Architect of law resulting in state takeover of Houston ISD continues to stand behind his flawed arguments

As the Houston Federation of Teachers continues to battle a state takeover of Houston ISD, the architect of the law that led to the state move continues to defend the action with faulty arguments.

The New York Times looks at the issue in a Wednesday article, “Texas Is Taking Over Houston’s Schools, Prompting Charges of Racism: A takeover of the state’s largest school district has led to lawsuits and accusations that minority voters are being ignored. At the center of it are a majority-black high school and a member of the Class of 1961.”

The Times poses the question:

Should an entire district be penalized for the chronic low performance of one majority-black school in one of the city’s most impoverished neighborhoods? And can Texas education officials — who were found in a federal investigation last year to have illegally denied therapy, tutoring and counseling to tens of thousands of children with disabilities — be trusted to do any better?

Here’s the answer from Rep. Harold Dutton (D-Houston), who spurred the state law that led to the takeover.

“Some are saying, ‘How can one campus be bad and cause the whole district to be taken over?’” he said. “Well, I explain it to them this way. If you have five kids and you’re abusing one of them, and C.P.S. comes to your house, they don’t leave the other four kids there. They take the one who’s being abused, and the others as well.”

The faulty assertion here is that Houston ISD is purposely hurting the school in question, Wheatley High School, which failed to meet state accountability standards for more than 5 years, prompting enactment of House Bill 1842, which requires the commissioner of education to either close the school or take over the entire district by appointing a superintendent and a board of managers.

And, as the Texas Observer points out, that when pushing for the law four years ago, Dutton maintained that Houston ISD was purposely neglecting its low-performing schools and stated, “I am convinced that, without a gun to their head, [change] won’t happen.”

The problem with Dutton’s views is that the district has increased achievement, decreased the number of schools in danger of failing standards, and overall has achieved a high B (an 88) in state ratings. And as the Observer correctly points out:

Wheatley, too, would have passed if it weren’t for a new TEA rule that automatically brings a school’s score down to 59 if it fails to pass three of the four metrics used by the state agency, including student achievement, school progress, and closing gaps in outcomes.

The Houston Federation of Teachers has joined a lawsuit against the takeover, asserting that it violates voting rights (by disenfranchising voters who elected the School Board) and particularly those of color. The Times notes one of the union’s key arguments:

They dispute the state’s depiction of the district as dysfunctional, when it earned an overall grade of B for the last school year under the state’s rating system. They point to problems with past state interventions, and they believe the takeover in Houston was prompted by racism and a conservative agenda to turn public schools into charter schools. Across the district, 62 percent of the students are Hispanic and 24 percent are black. The nine-member school board is made up of four Hispanics, three African-Americans, one white and one Asian.

All of the troubled school districts that have been subject to a variety of state interventions in Texas in recent years have been majority-minority districts. The plan to appoint a board of managers in Houston to replace the elected school board was announced Nov. 6, only a day after voters elected new school-board trustees, a move that opponents said disenfranchised minority voters and violated the Voting Rights Act.

….More specifically, [Zeph] Capo, the Houston teachers union leader, believes that Abbott and Morath see this as an opportunity to advance the corporate education reform movement’s signature “portfolio model” that Morath has made a core part of his TEA agenda, with mixed results. The model aims to parcel off public schools to private charter-school operators with the idea that market-based competition will provide more choices and better student outcomes.

And as the Observer article adds:

Some Democrats say Mr. Dutton, who has sponsored pro-charter-school legislation, is in league with charter-school proponents. One of the ways the Houston district could have avoided a takeover was by forming a partnership with a nonprofit group, charter school or university, but district leaders voted against it.

Read More: HISD residents voice near-unanimous opposition to state takeover at TEA meetings (Houston Chronicle)

By Rob D’Amico, Texas AFT Communications Director
(Follow on Twitter @damicoaustin and @TexasAFT)