A journalist in Texas wrote the following. He/she lives in Austin and requested anonymity to avoid reprisals. I have double-checked the information shared. It is accurate.
The journalist describes Governor Greg Abbott’s tactic to destroy public education: state takeovers. This allows the state to dismiss the locally elected school board and replace it with people loyal to Governor Abbott and State Superintendent Mike Morath, a non-educator picked by Abbott. After the state takeover, teachers leave, enrollment declines..public schools being to the state, not to the district.
The journalist wrote the following to me:
Texas public schools are under attack. And no Texas district is being attacked on as many fronts as Austin ISD.
State policies and targeted investigations are taking a toll, pulling time, energy, and funds from the real work of supporting Austin’s students, teachers, and campus communities. The district is facing a long list of challenges, all created or exacerbated by many years of anti-public school policies from state leaders. Students and teachers feel the impact on campuses every day. Families are leaving the district. Budgets are becoming tighter each year. Charters and vouchers are siphoning students from public schools and concentrating need at many campuses. And despite this community’s deep belief in engaging education, teaching is increasingly focused on testing – the near-inevitable result of a punitive high-stakes testing environment.
Austin is sometimes described as the blueberry in the tomato soup – the brightest blue community in what has long been a deeply red state. That makes the district a favorite target for state leaders, who routinely attack it to score political points.Students, teachers, families, and the city are suffering as those attacks weaken a district in that should be among the strongest urban districts in the country.
The community shows up for Austin ISD schools, and people across the economic spectrum continue to choose Austin ISD schools, which educate a mix of students who are diverse in every way. About half come from families classified as having economic disadvantage and half do not. About half are Hispanic, almost a third are emergent bilingual, and nearly one in ten are immigrants from all over the world.
Austin ISD’s school board looks a lot like the city itself – racially and economically diverse, highly educated, and politically progressive. All were elected with strong support from their local union and their local communities. All serve as volunteers in a role that demands many hours and invites public critique along with the joy. All have seen the impact of state policies on Texas public schools. Many are longtime public education advocates. And all have become far too familiar withthe power the Texas Education Agency holds over Texas districts.
In Texas, state takeovers are becoming a go-to remedy. Houston ISD was the first big district to fall, in 2023. Then, last year, the pace escalated. A single school with five F ratings in a row can trigger a takeover. Four more districts are now under state control, including Fort Worth ISD – another of the state’s largest urban districts. When the 2026-27 school year began, some 250,000 Texas students walked into classrooms that are now under state control.
It’s an unprecedented experiment, and an aggressive exercise of state power over local communities. Now Austin ISD – rated a B under the state’s narrow accountability system – is the latest Texas district at risk of state takeover. And that is just the biggest threat among many, many others.
Here’s a short list of challenges Austin ISD is facing right now:
• Investigation of student walkouts
State leaders have targeted Austin ISD for a special investigation after students at many campuses walked out to protest ICE. In a community as diverse as Austin, issues involving immigration are felt deeply and personally. Their protests were part of a student movement across the state and the country in late January. Yet Governor Greg Abbot and Attorney General Ken Paxton have focused special attention on Austin ISD, with an investigation that still has not been completed. The Texas Education Agency has warned that walkouts could lead to a state takeover.
• Investigation of which bathroom a single student has used
Attorney General Paxton has also targeted Austin ISD for alleged violations of the state’s “bathroom bill,” which requires people at sites including public schools to use the bathroom that matches their sex at birth. The bill depends on people reporting districts for alleged violations – something that happened two times when someone complained about the bathroom a single transgender student was using at an Austin ISD high school, which was followed by a complaint at the district’s performing arts center. The law holds the district accountable, allowing fines of up to $5000 a day for documented violations. But the law also allows the full weight of the state to be weaponized against individual students – children in public schools.
• Funding crisis
For years, public education funding has failed to keep up with inflation or a long and growing list of mandates from the state. Texas consistently ranks in the bottom ten states in per-student funding. Yet schools must also pay for expensive security mandates, serve students who are emergent bilingual or who receive special education services despite funding that leaves immense gaps, and follow many other state demands that are neither optional nor funded. Across the state, dozens of schools have closed, class sizes are growing, programs and student supports are being cut, and teachers are quitting or taking second jobs. Texas offers no funding for many things it simply does not require, including school nurses and school librarians. Transportation is funded at a fraction of the actual cost to districts. In Austin ISD, the 2026-27 budget included about $205 million in deeply painful cuts. The district closed eleven campuses. They are selling property to help plug the holes. And still funding is not keeping up with costs. That crisis has been deepened by the passage of a $1 billion statewide voucher after many years of successful resistance by the Texas Legislature. Passage was only possible after the sitting governor primaried legislators who voted against vouchers, then had President Trump call lawmakers the morning of the vote. The cost is expected to double this year.
• State comptroller audit
At a campaign stop in El Paso in August, Governor Greg Abbott asked the Texas Comptroller to investigate the use of taxpayer money at up to four Texas school districts. The goal, according to the Governor, was to prevent funds from “being absorbed by central office growth, administrative bloat, consultants, and the web of noninstructional bureaucracy.” News reports say districts are being asked for data far beyond what an audit focused on the use of funds would require. The list includes lists of library books, demands for documents related to DEI, scrutiny of foreign workers, and information about Social Security numbers that advocates fear is an attempt to understand how many students may be undocumented.
