After long legal delays over state accountability ratings, the Leadership Academy at Forest Oak Sixth Grade received its fifth consecutive failing rating for the 2022-23 school year in April this year, triggering a state law<\/a> that empowers TEA to take over an entire school district if a singular school receives a failing mark for five years in a row. In 2020, the district handed the campus to the nonprofit Texas Wesleyan University Leadership Academy Network, as part of another state law<\/a> that incentivizes privatization of struggling campuses to avoid takeover.\u00a0<\/p>\n When the school still received failing ratings after two school years, Fort Worth ISD (FWISD) closed the campus in 2023 to avoid state sanctions. But, according to Morath\u2019s letter, the closure occurred after the school had already earned its fifth consecutive failing rating and\u00a0\u201cdid not address the district\u2019s underlying systemic deficiencies that caused the chronic underperformance.\u201d The campus population, like the rest of the school district, was composed predominantly of low-income students of color: 96 percent were economically disadvantaged and 60 percent were Hispanic.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn light of the district\u2019s current and historic data, district level intervention is needed to improve overall performance for the students of Fort Worth ISD,\u201d Morath wrote in the letter. According to recent reporting<\/a> by the Texas Observer, over the past 15 years TEA has taken over 13 school districts with mixed results\u2014some have seen improvements while others haven\u2019t. For instance, the agency left Beaumont and Edgewood ISD with more failing schools after both state takeovers officially ended in 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n FWISD board members wrote in a statement<\/a> that TEA\u2019s announcement came when the district was seeing academic gains. \u201cOver the past year, our Board and Administration have worked tirelessly to strengthen instruction and accelerate student outcomes, said Board President Roxanne Martinez. \u201cOur elected Board is in the best position to drive the sustainable improvements the Commissioner seeks.\u201d<\/p>\n Zach Leonard, a parent with children attending FWISD who\u2019s been organizing community members against the takeover, told the Texas Observer that they\u2019ll continue to resist: \u201cAn appointed board of managers is beholden not to local citizens. They\u2019re beholden to Mike Morath and ultimately, Greg Abbott.\u201d Leonard said parents are worried FWISD could go through the same tumult that Houston ISD has experienced since 2023, when TEA took over the district and appointed the controversial ex-Dallas ISD superintendent Mike Miles to lead the district.\u00a0<\/p>\n Miles has been touting<\/a> improved academic ratings at Houston ISD (HISD) since he took charge: The district received no F rated campuses and fewer D rated campuses in the state\u2019s latest ratings. But critics warn Miles\u2019 proclaimed success has come at the expense of its schools\u2019 leadership, teachers, and students.\u00a0<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Reports from the Houston Chronicle<\/a> and Texas Monthly <\/a>have revealed that Miles inflated STAAR scores by excluding students at struggling schools from advanced math and science courses and delaying participation in those STAAR exams by a year.<\/p>\n Parents, students, and teachers in HISD have all complained of how classroom learning has turned exclusively into test-prep: libraries have been replaced with disciplinary centers, science labs with worksheets, essay writing with multiple choice tests, and reading whole books with reading passages from the STAAR test. Each district-scripted lesson ends with a 5-minute multiple choice quiz.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a sustainable model for the future. It\u2019s not true education. It\u2019s just test prep,\u201d Leonard said.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to the Chronicle\u2019s analyses, Miles\u2019 reforms have led to the exodus of 177 principals at 156 campuses<\/a> and 5,600 teachers<\/a> from across the district. A quarter of teachers teaching in HISD this school year are uncertified<\/a>, compared to 20 percent the previous year. Student enrollment in the district is also falling. From the 2022-23 school year before the takeover to the current one, student enrollment has fallen 10 percent\u2014from almost 190,000 to 170,000.<\/p>\n TEA can restore local control of the district after the failing school meets state standards for two consecutive years, but it is not required to do so. Although HISD\u2019s Wheatley High School\u2014the campus that triggered the initial takeover\u2014received a B the past two school years, TEA announced<\/a> this past June that it would extend the takeover until June 2027 \u201cto allow the district to build on its progress.\u201d More changes are coming in the 2026-27 school year. Miles has recently announced the district will close up to 10 schools<\/a> and turn its magnet high schools into charter schools<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The state takeover in Fort Worth could be followed by others in Beaumont, Connally, Wichita Falls, and Lake Worth ISDs, which all received a fifth consecutive failing grade at one of its schools after the 2024-25 school year.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just a Fort Worth ISD or Houston ISD issue. This is a statewide issue,\u201d Leonard said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite months of community protests, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) announced last week that it would begin the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":338886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[7371,4345,58013,80131,8366,358,8973,3187],"class_list":{"0":"post-338885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-fort-worth","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-mike-miles","11":"tag-mike-morath","12":"tag-tea","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-texas-education-agency","15":"tag-tx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115453086065411357","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Membership-Banner-Aug-2024-Evergreen.png\")
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