HOUSTON -- Texas officials on Wednesday announced a state takeover of Houston's nearly 200,000-student public school district, the eighth-largest in the country, acting on years of threats and angering Democrats who assailed the move as political.
The announcement, made by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's education commissioner, Mike Morath, amounts to one of the largest school takeovers ever in the U.S. It also deepens a high-stakes rift between Texas' largest city, where Democrats wield control, and state Republican leaders, who have sought increased authority after election fumbles and covid-19 restrictions.
The takeover is the latest example of Republican and predominately white state officials pushing to take control of actions in heavily minority and Democratic-led cities. They include St. Louis and Jackson, Miss., where the Legislature is pushing to take over the water system and for an expanded role for state police and appointed judges.
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 new superintendent and an appointed board of managers made of residents from within the district's boundaries.
Morath said the board has failed to improve student outcomes while conducting "chaotic board meetings marred by infighting" and violating open meetings act and procurement laws.
He accused the district of failing to provide proper special education services and of violating state and federal laws with its approach to supporting students with disabilities.
He cited the seven-year record of poor academic performance at one of the district's roughly 50 high schools, Wheatley High, as well as the poor performance of several other campuses.
"The governing body of a school system bears ultimate responsibility for the outcomes of all students. While the current Board of Trustees has made progress, systemic problems in Houston ISD continue to impact district students," Morath wrote in his six-page letter.
"Ultimately, what caused Houston to come across this threshold was [that] they operate a number of campuses that for years have lacked the necessary structural support from the district such that they see chronic low performance," Morath said in an interview Wednesday. "A board of managers of Houstonians is being appointed to serve students as effectively as possible and to be laser focused on meeting the needs of kids."
Most of Houston's School Board members have been replaced since the state began making moves toward a takeover in 2019. House became superintendent in 2021.
He and the current School Board will remain until the new board of managers is chosen sometime after June 1. The new board of managers will be appointed for at least two years.
House in a statement pointed to strides made across the district, saying the announcement "does not discount the gains we have made."
He said his focus now will be on ensuring "a smooth transition without disruption to our core mission of providing an exceptional educational experience for all students."
The Texas State Teachers Association and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas condemned the takeover. At a news conference in Austin, state Democratic leaders called for the Legislature to increase funding for education and raise teacher pay.
"We acknowledge that there's been underperformance in the past, mainly due to that severe underfunding in our public schools," state Rep. Armando Walle, who represents parts of north Houston, said.
State Rep. Jarvis Johnson, D-Houston, said in an interview that the takeover represents the targeting of a deep-blue district in a deep-blue city in deep-blue Harris County in an attempt to score political points.
"This is a political move, period, to simply pander to their base [and] to say Democrats cannot handle education," Johnson said. "It's going to be very damaging to children, to families, to the city, to business."
Jackie Anderson, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, wrote in a statement that "a state takeover is the worst news that we can imagine for our students and families ... this is outrageous."
Asked about these criticisms, Morath said, "This is motivated solely to serve students. Anything else is not factually accurate."
Meanwhile, Cindy Siegel, chair of the Harris County GOP, said in a statement that she fully backs Morath's actions. Siegel said the district had failed repeatedly to improve the quality of education for its students. "We have to draw the line somewhere; today, the TEA drew that line," she said.
An annual Census Bureau survey of public school funding showed Texas spent $10,342 per pupil in the 2020 fiscal year, more than $3,000 less than the national average, according to the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University in Houston.
The state was able to take over the district under a change in state law that Houston Democratic state Rep. Harold Dutton Jr. proposed in 2015.
That law, passed in 2015 on a bipartisan basis according to Morath, was born of the standards movement, which pushed to hold accountable schools that failed to raise test students' scores by imposing consequences including loss of control. Although the movement has lost steam and public support in recent years, the law remains in place in Texas.
The Houston Independent School District sued the agency to stop its proposed takeover in November 2019, and the move was put on hold by the courts. But in January, the state Supreme Court cleared the way for the state to go through with its takeover. Last week, the district School Board voted to drop its lawsuit entirely.
In the intervening years, as the suit progressed, the Houston school system saw improvements. Along with the naming of a new superintendent, House, much of the School Board turned over -- and grades on state assessments went up. In the most recent round, the district earned a "B" overall and the troubled Wheatley High School improved to a "C" grade. On the state report cards released in August, about 94 percent of Houston schools earned a passing grade.
Over the past 19 months, the number of campuses receiving "D" or "F" ratings dropped from 50 to 10, out of 76 total schools.
In his statement Wednesday, House referenced this progress, attributing it to the "hard work of our students, teachers, and staff."
He added, "Today's announcement does not discount the gains we have made district-wide."
In an op-ed piece in the Houston Chronicle on Monday, Dutton said he has no regrets about what he did.
"We're hearing voices of opposition, people who say that HISD shouldn't have to face consequences for allowing a campus to fail for more than five consecutive years. Those critics' concern is misplaced," Dutton wrote.
Schools in 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 community backlash. Critics argue that state interventions generally have not led to big improvements.
Texas started moving to take over the district after allegations of misconduct by school trustees, including inappropriate influencing of vendor contracts, and chronically low academic scores at Wheatley High.
The district sued to block a takeover, but new education laws subsequently passed by the GOP-controlled state Legislature and a January ruling from the Texas Supreme Court cleared the way for the state to seize control.
"All of us Texans have an obligation and should come together to reinvent HISD in a way that will ensure that we're going to be providing the best quality education for those kids," Abbott said Wednesday.
Schools in Houston are not under mayoral control, unlike in New York and Chicago, but as expectations of a takeover mounted, the city's Democratic leaders unified in opposition.
Race is also an issue because the overwhelming majority of students in Houston schools are Hispanic or Black. Domingo Morel, a professor of political science and public services at New York University, said the political and racial dynamics in the Houston case are similar to instances where states have intervened elsewhere.
"If we just focus on taking over school districts because they underperform, we would have a lot more takeovers," Morel said. "But that's not what happens."
Morath said Wednesday that he is looking forward to the chance to appoint a group of Houston residents to oversee the district. He emphasized that he will not attempt to direct the district himself from Austin.
"My goal is to make sure I can choose people that have wisdom and discernment," he said. "And they will focus first and foremost on the needs of students and not the needs of any other adult special interests."
Asked what he meant by "adult special interests," Morath pointed to, for example, the awarding of contracts.
Information for this article was contributed by Juan A. Lozano, Paul J. Weber and Acacia Coronado of The Associated Press and by Hannah Natanson and Laura Meckler of The Washington Post.
FILE - Houston Independent School District Superintendent Millard House II answers questions from the media, May 21, 2021, in Houston. Texas officials on Wednesday, March 15, 2023, announced a state takeover of Houston's nearly 200,000-student public school district, the eighth-largest in the country, acting on years of threats and angering Democrats who assailed the move as political. (Steve Gonzales/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)
FILE - People hold up signs at a news conference, Friday, March 3, 2023, in Houston while protesting the proposed takeover of the city's school district by the Texas Education Agency. Texas officials on Wednesday, March 15, announced a state takeover of Houston's nearly 200,000-student public school district, the eighth-largest in the country, acting on years of threats and angering Democrats who assailed the move as political. (AP Photo/Juan A. Lozano)