Houston ISD faces state takeover if long-failing campuses don’t improve

Shelby Webb and Andrea Zelinski:

The warning was issued during a meeting Monday between Texas Education Agency officials and Houston’s legislative delegation.

TEA officials told lawmakers that if even one of the district’s 13 schools that has struggled for at least the past three years receives failing accountability marks in 2017 and again in 2018, it could trigger state oversight of the entire district. Alternatively, the state agency could take over individual, chronically failing campuses.

Houston ISD is among 46 independent school districts that could face such sweeping changes thanks to a law passed by the Republican-controlled legislature in 2015 that targets schools that have been in “improvement required” status for five or more years, as of the 2018-2019 school year.

While the state has taken over individual schools and smaller districts in the past, the law could overhaul how public education is provided in Texas. The Houston ISD is the seventh-largest district in the country, serving more than 210,000 students at over 280 schools and operating with a $2 billion annual budget.

Houston plans to spend $9,524 per student during the 2017-2018 school year, slightly less than half of Madison’s nearly 20K….

Madison’s far above average spending has not addressed its long standing, disastrous reading results.