After the Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the Little Rock Nine endured violent attacks in order to become the first Black teenagers to attend a previously all-White high school in pro-segregation Arkansas. In 1960, four Black students began a nationwide sit-in movement after refusing to leave a Woolworth lunch counter reserved for White customers. More recently, from Arizona to Seattle, students have protested funding mismanagement, sanitized curricula, and police brutality. The historical record is clear: Student activists have relentlessly challenged countless infringements on their rights.
It seems that now, more than ever, states feel comfortable eroding the rights of students — some slowly and subtly, others radically and unforgettably. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis signed 18 education bills into law, including one that would bar teachers from asking students about their personal pronouns. Recently, Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia established a tip line to allow parents to report critical race theory in classrooms. The aforementioned measures have received significant media attention, but others go unseen and unpunished. In New Hampshire, the state Department of Education has implemented laws to stifle classroom conversations by potentially revoking the license of public school teachers who teach specific kinds of lessons about race, racism, and sexism. In my home state of Texas, a new normal is playing out for the 200,000 students of the state’s largest school system — one that may soon endanger the rights of students across the nation.
In the Houston Independent School District, “independence” is a paradox: As of June 2023, the Texas Education Agency’s hand-picked board of managers replaced the district’s democratically elected school board. The takeover left many students, parents, and administrators alike wondering: How did the Texas Education Agency overturn years of governance by elected officials?
Fundamentally, the takeover of HISD represents the overreach of state politicians on issues relating to education. In 2015, Texas passed a law mandating a state takeover if a school district or one of its campuses receives failing grades in the Texas Education Agency’s accountability rating system for five consecutive years. This mechanism enabled the agency to take over HISD when Phillis Wheatley High School, one of the district’s 276 schools, met this criteria in 2019.
However, despite the performance of the high school in 2019 and the years prior, it improved to a C rating in 2022. Furthermore, the district, as a whole, tends to perform well — it received a B in 2022. While using the performance of Wheatley High School to justify the takeover of HISD may have garnered sympathy in 2019, the warrant rings hollow now. Displacing the leadership of a school district that has initiated significant strides in academic achievement undermines the integrity of the education system and the legitimacy of the takeover.
In Houston, just months into the takeover, this disruption has already destabilized the functioning of the education system. Since his appointment, new superintendent Mike Miles has announced that all employees at 29 low-performing schools must reapply for their jobs. Miles, formerly superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District, arrived late to the newly-appointed board’s first meeting, where several Dallas educators and parents spoke about the harmful effects of his tenure. In Dallas, a district audit found that Miles had broken rules when making hires by offering positions before prospective employees had undergone criminal background checks and hired executive employees that would eventually face a variety of charges, including federal indictment. Moreover, under Miles, DISD experienced a complete restructuring of its teacher evaluation system: The district began calculating teacher pay based on classroom performance instead of experience and college degrees, prompting many veteran educators to leave. In light of these reforms, the district’s overall performance on state tests largely remained unchanged, and in some cases, scores decreased.
Perhaps this mismanagement is why Dallas teacher Rosie Curts wielded a sign that read, “I teach in Dallas. Mike Miles damaged us so badly, I drove for hours to come warn you!” at a Houston protest against the takeover. Curts’ sign suggests a question that will plague the district for years to come: What damage will result from the takeover? How will the long-term effects of the takeover on student rights manifest?
If the first few meetings of the new school board are any indication, the outlook for student rights is bleak. After protesters flooded the first meeting, the board allowed only 35 members of the public into a more recent meeting, which occurred in a room that could accommodate more than 300. Approximately 100 attendees were sent to an overflow room. If this initial suppression of voices ensues, students in HISD may lose the ability to influence the decision-making of a board supposedly appointed to uphold their interests.
In a school district with a minority enrollment of 90%, the takeover erases years of positive development. Dr. Sergio Lira, president of the Greater Houston League of United Latin American Citizens, expressed his concern about what a state takeover would mean for existing HISD measures that benefit minority communities, including bilingual programs, ethnic studies, and other initiatives that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. The HISD takeover introduces the possibility that years of progress will be erased by the hands of a school board that will always answer to the demands of the Texas Education Agency, not the needs of students and the Houston community at large.
Ultimately, the erosion of student rights in Houston poses a threat to students across the nation. Students in states that have historically supported and sponsored academic censorship and other restrictions on learning have a valid reason to wonder if their elected officials will attempt to advocate for similar takeovers of their schools or districts. While the question of whether a takeover could truly occur will be left up to the legislative and judicial powers of individual states, Houston serves as a chilling warning — a glimpse into a nearly dystopian future in which students are underrepresented, unseen, and unheard.
