No state has taken over as many local public school districts as Texas. Since 2020 alone, the Texas Education Agency has installed its own hand-picked leaders in eight districts. Four of them came this spring. At least 10 others are at risk of being bought out, including, as of last week, the Austin Independent School District.
And to run some of those districts, Texas is turning to a cadre of officials linked to Mike Miles, the man the education agency chose in 2023 to oversee the Houston school district, the state’s largest. Miles is also a close ally of Mike Morath, the powerful education commissioner.
Already, at least two of these new district leaders have begun adopting policies similar to the controversial reforms led by Miles in Houston. He touted the improvement in test scores under his watch. Houston ISD had no F-rated campuses and fewer D-rated campuses in the state’s latest assessments compared to previous years. But Miles also sparked widespread protests in response to the district’s rigid adherence to scheduled classes and repetitive testing, firing of principals and teachers, mass school closures and conversion of schools to charters.
Miles did not respond to requests for comment from the Texas Observer. Houston ISD officials, a declaration to the observer, said the district did not achieve better grades by maintaining the status quo, but had “made difficult decisions” to improve academic performance, noting that the majority of its campuses are now rated A or B.
Those school districts whose new leaders have ties to Miles should prepare for “upheaval and chaos,” an elected Houston school board member warned.
“If something doesn’t match the improvement in test scores, it will be removed,” said Maria Benzon, who was elected to the Houston ISD board in November but is not allowed to serve under the state’s pending buyout. Under Miles, for example, Houston ISD eliminated librarian positions and turned some libraries into what Benzon called “detention centers” because they are used, in part, for students with behavioral problems. Morath, the TEA commissioner, said the centers used for more than just punishment.
Texas law allows the TEA to take control of districts with multiple academic failures or governance problems and replace their elected superintendent and boards.
Recent buyouts include the Beaumont, Lake Worth and Connally independent school districts, whose new superintendents worked under Miles when he was superintendent at Dallas ISD; two of them also worked for him in Houston. In Fort Worth ISD, one of the state’s largest districts, the new state-appointed superintendent chose Daniel Soliz as second-in-command, another person who worked under Miles in Houston ISD. Soliz did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
At least two of the state’s new superintendent appointees — Sandi Massey, who now leads Beaumont ISD in southeast Texas, and Ena Meyers, TEA’s appointee for Lake Worth ISD, a small district near Fort Worth — also worked for the controversial Colorado-based charter network, Third Future Schools, which Miles led before becoming superintendent in Houston. In April, the Observer revealed that Miles had a $120,000 annual consulting contract with the charter network, an arrangement that likely violated a new statewide ban on moonlighting by public school administrators. After questions from the news agency, Miles canceled the contract. The district said Miles “remains fully focused on leading Houston ISD and achieving results for students.”
Third Future Charter Network is expanding around the state like districts return campuses to the nonprofit’s Texas branch, often to delay a potential state takeover. The nonprofit did not respond to the Observer’s request for comment.
School district buyouts often involve layoffs, school closures and an increase in the number of charter schools, as has happened in Houston, said Domingo Morel, an associate professor of political science and public service at New York University, who found that Texas has seen more district buyouts than any other state since 1989.
What’s unique about Texas, Morel said, is that the low bar required to gain control has led to more buyouts. Since 2015, five consecutive failing state ratings at a single school can trigger a takeover, as happened in Houston, which has 273 campuses.
Texas also made it more difficult for districts to appeal these seizures. The Legislature passed a law in 2021 prohibiting districts from using public funds to challenge the education commissioner’s “final and final” decision to take them back. The threshold that defines a failing school was also lowered. Then, in 2025, the state passed another law prohibiting districts from using public funds to sue the state when they challenged its accountability assessments.
The state “is the player, the referee, the coach, the scorer” when it comes to evaluating schools and deciding when to take control, said Steven Nelson, an associate professor of education policy and leadership at the University of Nevada who has studied school takeovers for more than a decade. He said he suspected that TEA-appointed leaders linked to Miles would also focus on standardized testing, resulting in “a narrow curriculum ultimately.”
