Community Voices for Public Education is firmly opposed to the state takeover of Houston ISD’s school board. A state takeover of HISD would be disastrous for both parents and students.

The Texas Supreme Court ruling on Friday overturned the restraining order that prohibited takeover and sent the case back to the lower courts. You can read more about the history of the takeover attempts in the Texas Tribune and the Houston Chronicle. 

A state takeover will lead to more school closures, larger classroom sizes, more focus on high stakes testing, and a rollback in services.  Remember that “TEA for years had penalized districts for providing special education to more than 8.5% of their students, an arbitrarily devised number that resulted in hundreds of thousands of kids being denied services to which they were entitled through 2017 when they” 

Opposing this state takeover is not just about opposing the harm that takeovers cause, it's about power and who has it. HISD’s school board, for all its faults, is still a democratically elected body. A state takeover will erode our power as a community to have a say in our children's lives.

The TEA is using takeover as a cudgel to disempower an entire school district based on the performance of a single school. It would also be the first time a state takeover occurs primarily due to standardized test scores. In 2019, when the state first attempted takeover, HISD had a B+ rating on the biased A-F rating system and Wheatley, the school that triggered takeover, had a “passing grade.” But TEA changed the rules and took away Wheatley’s passing rating.

To join the fight against the state takeover of HISD, come to this Saturday’s CVPE meeting. We will talk about what we can do to oppose state takeover. RSVP to Saturday's Meeting at houstoncvpe.org/events