in Moscow followed. As 
special assistant to the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Mike helped 
coordinate the Embassy's response to critical events during a time when 
Russia's relationship to the U.S. in a post-Cold War world was as yet 
undefined. He received the State Department's Meritorious Service Medal 
in 1994.
  The Cold War largely won, Mike and his family decided to return home. 
He honored his commitment to continue to serve the public interest and 
entered the field of education. Mike has assumed leadership roles to 
raise academic standards in his school district and the State of 
Colorado. Mike also serves as an educational consultant and 
motivational speaker for school districts and other public 
organizations around the State. He is recognized as an accomplished 
practitioner of curriculum alignment, organizational effectiveness, and 
systems thinking.
  Over the past 5 years Mike and the Harrison School District Two 
School Board have been on a quest to turn around the chronically 
underperforming Harrison School District Two. More than 70 percent of 
the 11,300 students are living below the poverty line and many are at 
risk of dropping out.
  Their systemic reforms of the school district include: Developing and 
implementing a rigorous pay-for-performance evaluation system; Changing 
the recruitment paradigm by identifying teacher candidates early and 
investing in their training and preparation in return for a commitment 
to teach in the school district; Piloting a Year 2020 curriculum in a 
middle school and high school in which students learn critical 
thinking, information literacy, economics and globalization, math and 
science reasoning, Chinese, and the arts; Developing principals and 
instructional leaders who are held accountable for improving the 
quality of instruction and raising student achievement; and Creating a 
culture of instructional feedback in which classroom instruction is 
observed and effective feedback is given regularly and consistently.
  The district cites these other achievements during Mike's time as 
superintendent: District removed from state academic probation; 
Significantly improved test scores; Decreased the minority achievement 
gap; Improved teacher effectiveness, including removing ineffective, 
tenured teachers from the district; and Created the only public year-
round school in the area.
  Despite enormous resistance from the teacher's association in the 
district, Mike and the school board have not backed down from putting 
children first. I admire his focus and fortitude in fighting for the 
school children of Colorado Springs. I commend him for his success and 
urge professional educators across the country to study his record of 
success as they look for ways to better educate our young people.
  Mike is married to Karen Miles, and they have three children: 
Nicholas, Madeleine, and Anthony.
  Madam Speaker, I thank you for allowing me this opportunity to pay 
tribute to Mike Miles for his success in improving the lives of our 
children.

                          ____________________