taking over Fort Worth ISD<\/a> and will replace its locally elected board of trustees with appointed managers.<\/p>\nSuperintendent choice drives community tension<\/p>\n
Much of the controversy that has unfolded over the two and a half years since, she says, has stemmed from the state’s choice for superintendent and his reforms.<\/p>\n
Mike Miles, who previously led Dallas ISD, has implemented major changes with little pushback from board members who’ve also been appointed by the state to replace the district’s democratically elected trustees.<\/p>\n
“Board meetings still happen, but because community members and voters aren’t able to vote board members out, they don’t necessarily have a direct way to hold these board members accountable for decisions they dislike,” said Menchaca.<\/p>\n
Teachers union president warns Fort Worth<\/p>\n
“You send them an e-mail, and you get an automatic response,” said Jackie Anderson, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, on her communication with the state-appointed board.<\/p>\n
Her heart stopped, she said, when she learned the TEA would be taking Fort Worth ISD, too.<\/p>\n
“If the same thing happens to you that happened here, you’ll see your district destroyed. You’ll see property sold. You’ll see 30\u201340 thousand students leaving. You’ll see 5 to 6 thousand teachers leaving,” she said.<\/p>\n
Test scores rise, but questions remain<\/p>\n
Overall, HISD schools did receive better grades from the TEA this past year. The district’s supporters say that’s evidence its methods are working.<\/p>\n
Critics, though, remain skeptical. Reforms, they say, have included changing when students take certain STAAR tests, like the biology exam.<\/p>\n
“They can take the STAAR exam a year later than is typical, but, of course, if you give students another year of instruction, more of them are going to pass,” explains Menchaca.<\/p>\n
Elected trustee urges better transition<\/p>\n
Savant Moore, who was elected to serve as an HISD trustee but currently holds no voting power, said he hopes TEA and Fort Worth ISD have a better transition.<\/p>\n
“I don’t wish a state takeover on anyone, but I’ve seen firsthand that when you shut out the community, trust disappears; and when trust disappears, even progress feels like punishment,” he wrote.<\/p>\n
Community engagement, he said, has to be front and center.<\/p>\n
“Houston has made gains, but they’ve come with growing pains because community voices weren’t always part of the process. I hope TEA starts differently in Fort Worth by listening early and often,” he said.<\/p>\n
Funding gap remains a major concern<\/p>\n
Anderson, though, says a better solution would be to provide schools with more funding\u2014one thing a state takeover doesn’t come with.<\/p>\n
“It does not! It does not come with money. No ma’am. It does not come with money,” she said.<\/p>\n
She warns that other communities need to pay attention.<\/p>\n
“We said three years ago, ‘It’s us today, it’ll be you tomorrow,'” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Texas Education Agency stepped in to replace Houston ISD’s superintendent and school board in 2023, it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117,430,27],"class_list":{"0":"post-18649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-fort-worth","9":"tag-fort-worth-headlines","10":"tag-fort-worth-news","11":"tag-north-texas","12":"tag-texas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}