Is It Just Me?: Could a State Takeover Give Austin ISD a Way Out of Recapture?

Take a walk with me.

Every parent of a school-aged child in Austin right now seems to be talking about the possibility of the State taking over Austin ISD. It's a big deal — and one that Segura and the district have been pressing for well over a year at least. State of Texas bad. State of Texas mean. They want to take us over. We can't let them. Yadada yadada. My point of view on the whole Big Bad State of Texas being spouted from Austin ISD has always been that it's a pretty sophomoric implementation of the oldest marketing trick in the book: create a common enemy.

I'm not here to debate whether the State of Texas is bad. It is the state we live in. We vote on who creates the laws. Sometimes we win. Sometimes we lose. And a lot of that depends on which "side" you are on. I'm on public education's side, and it seems to me that the State isn't always with me. But the law is the law. And much of what is happening now was known years in advance.

Austin ISD knew what would happen if Burnet, Dobie or Webb reached five consecutive unacceptable ratings. Austin ISD has known this for years and years. The district was publicly discussing the possibility of closure or a board of managers while those schools were already in the turnaround process. Austin ISD ultimately approved 24 turnaround plans that the district itself describes as state-mandated.

So none of this dropped out of the sky last week.

Five Years Is a Really Long Time When You're a Kid

The takeover talk got considerably more serious with the release of the 2026 accountability ratings. Burnet and Webb Middle Schools received their fifth consecutive F ratings. Dobie, which was also sitting on the edge of a fifth F, pulled itself up to a D. Austin ISD received a B overall, its best district rating in four years.

Listen, I'm always going to be on the side of the teachers. And I want to give a shout out to all the teachers and staff who worked so incredibly hard to make the advances at Dobie, Burnet and Webb happen. Congratulations. I was rooting for you all and hoping your hard work would pay off. It did. Because of you. As well as all of the other teachers and staff at Austin ISD. I have been in the schools. I know so many of you. And you are an incredibly intelligent, dedicated, hard-working bunch of professionals. I prove that I feel that way by dropping the most important people in my life off at an Austin ISD location every single school day morning. I take their education very seriously. And I also take who I chose that they spend eight hours a day with very seriously. I chose you. It's a sacred trust. Thank you for allowing it to exist.

I want to spend a minute writing about my overall thought. And this is where I want you to walk with me. It might be a different path than the one you might have thought we'd be taking. I want you to think about five years at an F rated middle school. A sixth grader can enter one of these schools, spend all of sixth, seventh and eighth grade there, move on to high school and be almost finished with sophomore year while that middle school is still getting an F. That's almost two entire groups of middle-school kids moving through during that period.

Not my kids, but a lot of somebody's kids. That should bother you as much as it bothers me. I have three kids. Two of them are pretty strong self-learners and self-advocates. My middle is in special ed. I'm lucky enough that I have the time to pay close attention to what's happening in school for all my kids. My special ed kid takes more time with ARD meetings and IEP planning and sometimes even making sure the IEP is actually followed. It's a lot, but I luckily have time to do it.

What about the parents who don't? What about parents who don't love their kids any less but are single parents working jobs that give them no time to be involved in their kid's school? Or what about the kids in a host of other situations? As a PTA president, I've seen those kids. I've seen kids who are pretty much on their own for one reason or another. Yes, teachers and staff step in and help. They do it all the time. But they're stretched too thin and paid much too little. It's a bad situation for the kids. It's a bad situation for the teachers and staff. And that's never okay.

So while the district spends a lot of energy talking about how bad the State of Texas is, keep in mind that the State did not make Austin ISD allow these schools to stay in unacceptable status year after year. At least not completely. Austin ISD knew these schools were failing, knew the statutory clock was running and knew what happened when it reached five. The turnaround plans eventually put in place were not something AISD voluntarily invented after suddenly deciding enough was enough. They were part of the state accountability intervention process.

And yes, I'm running for Austin ISD school board, District 4. But whether I get elected or not, this has got to change.

Here's What Happened

Austin ISD released its results August 13, a day before TEA's statewide release. The headline was "Austin ISD gains momentum, earns 'B' rating." And the B is truly awesome. Seriously. Teachers, staff, students and families throughout the district worked incredibly hard to make that happen. Since 2024, AISD increased the number of A- and B-rated campuses by 42% and reduced the number of D- and F-rated campuses by 35%.

AISD's press release did name Burnet and Webb and acknowledged their fifth consecutive F ratings, although the districtwide B and improvement numbers understandably got most of the attention. The separate message Segura sent to the community was even less specific, referring only to "multi-year unacceptable ratings at two middle schools."

I'm genuinely heartbroken for the Burnet and Webb teams because I know they worked hard to pull those grades up. I was rooting for them. They were so so close. I just wonder if the effort would have been applied before the statutory clock ran out where we might be now instead of where we are. And yes, hindsight is always 20/20. But come on. Everyone should have known where this was headed from the first year F rating at each school.

