In June 2023, the state of Texas appointed a new superintendent and a board of managers to the Houston Independent School District (ISD), replacing the elected board. This state takeover was triggered by the poor performance of two Houston ISD high schools over several years and mismanagement by the district’s board. The state’s intention was to temporarily intervene to improve the performance of the schools and restore proper governance.

The Texas Legislature grants the Texas Education Agency (TEA) the ability to replace a school district’s democratically elected school board with an appointed board of managers in response to poor academic performance, financial mismanagement, or school board misconduct—an exercise of state authority commonly referred to as a “state takeover.” The state’s current authority to take over school districts stems from Texas House Bill 1842, which passed during the 84th Regular Session in 2015. According to this law, if a campus receives an unacceptable performance rating for five consecutive years, the commissioner of education is required to either close the campus or appoint a board of managers for the district. The board of managers is made up of temporary officials who take on the powers and duties of the school board, which means they essentially take over the running of the school district. Existing school board members are stripped of their power but remain elected officials serving in an advisory capacity. Per House Bill 1842, the board of managers is responsible for resolving the conditions that led to the takeover, taking actions that can include amending the district’s budget, reassigning staff, or relocating academic programs (Texas Legislative Study Group, 2023).

Though many states grant takeover authority to their education agencies as a last-resort effort to improve schools and poorly run districts, little evidence exists to support this mechanism as a means of improving student performance or decreasing inequity. While individual reforms have shown that it is possible for a state takeover to improve student achievement in the short run (e.g., Schueler et al., 2017), a recent study examining the effects of 35 state takeovers between 2011 and 2016 finds no evidence that this type of state intervention improves student outcomes (Schueler & Bleiberg, 2022).

To begin measuring changes under the state takeover of Houston ISD, this report describes how the student and teacher populations have evolved before and during the takeover. The report provides context and shows details of how the student and teacher populations and movements have changed since the takeover. Section 2 details the policy and timeline of the Houston ISD takeover. Section 3 reviews the data and research methods and defines key terms used throughout the report. Section 4 describes changes in the student population prior to and since the state takeover, while Section 5 looks at changes in the teacher population. Section 6 concludes the report with a discussion of the major findings.