The Troubling Trend of State Takeovers of Public Schools

The state takeover of Houston Independent School District, the eighth-largest public school system in the United States, is entering its second year. 

State-appointed superintendent Mike Miles is celebrating the occasion by touting state test score results that show preliminary improvement in student achievement. Other leaders in education across the country are paying close attention to Miles’ tactics to see if they’re effective enough to implement in their own schools.

Since 1989, over 100 school districts across the U.S. have been subjected to state takeovers, in which the state seizes control of low-performing or financially struggling school districts, replacing their locally elected school boards. This is done with the goal of dramatically improving the district’s academic or financial performance. State takeovers are difficult to neatly describe because they vary from place to place depending on the policies that the state-appointed board and superintendent decide to implement. But they are overwhelmingly ineffective.

A 2021 study done by researchers from Brown University and the University of Virginia analyzed over 100 state takeovers between 1989 and 2016. It found “no evidence that takeover generates academic benefits.” In fact, it can take years for schools to return to their previous levels of academic achievement after a takeover. 

Beyond that, takeovers are emblematic of a worrying trend in education that extends beyond Houston and hurts low-income learners and students of color most. 

The study also showed that state takeovers disproportionately target districts with higher concentrations of low-income and nonwhite students, regardless of academic achievement. But another study revealed that majority-Black districts rarely see financial improvement in the years following a takeover.  

The Brown study also found that takeovers tend to happen in states with both a Republican governor and a Republican-controlled legislature. This should be really alarming given the fact that those same states are also passing legislation like requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms and restricting the discussion of race, sex, and gender in schools.

HISD is no different.

As of 2022, almost 80 percent of HISD students were considered economically disadvantaged, and the overwhelming majority were students of color. Education is supposed to be the great equalizer, but state takeovers exacerbate education inequality for low-income and minority students. Too often in conservative states, they disrupt existing communities and feed students subpar and radicalizing material. 

In 2019, out of HISD’s almost three hundred campuses, just one school’s repeated failure to meet state standards allowed the Texas Education Agency to take over the entire district. HISD had managed to fight off takeover for four years.

During that time, their academic accountability scores improved. In 2022, the district received a high B, performing better than several other districts in the state, and Phillis Wheatley High School, the 97-year old historically Black campus that had triggered the state takeover law, improved its score to a passing 78.

Last year, the Texas Education Agency took over anyway, appointing a nine-person board of managers and Mike Miles, formerly the very controversial superintendent of Dallas ISD, to transform the Houston public school system. 

As a result of the takeover, the Texas Education Agency implemented a scripted curriculum in HISD schools. This past year, Miles had to reassign a group of teachers to review the provided curriculum, which was found to be riddled with errors and inappropriate content, including ChatGPT-sourced material. He also faced backlash after it was revealed that students were being shown videos questioning human-caused climate change from the conservative Prager University Foundation.

Now, the Texas Education Agency is offering all school districts in the state $60 per student to teach a new curriculum that contains extensive biblical references. For students in Texas schools, culture war politics are increasingly invading education, and districts taken over by the state have no choice but to teach its curriculum. 

There are several other problems with the HISD takeover. 28 schools faced the most radical reforms this year, and an additional 57 were brought into the new system but didn’t experience some of the larger structural changes.

State requirements for certified teachers, deans, and assistant principals were waived to ease the hiring process, while veteran teachers had to reapply for their positions, with many not offered the chance to return. 

A militaristic learning environment was enforced, with teachers forced to rush through timed and scripted lessons and students made to participate approximately once every four minutes. When students had to use the restroom, they had to carry a large traffic cone as a hall pass, which many felt was humiliating and dehumanizing.

Libraries were converted into “team centers” that housed both students who finished their lessons early and students with discipline problems made to watch their lessons virtually, while librarians were let go and, in several cases, shelves emptied.

All of these reforms have led to a budget deficit of almost $200 million for this year and a projected shortfall of over $500 million for next year that Miles is attempting to make up partially through the cutting of special education and wraparound specialists, who help students dealing with homelessness and hunger. Many have questioned the long-term financial feasibility of the takeover.

On August 8, the district’s state-appointed board of managers will decide whether or not to put its proposed $4.4 billion bond, which it says will be put toward renovating facilities and improving school safety, among other promised improvements. Opponents to the takeover, including the American Federation of Teachers, have spoken out against the bond, citing their lack of faith in Miles and embracing the rallying cry “No trust, no bond.”

Meanwhile, Miles seeks to implement a pay-for-performance model, where teacher pay — and continuing employment — will be tied to standardized test scores and evaluations. For now, he’s settled for raising teacher pay, but only for the 28 schools required to follow the new model, and only for those teachers whose grades and subjects are tested on state exams. Furthermore, teachers can only benefit for as long as they manage to stay employed at those schools.

This past year, teacher turnover was almost double its usual rate, as teachers and administrators both opted to resign in protest to the reforms and were not asked back throughout the year. 

It is possible that some of Miles’ practices are worth considering, but a year of teacher, parent, and student responses only support the growing body of evidence that show that takeover is not the way to go about it. Protests and student walkouts against the takeover continued until the end of the school year, with community members complaining that their concerns have been repeatedly ignored or dismissed.

We can all acknowledge that educational inequality is a major issue, and change is necessary. But a takeover is not the answer. Too often, it is an instrument of conservative politicians wielded against local communities who find their voices shut out, and the most vulnerable students pay the price.

Instead of allowing the state to take over our schools, we need to turn to proven solutions like increasing per-pupil spending, which has been shown to address achievement gaps faced by low-income students. According to a 2018 Rutgers study, Texas needs to spend $12,000 more per student to bring its poorest students up to national average outcomes.

We owe it to all of our students to find effective and sustainable reforms that center their needs. Education should not be a power struggle. Instead, it should be a way to uplift and empower communities and to help give students the start that they need to succeed in life.