Texas officials on Wednesday announced a state takeover of the nearly 200,000-student Houston public school district, the nation’s eighth largest, following years of threats and anger from Democrats who attacked the move as political.
The announcement, made by the Commissioner of education of the Republican Governor Greg Abbott, Mike Morath, amounts to one of the biggest school takeovers ever in the US. leaders are asking for increased powers after the election and the COVID-19 restrictions.
In a letter to the Houston Independent School District, Morath said the Texas Education Agency will replace Superintendent Millard House II and the district’s elected board of trustees with a board of managers appointed from residents from within the district’s boundaries.
Morath said the board failed to improve student outcomes while holding “chaotic board meetings marred by discord” and violating open meetings laws and procurement laws. They accused the district of failing to provide proper special education services and violating state and federal law in its approach to supporting students with disabilities.
He cited a seven-year record of poor academic performance at one of the district’s 50 high schools, Wheatley High, as well as poor performance at several other campuses.
“The school system’s governing body has primary responsibility for the outcomes of all students. While the Board of Trustees has now moved forward, systemic problems in Houston ISD continue to affect the district’s students,” Morath wrote in a six-page letter.
Most Houston school board members have changed since the state took over in 2019, and House became superintendent in 2021. House and the current school board will remain until a new board of managers is elected after June 1.
House in a statement shared the steps taken in the district, saying the announcement “doesn’t detract from the gains we’ve made.”
He said the focus now is to ensure a “smooth transition without disrupting our core mission of providing an exceptional educational experience for all students.”
Other big cities including Philadelphia, New Orleans and Detroit in recent decades have gone through state takeovers, which are generally viewed as last resorts for underperforming schools and are often met with public backlash. Critics say that state intervention has generally not led to major improvements.
Texas began moving to take over the district after allegations of misconduct by school trustees, including undue influence from vendor contracts, and chronically low academic grades at Wheatley High.
The district sued to block a takeover, but a new education law was later passed by the GOP-controlled state Legislature and a January ruling by the Texas Supreme Court cleared the way for the state to seize control.
Schools in Houston are not under the mayor’s control, unlike in cities such as New York or Chicago, but as hopes of a takeover mount, the city’s Democratic leadership has turned to opposition.
Race is also an issue because the majority of students in Houston schools are Hispanic or Black. Domingo Morel, a professor of political science and public service at New York University, has studied school takeovers nationwide and says the political dynamics in Texas are similar to states that have intervened elsewhere.
The demographics in Houston, Morel said, are similar.
“If we only focus on taking over school districts because they underperform, we will have more takeovers,” Morel said. “But that’s not what happened.”
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Weber reported from Austin, Texas.