Photo by Josephine Lee for the Texas Observer
In 2023, the Houston Independent School District (HISD), one of the largest school districts in the country, found itself in a contentious debate surrounding its governance. A 2015 law enabled the Texas Education Agency to take over any school district with a campus failing state accountability standards for five consecutive years, and in 2018, Wheatley High School in Houston had just barely missed a passing grade for the fifth year in a row.
Last March, former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced the state’s plans for Wheatley High School, along with 28 other elementary, middle, and high schools across HISD, to be taken over by the Texas Education Agency. Democratically elected HISD school board members would be replaced with state appointees who would lead the district for an indeterminate amount of time.
State takeovers originally emerged in response to perceived failures in local school governments, particularly in districts struggling with low accountability ratings, fiscal mismanagement, or other challenges like dealing with the aftermath of a natural disaster. The rationale behind takeovers is that a centralized approach can address issues more effectively than could a locally-elected school board that might be partially responsible for a district’s failures.
Despite the intentions behind school takeovers, there is little evidence to suggest that they meaningfully improve academic achievement. A 2021 study analyzing the effects of school takeovers from the 1980s through 2016 found “no evidence that takeover generates academic benefits” and noted that, particularly in the early years after a takeover, they were often “disruptive” to students and teachers. This study also found that state takeovers of districts with higher baseline achievement were the least effective, which is concerning for HISD, considering its reasonably high “B” overall rating.
Proponents of the HISD takeover point to the fact that six out of the seven takeovers initiated by the Texas Education Agency since 2008 have reportedly resulted in positive academic outcomes . However, given the size disparities between those districts—which have primarily been much smaller districts—and HISD, it’s unclear how applicable those results actually are to HISD .
The newly-appointed HISD superintendent, Mike Miles, also has a complicated history of his own. Miles was previously appointed as the superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District (DISD), where he announced his resignation after serving for only three years. While his tenure was initially marked with a slight increase in test scores from struggling schools, it didn’t take long before test scores fell back down again and sometimes even decreased. Furthermore, Miles’ leadership abilities were called into question after DISD faced numerous scandals and saw the turnover rate for teachers nearly double from 12% to 22%.
So far in Houston, Miles’ approach has been controversial, to say the least. Miles champions an educational reform model called the “New Education System.” One of his earliest moves was to require teachers and principals at each school under the takeover to reapply for their jobs. Although Miles has focused on increasing teacher salaries, he has done so by firing librarians and transforming school libraries into multipurpose rooms where misbehaving students are sent to attend classes virtually. In the first month of this school year, 137 teachers resigned from their jobs—double last year’s number. Teachers who quit attributed their resignation to an “abusive” environment and to feeling boxed in by the new administration.
Ultimately, it is still too early to know whether Texas’ takeover of Houston ISD will prove to be a disruptive disaster to Houston’s public schools or if it will produce a more efficient school district with improved educational outcomes. However, available research on the topic, coupled with Superintendent Miles’ history, don’t provide an optimistic outlook.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of The Rice Journal of Public Policy, its staff, or its Editorial Board.
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