Houston ISD was taken over by the state several years back due to low test scores. This is of course all part of Abbott's overall plan to punish blue cities for noncompliance. Fort Worth ISD is being taken over by the state this coming school year for the same reason. And Austin ISD is in similar danger, due to three middle schools (all of which have a high number of ELL and refugee students) that have failed standardized testing for 5 years in a row.
Even if the majority of the district is passing, having even one school that is failing can trigger a statewide takeover, and once that happens (as has happened to Houston and FWISD), you are basically locked in a Nazi regime where teachers are forced to teach completely scripted curriculum, down to what you must be teaching every minute of every day. Monitors walk the halls and if you are "off" your assigned curriculum, you get written up and they can fire you. It's hell. And they don't just punish the failing schools, but the entire district.
You may ask, but why are these districts not improving their scores? The Texas legislature back in the 90's came up with a skewed formula called "Robin Hood" that takes money from school districts in blue cities and redirects it to rural districts in red areas. This would actually be fine and fair, except that the formula is completely out of balance, so that the red rural districts get so much excess money they are rolling in funding and have enough to build water parks for their kids, while Austin ISD has a $180 million dollar deficit for this coming school year.
https://www.kxan.com/investigations/aisd-points-to-20m-water-park-as-proof-robin-hood-formula-doesnt-work/
But back to the Houston ISD sp ed debacle. This is horrific, and it's important to remember that the people now running Houston ISD are not the people the parents have chosen. The state has taken over, gotten rid of their school board and all local control, and the actual people who live in that community, who send their children to those schools, no longer have a voice. And this will happen in FWISD and Austin ISD as well (and all the other blue cities shortly after) if we do not prevail in November.
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