A squad of Democratic lawmakers is pushing to limit the power of state-appointed officials who step in and take over struggling school districts, ousting locally elected trustees.
A commission out of Houston, where the public school district is facing the largest school takeover in Texas history, recommended raising the bar for when the education commissioner can intervene, setting guardrails for state appointees during a takeover and giving local voters a say in when an intervention ends.
The commission, which state Sen. Molly Cook and Rep. Lauren Ashley Simmons helped chair, released the recommendations in a report Thursday after hearing testimony from HISD teachers, students and parents. Rep. Christina Morales, another Houston Democrat, along with education researchers and Houston community members also helped with the report.
“Our elected trustees have been removed and replaced with people we do not know and we do not trust,” Morales said. “We have no way to hold these unelected board members accountable.”
The commission detailed a breakdown in community relationships, a “hostile” environment for teachers, and unsustainable financial stewardship during the HISD takeover as Texas takes over more districts, many of which are mimicking elements of Houston Superintendent Mike Miles’ school reforms.
When state lawmakers convene for session next year, Cook plans to introduce legislation to raise the threshold for what triggers a takeover to 10% of a district’s campuses failing ratings. Five consecutive F ratings on the academic accountability system at one campus can prompt the intervention now, a standard she described as an unfair burden on larger school districts.
“We don’t want failing schools, but automatically taking over the largest school district in Texas because of one failing school is not a fair measuring stick,” Cook told the Tribune.
Cook said her proposal would require a takeover to end when struggling campuses get acceptable grades for two consecutive years, giving the Texas Education Agency commissioner less leeway than he has now.
Among the commission’s other recommendations were giving local communities a say in when the takeover ends through a local referendum, and setting guardrails in Texas law for the state-appointed board of managers and superintendent.
Managers already set guardrails for superintendents to varying degrees. In Fort Worth, for example, the state-appointed board is considering guardrails for Superintendent Peter Licata that include getting teacher feedback on the scripted lessons he implemented as part of the takeover.
The Houston report proposes requiring managers to partner with locally elected trustees who currently have no authority during an intervention.
During a Texas Tribune panel Wednesday, Fort Worth state Rep. Nicole Collier said she plans to propose legislation that would establish a “continuity board” to ensure trustees are more involved.
“We need to look at what happens to our elected trustees,” Collier said. “They just push them to the side, and then they say, ‘Oh, we’re good now. You can come back.’ Well, that’s not going to be a smooth transition. They need to have buy-in in the whole process.”
The push to limit the unchecked power of Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath and his appointees comes as Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa has run on a platform to end state takeovers. Hinojosa had also vowed to fire Morath on her first day in office.
Two days before the report’s release, state leaders on a Republican-led Senate education committee congratulated Miles for the academic gains HISD has seen under his leadership. Over three years, it went from 56 failing campuses to five.
State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, characterized Miles’ work as a “success by any measurement.”
State Sen. Royce West, a Dallas Democrat, said he has been a “believer” of Miles ever since he led DISD as superintendent. West said he appreciated that Miles laid the groundwork to help Dallas ISD become one of the top urban school districts in the U.S.
“Thank you for the job that you’re doing down in Houston,” West said during the meeting.
In recent weeks, Houston ISD officials announced they were shuffling staff after losing tens of millions of dollars because of higher than expected enrollment drops. HISD also has dipped into reserves and had previous cuts to afford the costly reforms.
But Miles rejected concerns about whether his reforms are sustainable, telling the lawmakers the enrollment declines were due to low birth rates and immigration losses. He added that he wasn’t sure that they could be attributed to the takeover. Some larger Houston-area school districts had similar percentage drops in enrollment compared to HISD, he said.
“Is it sustainable? No question, it is,” Miles said. “We’ve had two years of balanced budgets. In order to sustain that, if you have lower enrollment, then you have to cut purchased services or people, and we can do that. … You can raise teacher pay, and still get the job done. You just have to be very fiscally responsible, and you cannot pay for all things.”
