If state wants to take over Fort Worth schools, it needs a better case than this | Opinion

Fort Worth ISD needs reform. Admitting that is the easy part.

But how the district pursues — or is allowed to pursue — reform is crucial to building schools that serve our kids faithfully.

Mike Morath asserts that those choices, by a plain reading of the Texas Education Code, are already out of the elected school board’s hands. The Texas Education Agency commissioner pointed to a Fort Worth campus that failed state benchmarks in five consecutive years, which he says forces his hand and may compel the state to take over the entire district.

Morath wrote that he “will be evaluating the operations and leadership of Fort Worth ISD more closely in the coming months and, if forced to make a decision under [state law], will do so after ratings become final.”

Whether state law gives Morath an option or a mandate is up for debate. The statute as written, also gives the state the ability to close the school down. Complicating the discourse is that the school no longer exists. FWISD closed the struggling Leadership Academy at Forest Oak Sixth Grade before the 2023 data was released, merging it with Leadership Academy at Forest Oak Middle School.

(If you’re asking yourself “Wait, we’re just getting 2023, as in two years ago?” and wondering why an old date should determine the fate of roughly 75,000 students – we urge you not to think too hard about it all. You may start making too much sense, more than our state can handle.)

The district acted, arguably proactively, in closing the low-performing school before the state law could be triggered. Problem solved? Well, not as Morath articulates it. With that option gone, he believes the law demands TEA intervention.

“Since the campus earned its fifth consecutive unacceptable academic rating in that year, the school’s subsequent closure has no bearing on, and does not abrogate, the compulsory action the statute requires the commissioner to take,” Morath wrote in a letter to the school board and superintendent.

Perhaps Morath will take an aggressive stance because of the district’s ongoing academic struggles. Maybe he sees the Leadership Academy case as an opening to address years’ worth of district failures to adequately teach children, especially in basic reading and math.

It’s been about two years since the TEA seized control of the Houston school district, citing poor performance at one high school and allegations of misconduct among school board members. The district has improved on state and national tests, but Morath’s pick for superintendent, former Dallas schools chief Mike Miles, has been criticized for transforming school libraries into detention centers and blamed for an eruption of teacher and principal turnover.

For Fort Worth, the takeover would be premature. We’ve consistently decried the mess in Fort Worth ISD and the achingly slow response from the school board. But since Mayor Mattie Parker and a coalition of city leaders highlighted the issue last year, the district has changed leadership, executed crisis plans and restructured to get more educators helping kids. Superintendent Karen Molinar and the elected board — to which, like it or not, voters just reelected three members — deserve a chance to see the plan through.

Unfortunately, we don’t know the answer to what the law requires of the state. We might not know until it’s likely settled in court.

If the law does tie Morath’s hands while expanding his reach, then the first issue that needs reform is the statute itself. Our rules shouldn’t require a steamroll when a steady scalpel would suffice. But if FWISD satisfied the law’s less invasive option by closing the school down, then Morath needs to exercise restraint.

FWISD has problems, but we fear a trigger happy state leadership with a cure far worse than the disease.