• Investigation of Pride Week celebration
Austin ISD has a long history of celebrating Pride Week. Since 2014, that meant supporting activities that included flying Pride flags at district facilities, participating as a district in the community’s Pride Parade, offering age-appropriate activities focused on respect for other people, and supporting campuses that chose to host their own after-school events for families. Staff and families have often said that they have chosen the district because of AISD’s welcoming climate. And the district continued to celebrate Pride Week – along with Juneteenth, Cesar Chavez Day, and other important community celebrations – even after trustees received a death threat targeting the parade. Since 2024, AISD’s Pride Week celebrations have grown smaller and smaller, and less and less visible. In 2026, the district chose not to participate in the community’s parade, inviting PTA leaders to step into the district’s place. As a result, the parade shrank from dozens of people with district support to just a handful. And still, in April, the Texas Education Agency began an investigation into Austin ISD for Pride Week. That investigation was launched in response to a complaint not from within the community, but from a conservative member of the State Board of Education who represents a district in Fort Worth, about 200 miles away. On social media, he called for defunding the district and for a criminal investigation of the superintendent. He also shared concerns that if the practice is not stopped in Austin ISD, it will expand to other communities in the state.
This is not normal, even in Texas, except for Austin ISD. Each investigation or audit takes precious resources that no Texas district has to spare. Time and funds are diverted from the work that matters most – of educating students, supporting teachers, and inspiring a lifelong love of learning that prepares Austin’s students for the futures they deserve.
It does not have to be this way. And it’s both painful and promising to imagine what might be if the State of Texas would offer support rather than sanctions, and if they would also simply get out of the district’s way.
Austin ISD has a strong board with a broad mix of highly relevant experience. All nine members were endorsed by the district’s union, Education Austin, and all serve by working long hours without pay. Six members are former K-12 educators in Texas public schools – including five who taught in the district, one who worked as the district’s head of multilingual education, and several who are current or former professors in programs that teach future teachers. Another is an educational anthropologist who teaches at UT and ran programs for students in the district. Another is a journalist with a law degree and a long background in advocacy and family engagement. And another is a former foster child who was in the first graduating class of Austin ISD’s Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders, ranked as one of the top public high schools in the country. Another worked as an accountant after a career as a teacher. Together, the board holds five masters’ degrees, one law degree, and two Ph.Ds. Another trustee is earning a doctorate now. They have hired a superintendent who is a graduate of the district and the son of a longtime teacher. He’s an unconventional choice – with an MBA, an engineering degree, and a career in construction and district operations – but he has also brought stability after a series of rapid superintendent turnovers. And he has worked with the board and community to navigate immensely challenging times.
As they have tackled issue after issue, district leaders have also managed to do important and thoughtful work in many areas. The community approved a $2.4 billion bond and a crucial increase in the tax rate for operations with powerful support from district voters. The district has created systems to focus resources where they are needed most – essential but also not easy in a district with such a broad range of economic opportunity and economic need. They cleared a large backlog of special education evaluations that grew during the pandemic. They have sharply reduced the number of F-rated campuses and steadily grown the number of highly rated campuses – a measure that must be a focus no matter how flawed and opaque the state’s metrics are. And they are seeing impressive results from a grant-funded investment in early literacy.
And still, Austin ISD risks being taken over by the state.
The community’s worry about a takeover goes far beyond the loss of elected control. Their fears are also based in facts about what has happened since the state took control of Houston ISD. State leaders routinely call the takeover an unparalleled success, citing a higher rating for the district and near zero F rated schools. But the costs have been immense – of lost opportunity, financial cost, and damage to community and careers.
Reports document practices that serve scores but sacrifice student learning – limiting access to 8th grade Algebra by systematically holding some students back, gaming college readiness measures in ways that are legal but offer little benefit, removing both libraries and librarians, and reducing teaching to timed and scripted lessons. Campuses have closed, enrollment has plummeted by more than 20,000 students, and teachers are fleeing. Hundreds of their replacements are uncertified. And the state-appointed leaders have eaten into the district’s fund balance by pulling hundreds of millions from reserves in ways that will be impossible to sustain.
Good reporting and strategic advocacy are helping the whole story from Houston ISD reach more people. Our state owes deep thanks to Community Voices for Public Education for its advocacy from the beginning, the Commission on the Takeover of HISD for its new in-depth report, state and local education union leaders for advocating and organizing, elected trustees for becoming the resistance, and doctoral student Dan Dawer for work to examine the takeover through an academic lens.
In Austin, a group called Keep Austin Schools Independent has formed to inform and organize our community. We are also lucky to have strong trustee candidates who are stepping up, not knowing what their role will be but knowing their voices will matter.
Takeovers are looming for more Texas districts.
Education is on the ballot in Texas in a way it has never been before. And the results of the election could make things far better or far worse, not just here in Austin, but also for public schools across our state. Voters in the Democratic primaries chose proven public education supporters up and down the ballot. And for people who know that change is needed for Texas public schools, Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic nominee for Texas Governor, is carrying a whole state’s hopes. She’s the mom of children who chose Austin ISD schools, a former AISD school board president, and a Texas House member who served her community and fought for Texas students on the public education committee. Her office became a place of pilgrimage for public education advocates, who would visit their own representatives, then stop by her office, too.
A huge amount is at stake – not only for Austin, but for public education statewide. Dozens of Texas districts are just one or two years away from potential takeover. Schools are struggling after years of underfunding. And increasingly, the state’s vision of education is focused on the narrow measure of standardized tests – despite clear evidence that families and educators want and need something more for the 5 million students of Texas
