State: HISD at risk of takeover

Failing schools could spur move under 2015 law

Texas education officials are warning that Houston ISD could be placed under the jurisdiction of state-appointed managers as early as next year if 13 district schools don’t show improvement.

The warning was issued during a meeting Monday between Texas Education Agency officials and Houston’s legislative delegation.

TEA officials told lawmakers that if even one of the district’s 13 schools that has struggled for at least the past three years receives failing accountability marks in 2017 and again in 2018, it could trigger state oversight of the entire district. Alternatively, the state agency could take over individual, chronically failing campuses.

Houston ISD is among 46 independent school districts that could face

such sweeping changes thanks to a law passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2015 that targets schools that have been in “improvement required” status for five or more years, as of the 20182019 school year.

While the state has taken over individual schools and smaller districts in the past, the law could overhaul how public education is provided in Texas. Houston ISD is the seventh-largest district in the country, serving more than 210,000 students at over 280 schools and operating with a $2 billion annual budget.

“This is a crucial crossroads for the children of Houston as well as for everyone who has a stake in our city,” said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, a former state legislator, in a written statement. “Houston has a deep reserve of smart people and resources, all of which can be leveraged to provide HISD with the support it needs to solve its own problems.”

‘Major concerns’

Superintendent Richard Carranza, board President Wanda Adams and other district leaders planned to travel to Austin this week to meet with TEA and key state officials.

“Houston ISD is aware of major concerns the Texas Education Agency has expressed regarding several of our schools considered ‘chronically underperforming,’ ” the district said in a written statement Tuesday. “HISD shares the agency’s concerns and is working closely with TEA on the transformative work we must do at the local level to ensure every HISD student receives an excellent education.”

Several other large school districts — including the Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Corpus Christi and Waco ISDs — also have multiple struggling campuses that could fall into “improvement required” status again this year and in 2018, potentially prompting a state takeover.

Locally, the Aldine, Alief, Brazosport, Galveston, Spring Branch and Victoria ISDs all have at least one campus that could potentially trigger such major changes by 2018.

Bob Sanborn, president and CEO of the advocacy group Children at Risk, said Houston ISD and other districts facing potential state takeover are not in nearly as dire straits academically or financially as other districts that the TEA has taken control of or forced to close. He said data supported the TEA’s closing of North Forest ISD in 2013 and of La Marque ISD in 2016.

“HISD on the other hand, and Dallas ISD — they clearly have many success stories, many good schools,” Sanborn said. “Dallas and Houston ISDs have a lot of high-performing, high-poverty schools, and if you look at Houston ISD’s record in the last five years they have seen a turnaround. It’s hard to believe the state could do more to enhance that turnaround than what’s already being completed.”

The TEA declined to say whether it is planning to take over any part of HISD, but said it would release a list of low-performing schools on Aug. 15.

“Until then, there’s not really anymore we can say,” said DeEtta Culbertson, the agency’s spokeswoman.

The new law is part of Texas’ changing school accountability system, which aims to measure and hold schools and districts accountable for how well students perform on standardized tests, among other factors. The state is in the middle of rolling out letter-grade accountability marks that will grade schools and districts on an A-through-F system. Preliminary letter grades were released in January, and more tentative letter grades will be released during the coming school year, but the actual grades that will carry consequences will not be given until fall 2018.

Previous closures

Currently, the state has two accountability ratings for traditional schools and districts — “meets standard” and “improvement required.” Schools that have fallen into “improvement required” status or previous so-called “failing” statuses have long faced penalties under Texas law. A state conservator was placed in charge of Kashmere High School in Houston ISD last year, for example, after the school fell into “improvement required” status for the seventh year in a row.

But the potential for entire school districts to be taken over by the state due to one or a handful of struggling campuses is new, and many local education leaders did not know about the 2015 law that created the option.

“I think it would be a travesty that one ‘improvement required’ school could allow the state to take over the entire district,” said HISD Trustee Jolanda Jones. “That’s not a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Board members are individually elected by their constituencies, and the folks in Austin have no clue about the constituencies in Houston ISD.”

Such complaints were common in North Forest and La Marque ISDs when they were shut down by the TEA.

North Forest ISD had some financial and academic problems, resulting in schools being rated “academically unacceptable.” The TEA embedded a state-appointed monitor to keep an eye on the district and eventually put a state conservator in charge.

