Houston Federation of Teachers President Jackie Anderson speaks at a 2024 rally against the Texas Education Agency’s takeover of Houston ISD.
When the Texas Education Agency announced its takeover of Fort Worth ISD last week, it marked another flashpoint in a long-brewing conflict over who controls the future of Texas public schools: local communities or the state government in Austin.
The decision to replace Fort Worth’s elected school board with state-appointed managers followed a familiar script — one Houston ISD educators know all too well. Just two years ago, Commissioner Mike Morath removed Houston’s locally elected trustees and installed his own board, citing years of poor accountability ratings at one campus. Since then, Houston teachers and families have watched their district morph under state control: neighborhood schools restructured, wraparound services discontinued, staff laid off, teachers ran off and replaced, and now, high-performing campuses handed to charter management groups under a controversial law known as Senate Bill 1882.
Now, as Fort Worth braces for the same treatment, educators and parents are asking a simple question: What problem is the state actually trying to solve?
Shifting Goalposts and “Accountability” Games
TEA says its takeover of Fort Worth ISD was legally required because one school, the Leadership Academy at Forest Oaks, posted five consecutive failing grades before closing last year. But local leaders rightly point out the school and the district were already improving before state intervention. (At the time of the takeover, HISD had a B+ rating on the state’s accountability system, as well as a AAA bond rating.)
Fort Worth has raised its overall state accountability rating to a C, cut its number of F-rated schools from 31 to 11, and brought in a new superintendent, Dr. Karen Molinar, who had broad community support.
What changed wasn’t the district’s direction or sincere efforts to improve; it was the state’s shifting rules and goalposts.
Earlier this year, TEA altered its accountability system, recalibrating how campuses earn A–F grades. The retroactive change threatened to drag dozens of districts toward “failing” status overnight. Fort Worth’s leadership says that the moving target made it impossible to show progress on paper, even as teachers were doing the work to turn campuses around.
Texas has spent years starving its public schools. It shouldn’t be allowed to underfund schools, move the goalposts, and then blame educators when the data doesn’t fit the manufactured narrative. This is about power, not performance.
Lessons from Houston
If Fort Worth wants to know what comes next, Houston offers a glimpse. Since TEA seized control of Houston ISD in 2023, Superintendent Mike Miles, handpicked by Morath, has rolled out sweeping reforms. Teachers describe marathon workdays, testing-heavy curricula, and the dismantling of successful magnet and fine arts programs in favor of a “New Education System” that prizes uniformity over innovation. Look no further than the recent coverage of HISD teachers’ clandestine efforts to get actual books into the hands of students.
This month, Miles announced plans to outsource the management of several top-performing schools to charter operators under SB 1882. Passed in 2017, the law was pitched as a way to help struggling campuses partner with outside organizations for extra funding. In practice, it’s become a backdoor to privatization – offering financial incentives for districts that hand public schools to private control.
The Human Cost of Takeover
The data tells one story; the classrooms tell another. Since Houston’s takeover, the district has lost thousands of teachers and tens of thousands of students. Buildings have closed, property has been sold, and community trust has evaporated.
When you silence voters and remove their local leaders, you don’t just lose accountability — you lose connection. Parents can’t vote out a state-appointed board. Teachers can’t get answers from people they never elected. That’s not reform. That’s erasure.
TEA insists these interventions are temporary and necessary; however, their attempt at reform more closely resembles the erasure of decades of community involvement. Morath has said the state’s “moral commitment” is to ensure that “no child spends years in a failing school.” But critics say the pattern suggests a longer-term strategy: centralize control, deflect blame, and pave the way for privatization.
How Many Districts Are Next?
Fort Worth is now the second district under state control, joining Houston. But educators across Texas know their districts could be next. The same accountability formulas that triggered Houston’s and Fort Worth’s takeovers apply statewide, and dozens of campuses remain one rating away from “chronic failure.” In fact, a record five school districts are at risk of TEA takeover.
At the same time, the state’s new voucher program, branded the “Texas Education Freedom Accounts,” will divert billions in public dollars to private schools. Together, the twin policies threaten to unravel Texas’s system of democratically governed public education, district by district.
What’s at Stake for Fort Worth
For now, Fort Worth’s existing board and superintendent remain in place while TEA recruits candidates for the board of managers. Community members can apply on the agency’s website, though final appointments rest solely with the commissioner.
Once installed, the new board will wield the same authority as the elected trustees it replaces. It can hire and fire the superintendent, approve budgets, and make policy decisions, but without public accountability. TEA says the intervention will last “as long as necessary,” potentially years. Elected trustees will continue running for office, but any new winners will serve without voting power until the state decides to restore control.
“Over the past year, our Board and Administration have worked tirelessly to strengthen instruction and accelerate student outcomes,” said Fort Worth ISD Board President Roxanne Martinez. “Our elected Board is in the best position to drive the sustainable improvements the Commissioner seeks, with measurable progress already underway.”
The Bigger Picture
Behind the bureaucratic language of accountability lies a deeper question about democracy itself. Who gets to decide what’s best for local schools? The families who elect their trustees, or a commissioner appointed by the governor?
For teachers on the ground, the answer feels urgent. They see the same pattern repeating: state neglect, state takeover, state privatization. Yet, the state refuses to provide the one thing every struggling district actually needs: adequate funding.
As Houston Federation of Teachers’ President Jackie Anderson warned, “It does not come with money. No ma’am, it does not come with money.”
If Fort Worth ISD is the latest test in Texas’s experiment with state control, then every community watching has a stake in the outcome. Because when public schools lose their voice, so do the people they serve. And in Texas, that’s a story still being written.