Abbott Takes over Houston Schools

Here's the thing about democracy, if a system has failed greatly in the determination of voters, they can elect new leaders and they can organize and demand better, perhaps even a new system. That the most powerful person in the state can determine on his own something has failed and impose his own solutions without local input is not democratic, its authoritarian. That's what people are reacting to. That some people are like "lets see the reasons first" is already an indictment of their commitment to democracy and self-government.

 

Cute. I know it makes you sad when people dont dig in on one side so you can fight with them.

 

Did the voters allow the system to exist as it does? Did they have input into such system? If not than I agree with you.

It is ok to be open to the possibility, is it not?

 

Here's the thing, you could totally hold a referendum on the state taking over the district among the people living in that district. If the locals thought it was bad enough and beyond the scope of elections to fix, perhaps they would vote for intervention on their own terms, that would at least have some legitimacy.

 

No. And I believe the system should demand a swift new election of the people.

...But the OP had only so many details. Many will just jump in and form opinions based on one article. How many times have we seen an article posted only to see someone else post a "rest of the atory" counter article?

Thats the weird thing around here. When you say you want to wait before taking a side people will then paint you to a side of their chosing based just on you saying we should wait.

Its kinda weird, don't ya think?

 

Agree, but have the voters already spoken in the past in a way that led us to this existing policy?

 

@G8trGr8t to clarify. Im not taking a shot at your OP, just making a point of how we all like to react immediately before any digestion takes place. Your OP is very worthy of discussion.

 

The school district was rated as a B the last time such ratings exist. They had slightly lower than average academic performance, likely resulting from issues related to very high rates of economically disadvantaged students, high rates of non-English speaking students, and high rates of at-risk students. But, overall, while certainly not a high performing school district, it would also appear that they were nowhere near the worst in the state of Texas.

Houston ISD

 

This is reminiscent of Michigan taking over the flint city government. For those that don’t remember. Flint was horribly mismanaged so the governor took it over. He appointed idiots who decided it was cheaper to just pump water from the river than paying Detroit for treated Lake Michigan water. The flint river was toxic water which cleaned off all the protective corrosion from the old lead pipes. I think the feds had to help fix the ecological disaster that the Republican businessman created.

 

Ah, so we should wait for more information before commenting when a Republican takes over a locally elected school district and stacks it with cronies.

But when it comes to randos on a message board, you "know" the score from a one sentence quip?

Do I have that right?

 

Compare the cautious 'wait and see' here vs. the all-in on the Drag Queen Christmas show thread.

Here, it's gosh - maybe the State has a good reason for this unAmerican government crackdown on local elected leaders. There's not enough info for me to mount a defense decide what's happening. Let's wait and see.

There, it's PANIC! ALARM! a vague* complaint from a partisan State agency (not from parents) says the KiDs ArE iN dAnGeR!

* From the article, no complaining parents are noted. The minor(s) is said to be 'under 16', which leaves plenty of room for a parent to decide their kid is old enough to attend vs. the kindergarten-field-trip-forced-to-watch-from-the-first-row hysterics. The other items from the State's complaint are 'prosthetic female genitalia' and 'simulating masturbation'. So, fake boobs and crotch grabs at a Drag Queen show.

 

The fact that they are taking them over due to "chaotic meetings" shows how much the statement is pretextual.

 

He took over flint from the elected officials and put in scumbag who poisoned the community and caused 100s of millions in damages and liability.

 

A couple other metrics already posted.

District testing data from 20-21 school year is available at STAAR Aggregate Data for 2021-2022 | Texas Education Agency

Houston ISD is ranked 855 out of 1150 on their overall 8th grade test scores (percent passing).

 

Here is what is dumb:

There was one school, Wheatley, that was failing under the TEA guidelines. That was trigged after 5 straight years in 2019. The state has the right back in 2019 to take over the entire district because of one school, but lawsuits ensued. It wasn’t until Jan that the TX SC agreed with the state to move forward. During the time 2019-2022, Wheatley improved to a C+ rating and on track to a B.

No doubt the school board members were a mess (the stories are wild), but that is for the voters to decide, not the state.

Well, why push forward Mr. Abbott if the system worked for fixing the failing school? Hmm…

 

You would have a better case for your point if governors like Abbott, Tate and/or desantis ever removed an elected Republican office holder, something I am unable to recall. So, after a long list of these removals only occurring in blue locales it's pretty easy to determine the political motivation.

 

Which is wrong and should be called such.