La Marque ISD had seen academic and financial improvements in the years before it was shut down. Former La Marque ISD School Board Member Terry Pettijohn told the Chronicle in 2015 that the district’s fund balance — essentially a rainy day fund — increased from $400,000 to $4.3 million between 2013 and 2015. During that time period, the district also put in place a new curriculum.

The year TEA announced it would shut down La Marque ISD, the district made a passing score for its academic standards but failed to meet financial standards. That district’s closure was the sixth such action in 15 years, TEA officials said at the time.

While La Marque ISD’s central administration was able to make progress in the district’s final years, the TEA-placed monitor and conservator in North Forest ISD seemed to make little difference, which Sanborn said is not uncommon.

“I don’t think there is an instance you could point to” where a TEA takeover changed a school or district for the better, Sanborn said. “But we’ve never had a TEA commissioner like Mike Morath. He’s smarter than your average commissioner, he’s from an urban district, he has data experience and has surrounded himself with good people. But he’s creating a huge headache for himself by doing this. We do have a lot of bad schools in Houston ISD, but it’s not a matter of all our schools being horrible like was the case in North Forest.”

Morath, a Dallas ISD trustee before being appointed to his current post by Gov. Greg Abbott in December 2015, has been seen as a pragmatic yet reformminded leader of the TEA.

Rep. Harold Dutton Jr., a Houston Democrat, said he could support a state takeover because he doesn’t have enough confidence in HISD to turn around schools that have been continuously identified as failing.

“We have almost 15,000 kids in failing schools in Texas. I’m tired of that. Most of them are in my district. Most of them are black and brown schools,” Dutton said.

‘High service need’

HISD Trustee Anna Eastman also shared concerns about the board’s ability to function well enough to inspire such sweeping improvements. She pointed to a meeting in June when it took the board about eight hours to adopt a budget with a $106 million shortfall after midnight. She said the TEA required the boards for HISD and several other districts statewide to undergo mandatory training due to the number of district campuses labeled as failing, although she said she’s unsure the training had much of an impact.

Some area lawmakers briefed by the TEA on Monday said HISD has improved district performance over the last few years and should be allowed to continue that work.

“These are historically black and Hispanic communities that were lowincome that have a very high service need for the kids,” said Rep. Gene Wu, a Houston Democrat. “It’s not easy to overhaul widespread systemic problems in the system and it’s unfair to lay the blame on HISD, or solely on the board or solely on the brand new superintendent.”

And Carranza has been busy instituting changes since his arrival last September.

In April, Carranza announced an ambitious campus turnaround plan at 32 Houston ISD schools called “Achieve 180.” Virtually all the schools targeted by the initiative are in “improvement required” status, and they include the 13 campuses that could trigger a state takeover in 2018. The $24 million plan, which was pared down somewhat in the district’s final budget, aims to improve student performance by bolstering school leadership, teaching and instruction, school design, social supports for students, and relationships with families and communities.

As part of the plan, HISD is working to increase professional development and teacher training at the 32 schools, as well as lengthen work days. Stipends will be paid for teachers’ extra time. Part of each day will be dedicated to teacher collaboration, and instructional coaches will sit in on classes to offer pointers to teachers trying to get students up to grade level.

One of the biggest shifts will be Achieve 180’s focus on hiring and funding more nurses and social workers, as well as partnering with community agencies to provide services to struggling families. It’s part of trend in education to focus on students’ emotional and social well being, rather than just academics.

Carranza, who came to Houston ISD from San Francisco, said a similar program he instituted in California produced positive results, an assertion backed by some researchers.

Not a quick fix

Rep. Senfronia Thompson, another Houston Democrat, lives a mile away from Kashmere High School, which has ranked low on the state’s grading scale for years. More than a dozen of the struggling schools identified by the TEA are in her district, she said, and the onus to turn them around falls on the HISD school board, not the state.

“If you look at that list, it’s all in the northeast area in the black community. I’m not running a flag up that this is discrimination, but somebody’s been asleep at the switch for this to continuously happen,” Thompson said. “It’s the district’s fault and they know how to fix this and they need to fix it.”

Most of those interviewed agreed on one thing: It would take more than one school year to fix the problems that have plagued some of the area’s most troubled schools.

“All of us want to be impatient when it comes to the well-being of our children,” Sanborn said. “But the problem is if (Morath) follows through with a takeover. I don’t think anyone is sure that would be a better thing for our students.”