Do takeovers of Texas public schools produce better academic results for students?
Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath’s answer is yes.
“In every single intervention, the results were higher, or at least no worse after the board of managers was placed than before,” Morath said during a recent tour of William James Middle School in Fort Worth.
As Morath considers a takeover of the Fort Worth and Lake Worth school districts, student test results and other measures show how interventions in three Texas districts impacted academics, enrollment and graduation rates.
Overall, state-run districts saw improvements in rates of all students passing on par with the uptick of the state’s average.
A takeover does not necessarily mean instantaneous improvements in the classroom, said Jo Beth Jimerson, an education professor at Texas Christian University.
“That’s an action, but it doesn’t tell us what the state is doing,” she said. “There’s never going to be a guarantee that the next set of people are inherently better than the last set.”
Seventh grade students work on an assignment in a class at Fort Worth ISD’s William James Middle School on Aug. 28, 2025. (Maria Crane | Fort Worth Report/CatchLight Local/Report for America)
The following charts compare Fort Worth and Lake Worth to Houston, Shepherd and Marlin school districts, a trio of recent state takeovers. Houston’s began in 2023, while Shepherd’s started in 2019. Marlin started its return to local control in 2024 after an eight-year takeover.
Texas law requires the state to close a failing public school after five straight years or to replace a district’s elected board and superintendent with appointees by the state education commissioner.
Houston ISD is the largest such takeover in Texas history with more than 176,000 students enrolled.
Fort Worth preemptively closed the school that received five straight F’s. Lake Worth’s failing campus — Marilyn Miller Language Academy — is still open.
A takeover of Fort Worth ISD, which has about 70,000 students, would mark the second largest in the state. Lake Worth ISD has about 3,200 students.
Shepherd and Marlin are small, rural districts. Fewer than 2,000 students attend Shepherd schools in southeast Texas, while 843 children are enrolled in Marlin ISD, which is near Waco.
“Every single one of our state interventions has resulted in fairly immediate improvements in the quality of student learning,” Morath said. “Now that doesn’t mean I can give you any guarantee — there is no guarantee in life. But we have a strong track record of success.”
Governing school districts is tricky, TCU’s Jimerson said. With locally elected school trustees, community members have a clear mechanism to hold officials accountable.
“We honestly saw that quite clearly in Fort Worth,” Jimerson said, referring to the district’s leadership change following Mayor Mattie Parker calling out trustees for unacceptable schools. “It was messy, but the community and voters exerted pressure and changes were made.”
A new superintendent came in and rolled out student-centered reforms that leaders say are producing results.
With state control, however, local residents pushing for change won’t find it as clear-cut, the professor said.
“What’s the accountability for the state actors running a local district? What does that look like?” she said. “That’s an open question.”
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Jacob Sanchez is education editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or @_jacob_sanchez.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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