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Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott speaks at a press conference at the Texas State Capitol on May 18, 2020 in Austin.
Public education advocates on Wednesday were outraged as Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s administration announced the state would take over the Houston Independent School District despite recent improvements in school performance that were achieved as the district remains chronically underfunded.
State education commissioner Mike Morath announced the takeover by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) in a letter to district officials, saying the decision had been made largely due to several years of low “accountability ratings” for a single high school—one of 50 high schools and 276 public schools in the city.
Phillis Wheatley High School, where 96% of students financially qualify for a free lunch program and the student body is made up almost entirely of people of color, was cited as a primary reason for the TEA’s original attempt to take control of the district in 2019.
In 2015, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a law mandating a state takeover of any school district where at least one campus was given a failing grade for student performance by the TEA for five consecutive years—a threshold Wheatley met in 2019.
HISD sued the state to block the 2019 takeover attempt, and has made strides in improving test scores since then. Wheatley earned a C grade from TEA in 2022, and the school district reduced the number of schools that earned a D or F—50 in 2019 compared to just 10 last year. According to the Texas Tribune, 94% of schools in the state’s largest school district were given an A, B, or C grade last year, while HISD earned a B.
“The test scores have risen, but they’re still trying to take over after we have worked so hard to accomplish that,” Nyla McCullum, who is set to graduate from Wheatley this spring, told the Tribune.
The improvements have been achieved even as the state of Texas has spent more than $3,000 less per pupil on public school funding, according to the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University. HISD teachers earn nearly $1,000 less on average than other educators in Texas, teaching in a district where more than 78% of students are economically disadvantaged. More than 61% of HISD students are Latino and 22% are Black.
Despite the improvements in academic performance, the Republican-led state legislature passed education laws in recent years clearing the way for the takeover to move forward.
“The state takeover of HISD is not about public education—it’s about political control of a 90% Black and brown student body in one of the country’s most diverse cities,” said the ACLU of Texas. “And it’s not what our students and teachers need.”
Under the takeover, which will officially take effect in June, the TEA will replace Superintendent Millard House II, who joined the district in 2021, and will appoint a “board of managers” in place of the district’s elected board of trustees. The board will be in control of the district for at least two years, according to the Associated Press.
“The state-appointed managers will hold immense power,” reported Houston Public Media. “They can control the budget, school closures, collaborations with charter networks, policies around curriculum and library books, as well as hiring or firing the superintendent, among other important decisions.”
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten called the takeover “a shameful power play” with the ultimate aim of weakening public schools.
The takeover comes as Republicans in Missouri are pushing a proposal to place St. Louis police under the control of the governor and right-wing lawmakers in Mississippi are advocating for state control of the police, courts, and the water system in Jackson, which has a higher percentage of Black residents than any other major U.S. city.
The Houston-based advocacy group Community Voice for Public Education called the takeover “an irresponsible experiment that will disenfranchise Houston voters, lead to skyrocketing teacher turnover, school closures, and endless [standardized testing] prep.”
A national study in 2021 found that state takeovers of schools—which have also happened in cities including Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Detroit—did not improve academic performance. The 35 school districts the researchers examined “generally saw dips in English test scores,” reported Chalkbeat, while “in math, there were no clear effects at all.”
Schools in New Orleans and Camden, New Jersey also saw the number of teachers of color decline after state takeovers.
“This hostile takeover threatens to close schools, drive out teachers, and take away the power of local communities to elect their own leaders,” said the ACLU of Texas.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a statement that the TEA and Abbott’s government “deserves an F on how they have handled this process up to this point.”
“No community engagement, no engagement with the parents, no information being provided to the students, dropping this in the middle of spring break,” Turner said.
“What other resources are you bringing to the school district that’s going to have a different outcome?” he added. “What the state is saying [is], ‘We are going to commit to you that there will be no failing schools in HISD.’ What additional resources will you be bringing to HISD?”
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Public education advocates on Wednesday were outraged as Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s administration announced the state would take over the Houston Independent School District despite recent improvements in school performance that were achieved as the district remains chronically underfunded.
State education commissioner Mike Morath announced the takeover by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) in a letter to district officials, saying the decision had been made largely due to several years of low “accountability ratings” for a single high school—one of 50 high schools and 276 public schools in the city.
