Zeph Capo, president of the Texas AFT, writes here about the state’s determination to take over the Houston Independent School District because ONE SCHOOL HAS LOW TEST SCORES.
The State has failed in other takeovers, and its only plan in Houston is to usurp the elected school board. Capo believes that the goal is to allow charter operators a free hand in the state’s biggest school district.
He writes:
“In a profoundly unbelievable decision, the state announced last month it will take over the entire Houston school district, the largest district in Texas, even though the schools have been showing remarkable progress. Either the TEA doesn’t know what’s actually happening on the ground hundreds of miles away or, more likely, it doesn’t care because it is anxious to deliver Houston’s 284 public schools to charter operators. If the state succeeds, other Texas school districts could be its next target.
”The TEA has a poor track record on state takeovers and other interventions. Take the Marlin Independent School District, about 100 miles from Austin. In late 2016, the TEA replaced the district’s board of trustees with state-appointed managers, who basically rubber-stamped the desires of the TEA. It’s been nothing but failure ever since, including a revolving door of managers, the suspension of the latest superintendent and the revocation of Marlin’s accreditation status for the 2018-19 year after failing state academic accountability standards. It could be TEA’s next takeover target.
”When the state’s takeover of North Forest ISD didn’t succeed, the district was folded into the Houston ISD, at a time when the Houston district had a higher number of “improvement-required” schools than it does now.
“The state wants to take over two other small districts now — Shepherd ISD in East Texas and Snyder ISD in West Texas — and we’re very concerned that it’s not the right solution, especially given the state’s inability to put in place an effective improvement plan.
”The state’s move is especially baffling because the state itself — not some outside group — just awarded the Houston public schools an academic accountability rating of 88: nearly an A. But to justify its long-held ideological desire to hand over the entire Houston district to charter and other private groups, the TEA is using the fact that one school was chronically underperforming as an excuse to take over the whole district.
”The takeover is a deliberate attempt to silence the voices of Houstonians, who, just two days before the takeover announcement, acknowledged problems with the local school board and voted for new members who could better address the needs of the district’s black and brown students. The seizure of the Houston ISD and school board violates democratic principles.
“From the very beginning, the Houston takeover has been about a political, not an educational, agenda. Charter schools and other forms of privatized schools often are foisted on takeover districts. However, research shows that over the past 30 years and after more than 100 takeovers in districts across the country, state takeovers have failed to deliver in places such as Detroit, Newark (N.J.), Philadelphia and New Orleans. Millions of students and thousands of communities around the country have been victimized by aggressive state and federal intrusion into their local public education.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The state takeover of the Houston schools is an unjustified power grab by the TEA. State takeovers have dismal track records. The Houston schools are not failing with an accountability rating of 88. State takeover will only produce disruption, and disruption is harmful to students. If the TEA cares about Houston’s students, it will allow the board with two new members to address the problems before it implements such drastic measures. It makes no sense to punish an entire system because of problems with the board of education or the performance of one school.
unjustified. Over and over and over…
On December 13, 2018, the HISD Board voted not to turn over certain low performing campuses to private charters. A decision that was responsive to the desires of the community. On January 3, 2019, Gov. Abbott publicly states HISD should be taken over. March 25, 2019, TEA’s appointed conservator orders HISD to halt its search for a new Superintendent and TEA expands its investigation of HISD. Coincidence……
TEA’s appointed conservator has been overseeing HISD’s operations since 2017, where is the accountability of TEA in the process….
HISD has 58 “A” rated campuses and 58.2% of economically-disadvantaged graduates that enroll in college earn a certification/degree.
Collectively, KIPP, YES Prep., IL Texas, and IDEA have 28 “A” rated campuses and only 51.7% of economically-disadvantaged graduates at IDEA earn a certification/degree.
For the Class of 2011, these 4 charters have produced a total of 88 students that have earned a bachelor’s degree from a Texas 4-year college. HISD’s Class of 2011 produced 1,325 students that have earned a bachelor’s degree.
