TX takes over Fort Worth schools after persistent low test scores

Texas is taking over management of the Fort Worth Independent School District – the state’s 10th largest school system – after most of its students continued to score below grade level.

The move, announced Thursday, is the second-largest in state history – after Houston was taken over in 2023 – and will impact 72,000 students. 

Only 34% of Fort Worth students are performing at grade level, compared to nearly 50% in Houston and Dallas, and 20 of its 139 campuses are classified as “academically unacceptable for multiple years in a row,” according to a letter from Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath. 

“Multi-year unacceptable ratings represent a school district’s most fundamental mission failure, an incomplete inability to take necessary action, and the critical steps needed to educate students,” Morath wrote. 

The district closed a sixth-grade campus that had failed to meet state accountability standards for five straight years in 2024, the Texas Tribune reported, but the failure required the state to step in. 

Morath will now appoint a new board to manage the district and a new conservator. Karin Molinar, the current superintendent, will be invited to interview for that job, Morath said at a press conference announcing the takeover. 

Houston has seen scores improve since the state appointed Mike Miles to lead the district in 2023.  

Under Miles, a controversial leader who led robust reforms in Dallas, no schools received an “F” rating this year and nearly three-quarters rated an “A” or “B.” Two years ago, almost half of the city’s 274 schools were “D” or “F.” The state takeover was recently extended to last until at least 2027. 

Fort Worth is the 11th district the state has taken over since 2000, but several others could be next, including Lake Worth, which is near Fort Worth. Other districts with schools failing five years or more are Beaumont, Connally and Wichita, the Texas Tribune reported.