Teacher Tatiana Brown-Gomez talks students in July 2025 at an educational day camp for students of Dobie, Burnet and Webb Middle Schools, which were in a state-required turnaround plan. With Burnet and Webb receiving their fifth F ratings, state intervention should focus on helping those students, not a districtwide takeover, the Editorial Board writes.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
Too many students at Burnet and Webb middle schools are not getting the education they deserve.
In the latest STAAR results for Burnet Middle, just 23% of students were reading at grade level and 20% were doing math at grade level. The results were even worse at Webb Middle, where just 21% were reading at grade level and 16% were doing math at grade level.
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Whatever one thinks of Texas’ high-stakes tests, these results are unacceptable. And with both schools posting their fifth “F” ratings in the state’s accountability system, the struggles have persisted far too long.
Texas has an important failsafe that gets triggered after a fifth consecutive “F”: The state must intervene.
But that intervention should be proportional and tailored to the need. While the law allows the state to take over an entire district, the Texas Education Agency should focus its efforts on improving the learning environment for the roughly 1,300 students at Burnet and Webb — not imposing a wholesale takeover on a B-rated district serving more than 69,000 students and dozens of high-performing schools.
A TEA takeover is, by design, disruptive: The state replaces the superintendent and locally-elected school board members so that state appointees can chart a new direction. In the Houston school district, the employees at 29 schools had to reapply for their jobs. Standardized lesson plans were implemented. Some cherished student programs were cut.
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Such a radical reset may be needed in districts with deep-rooted problems, but the upheaval comes at a cost: Houston saw the departure of thousands of demoralized teachers and an exodus of 15,000 students, nearly 10% of the district, in just two years.
Setting aside an entire school board is not a move the state should take lightly. Trustees are chosen by voters and rooted in the communities they represent. They often serve as the most direct conduit for families’ concerns about their schools. The state should not sweep aside those duly elected officials absent serious mismanagement of a district — and that is not what the evidence shows in Austin.
A districtwide takeover is the nuclear option. It is not warranted in Austin, a district that has 61 A- or B-rated schools and clear signs of improvement on other fronts. This year, Wooldridge Elementary jumped from an F to a B rating. Two other campuses that closed over the summer, Bedichek Middle and Winn Montessori, received C ratings after previously receiving three Fs in a row.
Students work on an art project at a 2025 summer camp at for students of Dobie, Burnet and Webb Middle Schools, which were in a state-required turnaround plan.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
While Austin ISD still has the highest number of F-rated schools in the state (20), the trend is one of progress: From 2024 to 2026, the number of A- and B-rated campuses rose from 43 to 61, while D- and F-rated campuses fell from 48 to 31. Austin should continue what’s working in those schools, while targeting more aggressive interventions at the campuses where students need more help.
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The school accountability ratings, heavily based on STAAR scores, provide a necessary measure of student learning. But they do not reflect the value of relationships that teachers have built with students or the sense of community embodied in a neighborhood school. Nor do they capture factors outside the classroom — from parental involvement to stable housing and adequate food — that affect children’s readiness to learn.
School ratings matter, but they should not be the final verdict on the value of a school or the success of a district.
Students at Webb and Burnet have already gone through aggressive turnaround plans meant to avert further Fs. Those efforts weren’t enough. The TEA intervention now should focus on connecting those students to a more effective learning environment. That could ultimately require closing Burnet or Webb and enrolling students in higher-performing schools — a painful step, but one more directly connected to their academic needs than replacing the governance of the entire district.
There is precedent for a narrower response. In Wichita Falls ISD, one chronically F-rated campus triggered TEA oversight while the locally selected school board and superintendent remained in place.
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Austin ISD’s administration has also demonstrated a willingness to take tough but necessary action. This past year the district closed 10 schools in a long-overdue right-sizing after decades of slowly declining enrollment. And under the guidance of a state-appointed monitor, Austin ISD eliminated its backlog of evaluations for students seeking special education support, a crucial step in providing the resources those students need.
Austin ISD is not perfect, and it faces many of the same problems as other urban public school districts. But a district that is getting many things right, and proving its resolve to tackle the thorniest challenges, should receive a targeted TEA intervention at the struggling campuses — not a districtwide takeover that could upend progress everywhere.
The failure to reach enough students at Burnet and Webb has gone on too long. TEA should ensure they are in classrooms where they can thrive — and hold Austin ISD accountable for making that happen. But the remedy should be aimed at the problem, not at disrupting a district where tens of thousands of other students are succeeding.
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Accountability should be precise as well as forceful. The state should fix what is failing without destabilizing what is working.