The leaders of the Houston Independent School District, the largest school district in Texas and one of the largest in the nation, will be replaced by a new board appointed by the state Commissioner of Education, the district said Wednesday.
The Texas Education Agency intends to replace the district’s superintendent and board of education trustees “in the next few months,” the current board of education said in a statement.
The intervention is being made under a state law that allows the state to remove the board of districts with schools that are failing to meet certain state standards.
It comes after the Texas Supreme Court in January, after a years-long legal battle between the district and the education commissioner, ruled in the commissioner’s favor.
The takeover is “troubling, but it’s not unexpected,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said.
Millard House II, who has been superintendent since 2021, said the move “does not discount the gains we have made district-wide. I am confident our educators and staff will continue to do the necessary work to ensure positive student outcomes at every level.”
The state teacher’s union said it was furious about the decision.
The Texas Education Agency “has lost at this point all space to judge or to be a model that any of the rest of us should follow,” Texas American Federation of Teachers President Zeph Capo said at a news conference.
“The state and its officials will now be responsible for more than 180,000 students, and 25,000 school employees,” Capo said. “For their sake, I have no choice at this point but to wish them well and hope that they succeed. But make no mistake, we will watch every move.”
Such takeovers are not unheard of, but they are not common, according to Domingo Morel, an associate professor of political science and public service at New York University and the author of “Takeover: Race, Education, and American Democracy,” a book that focuses on the issue.
“We have over 10,000 school districts in this country, and there’s only been about 110 or so,” Morel told CNN, including in Newark, New Jersey, Detroit and Philadelphia.
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March 16, 2023 at 08:09AM
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Texas takes control of Houston Independent School District - CNN
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