Texas announces takeover of Houston schools, stirring anger

By JUAN A. LOZANO and PAUL J. WEBER
Associated Press

HOUSTON (AP) — Texas officials have announced a takeover of Houston’s nearly 200,000-student school district. The decision Wednesday follows allegations of misconduct by school trustees and chronically low academic scores at one of the nearly 50 high schools in the nation’s eighth-largest district. Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath told the district in a letter that his agency plans to replace the current superintendent and the district’s elected board of trustees with a new superintendent and an appointed board of managers sometime in June. Democrats are assailing the move as political, as Houston is controlled by Democrats and the state’s leaders are Republican. Superintendent Millard House II in a statement said Morath’s announcement “does not discount” gains made districtwide in recent years.