Phillis Wheatley High School, where 96% of students financially qualify for a free lunch program and the student body is made up almost entirely of people of color, was cited as a primary reason for the TEA’s original attempt to take control of the district in 2019.
In 2015, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a law mandating a state takeover of any school district where at least one campus was given a failing grade for student performance by the TEA for five consecutive years—a threshold Wheatley met in 2019.
HISD sued the state to block the 2019 takeover attempt, and has made strides in improving test scores since then. Wheatley earned a C grade from TEA in 2022, and the school district reduced the number of schools that earned a D or F—50 in 2019 compared to just 10 last year. According to the Texas Tribune, 94% of schools in the state’s largest school district were given an A, B, or C grade last year, while HISD earned a B.
“The test scores have risen, but they’re still trying to take over after we have worked so hard to accomplish that,” Nyla McCullum, who is set to graduate from Wheatley this spring, told the Tribune.
The improvements have been achieved even as the state of Texas has spent more than $3,000 less per pupil on public school funding, according to the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University. HISD teachers earn nearly $1,000 less on average than other educators in Texas, teaching in a district where more than 78% of students are economically disadvantaged. More than 61% of HISD students are Latino and 22% are Black.
Despite the improvements in academic performance, the Republican-led state legislature passed education laws in recent years clearing the way for the takeover to move forward.
“The state takeover of HISD is not about public education—it’s about political control of a 90% Black and brown student body in one of the country’s most diverse cities,” said the ACLU of Texas. “And it’s not what our students and teachers need.”
Under the takeover, which will officially take effect in June, the TEA will replace Superintendent Millard House II, who joined the district in 2021, and will appoint a “board of managers” in place of the district’s elected board of trustees. The board will be in control of the district for at least two years, according to the Associated Press.
“The state-appointed managers will hold immense power,” reported Houston Public Media. “They can control the budget, school closures, collaborations with charter networks, policies around curriculum and library books, as well as hiring or firing the superintendent, among other important decisions.”
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten called the takeover “a shameful power play” with the ultimate aim of weakening public schools.
The takeover comes as Republicans in Missouri are pushing a proposal to place St. Louis police under the control of the governor and right-wing lawmakers in Mississippi are advocating for state control of the police, courts, and the water system in Jackson, which has a higher percentage of Black residents than any other major U.S. city.
The Houston-based advocacy group Community Voice for Public Education called the takeover “an irresponsible experiment that will disenfranchise Houston voters, lead to skyrocketing teacher turnover, school closures, and endless [standardized testing] prep.”
A national study in 2021 found that state takeovers of schools—which have also happened in cities including Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Detroit—did not improve academic performance. The 35 school districts the researchers examined “generally saw dips in English test scores,” reported Chalkbeat, while “in math, there were no clear effects at all.”
Schools in New Orleans and Camden, New Jersey also saw the number of teachers of color decline after state takeovers.
“This hostile takeover threatens to close schools, drive out teachers, and take away the power of local communities to elect their own leaders,” said the ACLU of Texas.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a statement that the TEA and Abbott’s government “deserves an F on how they have handled this process up to this point.”
“No community engagement, no engagement with the parents, no information being provided to the students, dropping this in the middle of spring break,” Turner said.
“What other resources are you bringing to the school district that’s going to have a different outcome?” he added. “What the state is saying [is], ‘We are going to commit to you that there will be no failing schools in HISD.’ What additional resources will you be bringing to HISD?”
Public education advocates on Wednesday were outraged as Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s administration announced the state would take over the Houston Independent School District despite recent improvements in school performance that were achieved as the district remains chronically underfunded.
State education commissioner Mike Morath announced the takeover by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) in a letter to district officials, saying the decision had been made largely due to several years of low “accountability ratings” for a single high school—one of 50 high schools and 276 public schools in the city.
Phillis Wheatley High School, where 96% of students financially qualify for a free lunch program and the student body is made up almost entirely of people of color, was cited as a primary reason for the TEA’s original attempt to take control of the district in 2019.
In 2015, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a law mandating a state takeover of any school district where at least one campus was given a failing grade for student performance by the TEA for five consecutive years—a threshold Wheatley met in 2019.
