TXLBC Statement Condemning TEA Takeover of HISD

Since 2019, the Texas Education Agency has been in a legal battle in an attempt to take over the Houston Independent School District over what it sees as an underperforming school district, and there are recent reports that Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner has been told that the TEA will be taking over HISD as early as next week, according to the Texas Tribune. The Texas Legislative Black Caucus condemns this hostile takeover of HISD by the Texas Education Agency and not looking at the significant academic progress that HISD has made over the past few years. We have seen historically that state takeovers of local school districts have not ended well and more often than not only led to imposed costs on the state with funding, staff, and resources. Our public schools are already underfunded as they are, and expecting the state to suddenly be able to pick up the tab for everything is a risk that we just can't afford. The many thousands of students and teachers deserve better than having their school district stripped of local control and into the hands of a state agency that will replace the publicly-elected superintendent and board members with replacements of their choosing.

Chairman Ron Reynolds (Missouri City) has stated the following:

"Wheatley High School, the school that initiated this entire process, has made great strides and has been able to remove itself out of the 'Improvement Required status' that it was originally placed in. HISD has been working on improving its academic standing and already we've seen those results, as the end of the 2022 school year showed that 40 of 54 failing campuses showed passing grades of C and an overall grade of B for the district as a whole. This is an overreach by the state on this academic issue and will be a total loss of local control over the education of over 194,000 students at 276 campuses. Ultimately, we need to be focusing on the best ways to help serve our students and teachers, and taking the helm of HISD is not the best way to move forward. The Texas Legislative Black Caucus completely condemns

TEA's overreach of local control and urges for a better solution to be found."