Fort Worth Independent School District, one of the largest and most prominent K-12 public school systems in Texas, is currently at risk of state intervention after it was revealed there has been a pattern of failing academic reports for five consecutive years.
The lack of education that students in the state are receiving and the extent to which their districts are underserving them needs to be reevaluated, as years of low campus ratings have been allowed to pass with serious improvement only showing at the threat of state intervention.
State intervention would be the most immediate solution for a district that has consistently had failing Texas Education Agency ratings. However, FWISD and the state should collaborate toward a solution to improve ratings, as state takeovers, such as the one at Houston ISD, have had controversial results.
The TEA released its 2025 A-F Accountability Ratings for schools on Aug. 15, alongside their delayed 2024 ratings. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, this year’s ratings brought good news for the central Fort Worth district, as there were only one-third as many F-rated schools as there were in previous years.
The rating is a holistic evaluation of standardized test scores, graduation rates and career readiness. The A-F TEA rating enables parents and taxpayers to access information on individual schools and the overall district performance, as per the TEA website.
However, the improved ratings may not be enough to prevent the district from being taken over by the state, given its past failing rating for the FWISD’s middle school, which have maintained low test scores for five years. The campus’s low ratings were only recently made public during the 2023-2024 TEA rating period, following a two-year legal battle over changes the TEA made to its rating system. According to the Fort Worth Report, the campus has since been closed and merged with another middle school, the Leadership Academy of Forest Oak Middle School, within the district.
The closure of the campus, formerly known as the Leadership Academy of Forest Oak Sixth Grade, was a preemptive measure by the district to avoid state intervention. Concerns remain for the district as reports of low standardized testing scores have come to light.
“Well, they still are, as I understand it, the lowest performing large school district in the state,” said Republican State Sen. Phil King during a Texas Senate Education Committee meeting when discussing whether state intervention is a necessary action for FWISD. “I’ve got more Fort Worth ISD than any senator. And, I just don’t know what the right decision is, but if I had to bet today, it’s replacing the board, so….”
As a district, FWISD holds an overall rating of C from the TEA for this year. As one of Texas’s largest school districts, with the responsibility of providing nearly 75,000 students with a proper education, FWISD should not barely escape a state takeover with C ratings.
At the time of writing, the decision regarding a state takeover for FWISD is still pending and will be determined later in the fall, allowing the district to implement improvements to enhance its rating in the meantime.
The five years of unacceptable TEA ratings are not just statistics, but entire classrooms of students who are not receiving an adequate education and will have to carry those setbacks throughout their lives.
According to the Texas Tribune, these staggeringly low TEA scores are, unfortunately, not unique to FWISD, as it is only one of a record-breaking five Texas school districts facing a state takeover this year following the release of the ratings.
The other districts that are facing state intervention include, Connally, Lake Worth, Beaumont and Wichita Falls, according to the Texas Tribune.
This pattern of school districts receiving poor evaluations due to an inability to provide students with a basic education, which often leads to state intervention, should be viewed as a warning sign of a failing state of education in Texas.
There is the weighing factor of the pandemic to consider. The pandemic has presented significant challenges to students, educators and educational systems alike, impacting the K-12 system in ways that are still being discovered. Literacy and math skills among students are worse now than they were before, according to The Annie E. Casey Foundation, making teaching an even more challenging feat now than it has ever been.
Despite the pandemic’s impact on K-12 education, other school districts of similar size to FWISD are still managing to not only stay afloat but also academically thrive. According to WFAA, Dallas ISD hosts over half of North Texas’ top-rated TEA schools across the metroplex, achieving TEA scores of 99 and above, which would qualify as an A rating.
Moving forward, school districts, educational systems and the state government all need to invest more heavily in the state of education to alleviate the systemic failures of these districts that have left students lacking an education.
This investment should begin by properly funding Texas schools, providing them with better resources and an adequate number of teachers per student. The majority of underfunded districts in Texas are also associated with lower TEA rankings.
Education in Texas needs to be focused on for change to occur, providing all students with a quality education and establishing better outcomes, rather than relying on barely avoiding state intervention.