HISD sued the state to block the 2019 takeover attempt, and has made strides in improving test scores since then. Wheatley earned a C grade from TEA in 2022, and the school district reduced the number of schools that earned a D or F—50 in 2019 compared to just 10 last year. According to the Texas Tribune, 94% of schools in the state’s largest school district were given an A, B, or C grade last year, while HISD earned a B.
“The test scores have risen, but they’re still trying to take over after we have worked so hard to accomplish that,” Nyla McCullum, who is set to graduate from Wheatley this spring, told the Tribune.
The improvements have been achieved even as the state of Texas has spent more than $3,000 less per pupil on public school funding, according to the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University. HISD teachers earn nearly $1,000 less on average than other educators in Texas, teaching in a district where more than 78% of students are economically disadvantaged. More than 61% of HISD students are Latino and 22% are Black.
Despite the improvements in academic performance, the Republican-led state legislature passed education laws in recent years clearing the way for the takeover to move forward.
“The state takeover of HISD is not about public education—it’s about political control of a 90% Black and brown student body in one of the country’s most diverse cities,” said the ACLU of Texas. “And it’s not what our students and teachers need.”
Under the takeover, which will officially take effect in June, the TEA will replace Superintendent Millard House II, who joined the district in 2021, and will appoint a “board of managers” in place of the district’s elected board of trustees. The board will be in control of the district for at least two years, according to the Associated Press.
“The state-appointed managers will hold immense power,” reported Houston Public Media. “They can control the budget, school closures, collaborations with charter networks, policies around curriculum and library books, as well as hiring or firing the superintendent, among other important decisions.”
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten called the takeover “a shameful power play” with the ultimate aim of weakening public schools.
The takeover comes as Republicans in Missouri are pushing a proposal to place St. Louis police under the control of the governor and right-wing lawmakers in Mississippi are advocating for state control of the police, courts, and the water system in Jackson, which has a higher percentage of Black residents than any other major U.S. city.
The Houston-based advocacy group Community Voice for Public Education called the takeover “an irresponsible experiment that will disenfranchise Houston voters, lead to skyrocketing teacher turnover, school closures, and endless [standardized testing] prep.”
A national study in 2021 found that state takeovers of schools—which have also happened in cities including Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Detroit—did not improve academic performance. The 35 school districts the researchers examined “generally saw dips in English test scores,” reported Chalkbeat, while “in math, there were no clear effects at all.”
Schools in New Orleans and Camden, New Jersey also saw the number of teachers of color decline after state takeovers.
“This hostile takeover threatens to close schools, drive out teachers, and take away the power of local communities to elect their own leaders,” said the ACLU of Texas.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a statement that the TEA and Abbott’s government “deserves an F on how they have handled this process up to this point.”
“No community engagement, no engagement with the parents, no information being provided to the students, dropping this in the middle of spring break,” Turner said.
“What other resources are you bringing to the school district that’s going to have a different outcome?” he added. “What the state is saying [is], ‘We are going to commit to you that there will be no failing schools in HISD.’ What additional resources will you be bringing to HISD?”
Democratic lawmakers on Thursday vowed to fight back against US President Donald Trump's efforts to attack and dismantle liberal and progressive organizations.
Led by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), the Democrats introduced the No Political Enemies Act aimed at protecting organizations' free speech rights from retaliation from the federal government.
During his speech touting the new legislation, Murphy recounted recent actions by Trump and his administration, including the president's threats to "arrest members of the Soros family simply for funding groups that oppose his agenda," as well as Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr's pressure campaign to get ABC to fire late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel.
Murphy then said that the No Political Enemies Act was necessary because "Donald Trump is right now instructing his Department of Justice to go on the hunt for his political enemies" for challenging him.
"Trump is making it 100% clear that he is going to ramp up his efforts to use the power of the federal government to punish his critics," he said. "This is legislation that makes sure that the law is on the side of free speech and the right to dissent."
The proposed law would give political organizations and individuals new tools to combat political harassment from the federal government, and would allow them to both recover attorney fees and more easily file lawsuits against federal officials who abuse their authority for political purposes.
Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), who also expressed support for the legislation, put the stakes facing Americans in stark terms.
"We are in the biggest free speech crisis this country has faced since the McCarthy era," he said. "The murder of Charlie Kirk was a horrific crime, and it's clear that Trump wants to hijack that horrific crime to silence anyone who disagrees with the president about any issue."
Casar, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, also took a shot at major corporations who have been caving to the president's demands in recent months.
"As we saw last night, far too many billionaires and corporate-owned media companies are bending the knee: Disney and ABC, Paramount and CBS, the Washington Post editorial board, Facebook," he said. "Let's be clear, the ultrawealthy men who own these companies are making a choice. David Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Bob Iger—these men are enriching themselves, auctioning off the United State's First Amendment to a wannabe dictator and tyrant."
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) pointed out that the FCC's pressure campaign on ABC to fire Kimmel is particularly nefarious given that Sinclair Broadcasting Group, which is the network's largest affiliate, is currently involved in merger talks that will need FCC approval.
"All of this ties back to money and people enriching themselves, and bending the knee to Donald Trump to make it happen," he said.
The Democrats' proposed legislation comes after Trump announced late Wednesday night that he planned to designate “antifa,” a movement of autonomous individuals and loosely affiliated groups who oppose fascism, as a “major terrorist organization."
It also comes comes days after Trump adviser Stephen Miller began pushing a plan to "dismantle" the organized left using the power of the federal government.
During a recent appearance on Fox News, Miller described the entire left as a "domestic terrorism movement in this country," and vowed "to dismantle and take on the radical left organizations in this country that are fomenting violence."
President Donald Trump's Department of Education has announced that it will partner with right-wing think tanks and organizations to develop a new curriculum for “patriotic education” in American classrooms.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration redirected $137 million initially meant for programs aimed at minority students toward what it described as "American history and civics education."
Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced Wednesday that the money will be directed toward discretionary grants aimed at K-12 schools that adopt a new curriculum being drawn up by the 250 Civics Education Coalition—a consortium of more than 40 right-wing groups that launched on same day. The goal, McMahon said, was to advance education that "emphasizes a unifying and uplifting portrayal of the nation's founding ideals" in advance of the nation's 250th anniversary in 2026.
It is not Trump's first crack at instilling the nation's youth with a "patriotic education." In the waning days of his first term in office, Trump unveiled the 1776 Report, which, education columnist Jennifer Berkshire recently noted in The Baffler, "was widely panned by actual historians for its worshipful treatment of the Founding Fathers, its downplaying of slavery, and its portrayal of a century-old 'administrative state' controlled by leftist radicals."
While little has been publicized yet about what McMahon's new endeavor will look like, it is known who will be crafting it. The initiative is being led by the America First Policy Institute, a MAGA-aligned think tank that has been responsible for staffing Trump's second administration and has received over $1 million from his political action committee, the Save America PAC. Until 2023, McMahon herself served on the board of AFPI.
In 2022, the group presented a piece of model legislation for a "Civics Course Act" to be introduced in states. It included requirements for students to spend ample time studying the nation's founding documents and figures while banning the teaching of what it called the "defamatory history of America’s founding," which suggests that slavery or inequality are in any way inherent to the nation's institutions.
It also banned the concepts of "systemic racism" and "gender fluidity" and forbade teachers from giving students course credit for engaging with "social or public policy advocacy."
Also included in the coalition is Hillsdale College, a private Christian liberal arts school in Michigan that has proposed its own K-12 curriculum, which Vanity Fair notes "has been criticized for revisionist history, including whitewashed accounts of US slavery and depictions of Jamestown as a failed communist colony."
Another participant is PragerU, the overtly partisan and often factually loose YouTube channel that has been tasked with creating children's educational content in nearly a dozen red states.
The group has produced content venerating figures notorious for practicing slavery, like colonist Christopher Columbus and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Its videos have argued, among other things, that climate change is a myth, that European fascism was a "far-left" ideology, and that Israel has "the world's most moral army."
The pro-Trump youth group Turning Point USA will also be involved in crafting the curriculum. Its longtime leader, Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated in Utah last week, went on a crusade last year to, in his words, "tell the truth" about Martin Luther King Jr., whom he described as "an awful person," while claiming his signature achievement, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, was a "huge mistake."