The acceleration of buybacks, and the state’s increasingly strict grading system comes just as Texas rolls out a school voucher program that, in most cases, will give parents $10,000 in public funds to send their children to private schools. State accountability standards do not apply to private schools, where students are not required to take the standardized tests required in Texas public schools.
TEA spokesman Jake Kobersky said the agency does not expect the four recently taken over school districts to adopt the same reforms that Miles implemented in Houston. “Upon intervention, state law requires the agency to appoint a new superintendent and governing board. All other personnel and operational decisions are made locally by the district,” Kobersky said.
But last August, Morath told lawmakers that other districts “should copy the changes we’re seeing in Houston.”
Massey, Beaumont’s new superintendent, also cited changes in Houston ISD as a model.
“The model that we’re implementing here is a very similar model to Houston. And why? Because of the success that Houston has had,” Massey said at a May 21 board meeting, referring to her time working with Miles at Houston ISD, where he tapped her to be chief of schools.
Under Massey, the newly appointed board voted at its first meeting to temporarily suspend a number of policies related to governance and hiring practices, including the right of employees to present grievances to the board and the ability of principals to approve new hires without district permission. Board member Jeff Wheeler said at the meeting, “We are asking that they be suspended until the board can move and more fully evaluate our local policies.” »
The board took other actions that mirror what happened in Houston after the takeover: On May 14, the district announced it eliminated 34 positions related to student mental health, and on May 21, it announced the closure of a high school.
Massey did not respond to the Observer’s requests for comment on whether she is following Houston’s playbook. Jackie Simien, spokesperson for Beaumont ISD, said, “Massey has worked alongside successful educational leaders with demonstrated results in improving systems, instruction and student performance. »
Benzon, an elected member of the Houston ISD board, said Miles was sidelining the voices of parents and teachers in his district and they were leaving in droves as a result. “They’re trying to escape Miles’ new education system and bad policies,” Benzon added, referring to a program Miles transplanted from his former charter school network that features scripted lessons and repetitive testing. THE The Houston Chronicle reported the district is “losing students at an accelerating rate” following the buyout, prompting the district to close 12 schools before the next school year.
In its statement to the Observer, Houston ISD cited a survey of families reporting a “favorable perception” of the district and said it retained many exemplary teachers.
Nelson and Morel said they believed the ultimate goal of any takeover was to disenfranchise local communities. The studies Black and Hispanic students make up the majority of the population in the four districts now run by Miles’ associates.
“It all starts at the school board level and then completely disempowers the community,” said Morel.
On April 23, Houston ISD decided to fire a veteran teacher and president of the Houston Education Association teachers union after she protested demands to comply with Miles’ new education system.
Meyers, the new Lake Worth superintendent who at the time was Houston ISD’s deputy chief of strategic initiatives, testified in favor of firing the teacher.
“We do not allow our staff to make decisions regarding curriculum in any school in the new education system or in Houston ISD,” Meyers said, according to a transcript of the hearing. “If they do not meet expectations, we will not allow them to remain with HISD as employees.”
Since taking office in Lake Worth, Meyers and the board have temporarily suspended board policies related to governance procedures, hiring and employee assignment and scheduling, similar to what Massey and her board did at Beaumont.
In response to inquiries from the Observer about replicating Houston ISD’s reforms in his new role, Meyers wrote in an email that “Lake Worth ISD is very different from Houston ISD. We are a five-school district serving a much smaller community, so our approach must reflect the unique needs of our students, staff and families.”
Her email continues: “I think educators should learn from successful practices wherever they exist. »
As in Beaumont and Lake Worth, Fort Worth ISD’s takeover has been characterized by rapid change. After less than a month under new leadership, the 68,000-student district suspended local board governance and hiring policies and remove dozens of positionsincluding those supporting English language learners.
Parent organizer Zach Leonard said a new educational model Fort Worth ISD’s rollout to 19 schools, called “Elevate,” is essentially the same as what Miles did in Houston, refuted a claim by district spokesperson Tierney Tinnin.
Leonard, along with other parents in his organization, note the similarities between the programs: “scripted, slide-by-slide lessons, rigid, timed instruction, and ‘learning demonstrations’ reduced to data points.” »
“This is not education reform,” Leonard said, referring to Miles’ learning model transported to Fort Worth. “It’s a right to vote given to our children without a vote.”
