Case Study: Houston ISD’s NES Schools and the HB 8 Future

🌐 Introduction

In 2025, HB 8 marked a turning point for Texas education by banning benchmark testing and practice test prep. For decades, benchmarks were sold as “instructionally supportive”, but in reality, they were compliance tools – designed to identify “Bubble Kids” and push them over the passing line, not to improve everyday instruction.

Now that benchmarks are gone, schools must rethink how they monitor student progress. A controversial but telling example comes from Houston ISD’s New Education System (NES) schools under Superintendent Mike Miles.

⚖️ HB 8’s Ban vs. NES Practices

Benchmarks (Banned by HB 8): Full-length practice STAARs or vendor packets, scheduled several times a year. Time-consuming, late-arriving data, and focused on accountability scores.

Daily Embedded Checks (Still Allowed): HISD’s NES uses daily Checks for Understanding — also known as exit tickets. These short progress checks are built into lessons, take just minutes, and provide instant feedback to guide reteaching.

👉 In other words: HB 8 shuts the door on benchmarks but leaves the door wide open for exit tickets, the true work horse of progress monitoring. (Internal link opportunity: Exit Tickets, The Work Horse of Progress Monitoring).

🏫 How NES Schools Operate

The NES model in Houston ISD includes three big pillars:

District-Developed Curriculum – tightly scoped and sequenced lessons designed for consistency.
Rigorous Teacher Training – teachers practice delivery, pacing, and classroom routines to ensure fidelity.
Exit Tickets Every Day – each lesson ends with a “Demonstration of Learning,” aka exit ticket, giving teachers and instructional coaches daily data to act on.

Team Centers – provide behavioral support for certain students and instructional opportunities for those students who mastered today’s lesson; handle grading of DOLs for teachers.

🎯 Why NES Matters in the HB 8 Era

Instructional Alignment
Benchmarks were about predicting test scores; exit tickets are about supporting instruction in real time. HB 8 demands exactly this kind of shift.
Data That’s Immediate
Benchmark results often arrived weeks too late to matter. NES-style exit tickets give teachers the same-day insights they need.
Teacher Development
HB 8 requires districts to pivot from test logistics to instructional coaching. NES shows how teacher training around daily progress monitoring can replace benchmark culture.
Culture Reset
HB 8’s intent is to move schools from test-prep factories to true learning communities. NES, though controversial, provides a model of what that could look like when daily checks guide instruction instead of periodic practice tests.

NES school results speak volumes. According to the most recent state-released data:

HISD rose from a C to a B district rating.
All F-rated schools were eliminated.
Campuses rated A or B more than doubled — from 93 to 197 since 2023.
Among NES schools, only 7 campuses remained D-rated in 2025 (down from 108), while 94 earned A or B scores.

That’s nearly 75,000 more Houston students now attending A and/or B campuses — proof that focusing on instruction, not test prep, works.

⚠️ The NES approach is powerful. But it’s also paper-based: exit tickets are graded manually by staff. That requires extra personnel — a resource many districts lack.

🚧 Controversies and Caveats

Top-Down Implementation – Critics argue that NES is too prescriptive, limiting teacher autonomy.
Scalability – HISD’s size and resources may not translate to smaller or rural districts.
Political Optics – Superintendent Mike Miles is a polarizing figure, and some communities may resist adopting a model associated with his reforms.

✅ Lessons for Other Districts

Even if districts don’t adopt NES wholesale, the case study provides clear lessons for the new post-HB 8 world in Texas and beyond:

Replace quarterly benchmark tests with daily exit tickets and other embedded checks.
Train teachers not just to give exit tickets, but to act on the data immediately.
Shift district coaching and assessment staff into roles that support real-time instructional decision-making.

💡 Where Classwork.com Fits In

Classwork.com was born in the classroom, under the shadow of the benchmark era. From the start, our mission has been to make progress monitoring part of daily instruction, not a disembodied practice run by a siloed department focused on accountability scores.

In practice, that means:

Exit ticket–style checks embedded in daily classwork.
Authentic item types aligned with state tests, without turning every day into test prep.
Instant feedback so teachers and instructional coaches can respond on the spot.

Classwork.com makes it possible for districts to get the best of the NES model — daily progress monitoring with authentic, test-aligned rigor — without requiring a complete top-down curriculum overhaul.

🔑 Conclusion

Houston ISD’s NES schools are controversial, but in the wake of HB 8, they illustrate the future: schools must let go of benchmarks and embrace daily exit tickets as the foundation of progress monitoring.

The lesson is clear: benchmarks were never about instruction — they were about accountability scores. HB 8 breaks that cycle, and districts that succeed will be those that replace the test-prep culture with embedded, real-time checks for learning.

And that’s exactly what Classwork.com was built to do.