An offshoot of Kirk's group, Turning Point Education, said Kirk's assassination has increased its resolve to promote a "God-centered, virtuous education" in US public schools.
The 250 Civics Education Coalition has not yet published a curriculum. But according to the Department of Education, it will be rolling out "a robust programming agenda" over the next 12 months.
During Trump's second term, he has undertaken an effort to purge federal museums and national parks of what one executive order called "improper ideology," which has resulted in the erasure of exhibits and monuments to Black and Native American history. Last month, he lamented that the Smithsonian Museum focuses too much on "how bad slavery was" and ordered a review of the museum's content.
Federal websites, meanwhile, have systematically eliminated many pages that acknowledged the accomplishments of nonwhite historical figures or important events in women's and LGBTQ+ history.
Critics in the education world view Trump's effort to use grants to induce them to adopt his preferred curriculum as an illegal effort to propagandize children.
"The law is clear," said education historian Diane Ravitch in a blog post. "Federal officials are prohibited from seeking to influence or direct curriculum in any way."
Since 1970, the federal government has been barred by law from "any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum" of public schools.
"Civic education is and must be non-partisan," said Ted McConnell, the executive director of the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools. "While the funding is long sought, this is the wrong approach and smacks of authoritarianism."
On the US Senate floor Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren gave her Republican colleagues a choice: undo the damage they caused to the healthcare of millions of Americans by slashing Medicaid and insurance subsidies, or explain to the public why they refuse to do so—even if it means shutting down the government.
Warren (D-Mass.) spoke about a proposal released by the Democrats Wednesday night to keep the government running through October 31—averting a shutdown at the beginning of next month—if the GOP agrees to restore the $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts and extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies to keep out-of-pocket premiums from rising by an average of 75% for millions of people who purchase health insurance through the ACA.
A Congressional Budget Office analysis released Thursday found that making the ACA subsidies permanent would increase the number of insured people by nearly 4 million.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have said Democrats will not vote for Republicans' proposal to extend government funding at its current level through November 21, including the cuts in the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, unless the GOP opens bipartisan talks on the legislation.
So far, GOP leaders have not asked the Democrats for input—but the Republicans will need at least 60 votes to pass the spending proposal in the Senate and will require Democrats to vote with them.
On the Senate floor, Warren told the Republicans how they can ensure that result.
"Before working moms go broke from a cancer diagnosis, Congress must act. Before community hospitals are forced to shut down, Congtess must act," said the senator. "That is why Democrats are saying: 'If Republicans want our votes, they need to restore healthcare for Americans.'"
While Schumer has demanded bipartisan talks and called for the GOP to make concessions on healthcare, he told The Washington Post Wednesday that the Democrats do not have a "red line."
Schumer angered progressive lawmakers and many of his own constituents in March when he joined the GOP to advance a spending bill that kept the government open—but cut $13 billion in nonmilitary federal spending and did nothing to rein in President Donald Trump and his then-adviser, Elon Musk, as they eviscerated government agencies.
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said Tuesday that the current "alignment of Democratic leadership and appropriators in recognition of this moment of leverage is heartening."
“A budget deal should be contingent on addressing Americans’ top economic priority—the cost of and access to healthcare. If Republicans refuse to negotiate and move away from their cost-increasing agenda, then they are the ones who will be forcing a government-wide shutdown," said Gilbert. "There should be no deal without assurances that the budget will be honored and not impounded, and that it will begin to return care to the American people.”
By refusing to meet with the Democrats thus far, said Kobie Christian of Unrig Our Economy, GOP leaders are thus far showing that "if it isn’t about giving the ultrarich another tax break, Republicans in Congress aren’t interested."
“Every day that Congress does not take action to prevent increases in health insurance premiums, more and more Americans are at risk of facing higher healthcare costs and losing coverage," said Christian. "It’s time that congressional Republicans come to the table and find a solution to help all Americans, not just the ultrawealthy.”
On her way to the Senate floor Thursday, Warren said that "if Republicans want our votes for this budget, they've got to restore healthcare for millions of Americans."
"It's really that simple," she added.