The TEA Takeover of HISD: Why it Happened, What it Means, and Where Do We Go From Here

Last week, the Commissioner of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) announced that he would appoint a board of managers to the Houston Independent School District (HISD). His announcement marked the culmination of a years-long saga, between TEA and HISD, which dates back to 2019 when TEA first sought to take over the district. Now that TEA seems to be going forward with its plans to take over HISD, many questions arise. What will become of HISD? Is this takeover just the latest incident of white Republican state leaders going after a minority Democratically led municipality? What can be done at this point? Here are my reflections on the TEA takeover of HISD.

The Background

The TEA began its takeover in 2019, but this takeover really revolves around a 2015 law that gave TEA the ability to replace the school board of trustees if it oversaw even one public school in its district that failed for 5 consecutive years. The law was noted by one of its authors as intending to promote accountability for school districts to address underperforming schools.

When the law went into effect, HISD had multiple schools that put them in jeopardy of being in violation of the law, but in 2019 TEA formally moved to take over the district after Wheatley High School was the last remaining school of HISD's 276 campuses that had consecutively received a failing grade (its 7th year in a row). TEA also had a separate investigation into HISD in 2019 over an open meetings violation by a number of its board members at the time. When TEA began its process to take over HISD, the district filed a lawsuit to stop the takeover and went until January 2023, when the Texas Supreme Court finally sided with TEA and allowed the takeover to proceed.

During the time between 2019 and 2023, HISD pulled the scores of the school that triggered the takeover to passing and 7 of the 9 board members who were on its board in 2019 were replaced by new board members. As such, it would appear that HISD had addressed the issues that the TEA gave as its grounds for taking it over when the process began during the years of litigation. Regardless, TEA announced it planned to move ahead and replace the current elected HISD board, with a board of managers, which would be appointed by TEA to manage the school district.

What It Means

Now that the TEA has announced its plans to takeover, the question is what happens next? According to the TEA, they are going to remove the current board of trustees along with the current Superintendent sometime after June 1st and install a board of managers, with a new Superintendent. The board of managers will be appointed by the Texas Commissioner of Education, which he will choose from those who reside in the district and submit an application to be on the board. Time will tell if the board of managers and new Superintendent do a better job than the current board of trustees and Superintendent, but many are skeptical. Opponents like Community Voice for Public Education note that school takeovers don't usually work out well for the district being taken over and tend to worsen existing inequalities and teacher turnovers.

Underlying Issues

- Issues of Systemic Poverty

One of the issues that is not being discussed in this takeover is how the school that led to HISD's takeover by the TEA is in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Houston. The 77026 zipcode, which feeds into Wheatly High School and neighboring Kashmere High School, which has also received consecutive failing grades and a failing grade during the last school year, has the 2nd lowest income in Houston and the lowest life expectancy in the county. In fact, the life expectancy in the 77026 code is roughly 20 years (19.9) less than that of the highest life expectancy in the 77073 zip code.

What all of this tells me is that there are lots of challenges going on outside of the classroom in the area, and it appears that much of it is falling on HISD to try to address in the form of test scores. This by no means should suggest that HISD should ignore the schools in this part of town or in other distressed areas like it, as a large part of the reason the 2015 law, which authorized the current takeover, was put in place was to prevent schools like these from being left behind. The point is that there may be issues at play bigger than even a school district as large as HISD is able to address alone. That being the case, it will be up to all of us in the Houston community to put pressure on the local and state governments to assist in addressing all of the issues that are resulting in the form of low test scores in the schools in that area, as well as other distressed areas like it.

- White and Red vs. Black and Blue

Another overarching issue in this takeover is that it appears to be yet another example of white and red versus black and blue. Around the country, there have been a number of recent incidents of mostly white and Republican-led state legislators that have seized control of black and/or brown-Democrat-led local municipalities. In Jackson, Mississippi the white-Republican-led state legislature is moving forward on a bill to create a white-appointed court in the city, which is 80% black. Last year, Tennesee's state's comptroller, Jason Mumpower, a white Republican, threatened to seize control of the finances of Mason, Tennesee, which is 72% black. In Missouri, the House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would take control of the St. Louis police department from the City of St. Louis, whose Mayor happens to currently be a black woman, and give it to the white Republican-controlled state.

In the case of HISD, the Superintendent is black and 7 of the 9 trustees are either black or Hispanic and 7 of the 9 trustees also happen to be Democrats. Also, even though HISD is independent of the City of Houston, it is worth noting the current Mayor of Houston is also black and stated his disapproval of the takeover. That being said, at minimum, there is an appearance of a white-Republican state-led takeover of HISD that seems to fall right in line with other white-Republican leaders in red states, sticking it to local black leaders.

Where Do We Go From Here

The main question, now that we find ourselves here, is where do we go from here? Regardless of the TEA action, community involvement will be key. If TEA does continue as announced and take over HISD, the question will be on who they appoint to the board of managers and as the Superintendent and how to keep them as accountable as the current Superintendent and board of trustees. To ensure this, it would be best if the selection process is as public as possible. This would at least allow the local community a window into the process, which in my opinion should be as wide as possible, to allow some form of confidence in the community, who will not have the opportunity to vote as they typically do for the board of trustees. The amount of transparency by the TEA on their selection process will likely be in direct relation to how much pressure they receive from the community to do so.

If for some reason TEA does not take over HISD, accountability will also be a key factor. In this scenario, it would be up to the community to put pressure on the current board and administration, ideally with the support of the TEA, to make sure that the district continues to improve and ensure that none of its campuses cause another potential state takeover.

Conclusion

There seems to be a long road ahead for HISD as it faces this state takeover, but regardless of the path, pressure will be required from the community to ensure that many of the issues the schools in distressed areas are facing are addressed, that the process is as transparent as possible, and that it actually improves the outcome of the children of the district.