The HISD community needs to take a strong stand. The future education of their children is at stake and it about to be handed to “self-serving politicians” that care more about their donors than the best interests of economically disadvantaged students/families. Shame on them and shame on us for allowing them to dictate what is best for local communities.
The HISD community must mobilize to protest and refuse to accept this appropriation of the common good. They should work with parent groups and social justice groups like the NAACP to thwart this hostile takeover of a functioning public school system.
Has there ever been a state takeover of a school district that actually ended up working?
Thank you Zeph Capo for laying out the case why state take over is a road to nowhere. The Marlin ISD has about 850 students TOTAL. If TEA can’t get the job done in Marlin, how the heck will it handle 210.000 students? On another note the above commentator is dead on. On December 13. 2019 the HISD board rebelled in the open, No SB 1882 “outside partnerships” for HISD. SB 1882 is the mechanism employed by Governor Abbott to pressure school boards to turn over their students, buildings, and control to private operators. It is the “portfolio model” at work. If school boards do not play along, they are removed under the Harold Dutton HB 1832 “one school” death rule. Houston ISD said no, Governor Abbott could not allow this rebellious board mess up his privatization SB 1882 mechanism. It is ideology at work not pragmatism. I fear the Horseman Great Disruption is descending on my school district.
Presumably, the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops won’t be working for a people’s democracy in Houston or Austin.
The education tab at the bishops’ site, IMO, cherry picks references that undermine public education. Bishops in various states, like Texas, take positions on legislative bills .
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops describe themselves as strong advocates of parental school choice since the beginning.
Sixty-six per cent of Americans want separation of church and state.
The bishops’ site references include EdChoice, articles by Jay Greene and Patrick Wolf of the University of Arkansas and, a voucher study by Matthew Gringos, who is currently at the Urban Institute. The Urban Institute receives funding from the Gates Foundation (for a major education project) and, money from the Arnold Foundation for its pension papers. In the past, the Urban Institute had a reputation as liberal.
Patrick Wolf of the University of Arkansas holds a Walton-funded chair in “education reform.” He was the designated evaluator of voucher programs in DC and Milwaukee. He reported no gains in test scores but higher graduation rates (voucher studies by other scholars have reported that students who used vouchers lost ground, especially on math; see studies byMark Dynarski).
However Wolf buried the extraordinary attrition rate in the DC study, but in the Milwaukee study it was about 44%. The survivors had a higher graduation rate but nothing was reported about the students who did not persist.
False witness is an affront to God, according to writings by American Catholic church leaders and scholars. If the Catholic church is joined at the hip with oligarchs, an absence of values and decency is expected. The single high visibility issue about which the Catholic church disagrees with the Republican base is immigration.
And in that, the prosperity Catholics’ interest is likely, cheap American labor.
Not sure what this has to do with Texas schools? As far as I can learn online, there is no voucher program in Texas, & Catholic schools are private. Texas has a lot of charters [8-9%] but they are not Catholic or other religious that I can see.
Bethree
“has nothing to do with Catholic schools”. If that’s true, why would the the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops post conclusions about schools from the Walton’s University of Arkansas?
Silence reflects “nothing to do with”, not promotion.
I’m trying to figure out why this is happening in Houston. Obviously they have laws that allow the state to impose their will on localities virtually arbitrarily ed-wise– just one failing school, & generally improving achievement [“grade” 88%]– so why are they targeting Houston for state takeover? I’m guessing from reviewing demographics at wiki: it’s because both poverty (20%) and minority population (44% Hispanic & 26% black) make them an easy target for control by bureaucrats uninterested in ed achievement stats. Perhaps the ed success in Houston costs the state too much in SpEd, ESL etc, so they figure on privatizing to cut costs. Perhaps they cloak themselves in school-choice ideology, but it’s really about cutting costs on people who don’t count culturally & have too little clout to successfully resist.
Good summary.