What is behind the state takeover of Houston’s public schools? Less than 24 hours after Houstonians voted to elect new members to the Houston Independent School District board, Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath—an unelected Austin bureaucrat with a history of working for school privatizers—notified the district that he would be removing the elected school board and replacing them with a team of his own selection. According to Morath, this takeover was necessary due to the persistent low grades at Wheatley High School, a single school in Houston ISD. This rationalization is the latest in a confusing and contradictory set of excuses that Morath and company have offered to justify striping Houstonians of control over their schools. Leaving aside the fact that Wheatley High School would not have failed in the most recent evaluation but for a new regulation decreed by Morath in March 2018, why does the failure of one school necessitate the takeover of the other 282? Houston ISD’s academic performance is strong, scoring 2 points shy of an A on the latest overall evaluation after years of steady gains. Houston is the largest district in Texas by enrollment size, and district schools beat out the average charter school in state overall scores by nearly 8 points. With such a thin justification being offered from Austin for this historic power grab, one cannot help but wonder what is motivating Morath to wrest self-governance from the state’s largest district. Gov. Greg Abbott, Morath and state Rep. Harold Dutton are longtime advocates of charter schools, and they are using the Wheatley excuse to charterize Houston, even though Houston ISD schools score nearly 8 points higher than the average charter school in Texas. What’s going on is a power grab with no regard to how much it will disrupt and undermine the performance of Houston ISD. The state is seizing the sixth-largest school district in the country that has almost an A rating, stripping away the voices of parents, educators and the community, so it can carry out an ideological crusade to charterize Houston’s schools. The history of state school takeovers in Texas and around the country shows no evidence that takeovers lead to improvement in student outcomes.1

1 Leigh Dingerson, “Investing in What Works: Community-Driven Strategies for Strong Public Schools in Georgia,” Annenberg Institute for School Reform and Southern Education Foundation, December 2015, http://www.annenberginstitute.org/sites/default/files/product/851/files/InvestingInWhatWorks.pdf; Caroline Bauman, “After Five Years, the Tennessee-Run District Isn’t Performing Any Better than Low-Performing Schools Receiving No Intervention, Research Says,” Chalkbeat, June 19, 2018, https://chalkbeat.org/posts/tn/2018/06/19/after-five-years-the-tennessee-run-district-isnt-performing-any-better-than-low-performing-schools-receiving-no-intervention-research-says/.

We can only wonder why Morath and Abbott have decided to interfere with Houston residents’ self-governance. When you observe state takeovers, both in Texas and nationwide, a clear pattern emerges: School districts educating substantial minority student populations are more likely to be taken over. Houston ISD, like every other school district the state has taken over, is less white than Texas as a whole.

What lies in store for Houston ISD after the Texas Education Agency takes over? Limited vetting of appointed leaders: Texas Education Agency has been faulted for their mismanagement of other takeover districts. In Marlin ISD, Morath failed to conduct background checks on his hand-picked board of directors, installing a convicted fraudster.2 The TEA can also elect to appoint uncredentialed superintendents to run the district.3 A rubber-stamp board: In Edgewood ISD, Morath removed Amanda Gonzalez, a manager he appointed to the takeover board, without notice. Gonzalez voiced her frustration with Morath’s TEA, saying, “I feel like maybe the individuals they wanted for this role needed to rubber-stamp things, and they were highly mistaken if they thought I was that type of person.”4 More harmful penny-pinching: The TEA has a history of subjugating student achievement for cost savings, including a scheme to illegally cap the number of students receiving special education accommodations.5 By

2 Steve Miller, “TEA Says It Didn’t Ask about Criminal Record in Making Appointment,” Texas Monitor, October 27, 2019, https://texasmonitor.org/tea-says-it-didnt-ask-about-criminal-record-in-making-appointment. 3 Kristin Gordon, “Takeover, Turnaround, Transfer … What Happens When Texas Takes Over a School District?” SPI Insights, Strategic Partnerships Inc., April 21, 2017, https://www.spartnerships.com/takeover-turnaround-transferwhat-texas-takes-school-district/. 4 Tim Gerber, “Ousted State-Appointed Edgewood ISD Board Member Questions TEA’s Commitment to Transparency,” KSAT.com, September 20, 2017, https://www.ksat.com/news/2017/09/20/ousted-state-appointed-edgewood-isd-board-member-questions-teas-commitment-to-transparency/. 5 Andrea Zelinski, “Texas Ignores Federal Law Regarding Special Education Students over 18, Lawsuit Claims,” Houston Chronicle, November 9, 2019, https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/texas/article/Texas-ignores-federal-law-regarding-special-14821418.php.

TEA decree, special education enrollment in the state was arbitrarily capped at 8.5 percent, far below the average 13 percent enrollment that special education has seen nationwide. The TEA forced district compliance through punitive auditing, according to an expose by the Houston Chronicle.6 No improvement of student outcomes: There is no evidence there will be better student outcomes after a takeover. To date, the largest district the TEA has attempted to manage was El Paso ISD, a district of 55,204 students in 2015—roughly a quarter of the size of Houston ISD. During the two-year period when the state board took over El Paso ISD, measures of postsecondary readiness and closing performance gaps plummeted.

6 Zelinski, “Texas Ignores Federal Law,” https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/texas/article/Texas-ignores-federal-law-regarding-special-14821418.php.