And congratulations to Dobie for getting to a D. I know how hard they worked and how high the deck was stacked against them. I worked closely with Dobie staff, teachers and families during my last year as Lamar Middle School PTA President. They are a wonderful group of people.

So Dobie is out of immediate danger. Burnet and Webb aren't. Austin ISD can appeal accountability determinations if it has an actual basis to do so, but an appeal should not simply be assumed. The ratings that exist today are fifth consecutive Fs.

Under Texas Education Code §39A.111, when a campus reaches five consecutive years of unacceptable performance, the Commissioner has to order either appointment of a board of managers for the district or closure of the campus.

And before anybody reads the rest of this and decides I'm rooting for a TEA takeover, I'm not.

I Do Not Want the State Running Austin ISD

Let me be clear about my own position. I do not want a State-appointed board running Austin ISD. I'm running for a seat on the Austin ISD Board because I believe the people of Austin should elect the people who govern their schools. I want local control.

But local control cannot just be a slogan we pull out every time TEA gets close enough to scare us. Local control has to actually work. If we want to make the case that Austin can run Austin's schools better than the State can, then we have to run them better.

To me, that means we stop this seemingly eternal game of whack-a-mole where we solve whatever problem happens to be on fire this month and then move to the next fire. Balance the budget. Pay teachers more. Identify schools that are failing and do something meaningful in year one or year two instead of finally throwing everything we have at them when they get to year four. If State law creates a problem, work with our elected legislators and change the law. If recapture is broken, organize Austin's legislative delegation and other districts being hammered by it and change it. Complaining about the State is not a strategy.

Austin ISD just went through a brutal budget process and cut $205 million in operating expenses for 2026–27. That is real work and deserves credit. But the adopted budget still assumes about $60 million from real-estate transactions, and AISD itself says it will have to find another $60 million in reductions for 2027–28 because those property sales are one-time revenue.

That is exactly what I mean by solving the underlying problem. Selling property can help us restructure and can be smart financial management, but we cannot use one-time money to permanently support recurring expenses and then act surprised when the hole shows up again next year. I want a structurally balanced district where recurring expenses are supported by recurring revenue and where teachers are much closer to the front of the line when we decide what that money pays for.

And there is actually another Texas district worth looking at here.

Wichita Falls Got to Five Too

Wichita Falls ISD got itself into almost exactly the situation Austin is facing now. Kirby Middle School accumulated five unacceptable ratings and triggered the same state-intervention law. But Wichita Falls did not lose its elected Board.

What happened there is interesting because the answer wasn't one magic turnaround plan.

Wichita Falls had already moved Kirby students into the former Hirschi High School building in 2024, giving them a different facility. The district then partnered with Third Future Schools to operate Hirschi Middle School, adopted new instructional materials and made other academic changes. After Morath visited Wichita Falls in early 2026, the district and TEA reached an agreement: Kirby would be formally closed, the Third Future partnership at Hirschi would continue and TEA would appoint a conservator to monitor progress, but Wichita Falls would keep its locally elected Board.

And go read what Wichita Falls Superintendent Dr. Donny Lee says they did before that agreement. His description is not timid. He says the district implemented "bold and radical plans," moved curriculum specialists out of central administration and into Kirby classrooms, increased compensation, completely reworked K–8 math and reading curriculum, built, renovated or closed a dozen schools and nearly tripled the district's fund balance to around $60 million. He said the district had gone from 12 failing campuses three years earlier to five.

Did they solve every problem? No. The 2026 ratings still show work to do. Wichita Falls ISD earned a C overall, Hirschi Middle earned a C, eight campuses earned an A or B and one campus still received an F.

But look at the difference in approach. They had an academic problem, a facilities problem, a financial problem and a State-intervention problem, and they started attacking all of them. They did not spend three years saying the accountability system was unfair and hoping the fifth rating never arrived. They were incredibly proactive.

That is a much more useful model to me than pretending the problem will fix itself.

And "Closure" Doesn't Necessarily Mean an Empty Building

There is another part of the Austin conversation that interests me. "Closure" under the accountability law does not necessarily mean a building sits empty forever. State rules permit facilities to be repurposed under specific conditions, although the original failing campus is legally closed and the replacement cannot simply be the same school with a new campus number.

It's my opinion that Austin ISD wants to move toward fewer, larger, more consolidated schools with much tighter PK–12 feeder systems and, over time, phase out a lot of our older elementary, middle and high school buildings. I sometimes shorthand that as K–12 mega-campus thinking. Again, my opinion. AISD has not published a "mega-campus plan."

But I'm not pulling it out of thin air either. The Board approved 10 school closures and consolidations, eliminating more than 6,300 seats, and AISD says it is continuing to work on boundary changes, additional consolidation and aligned feeder patterns.

So, not to be a conspiracy guy, just asking a question: could either of the options Morath chooses move AISD farther toward something it already wants to do while at the same time allowing the district to say the State made it happen? Maybe not. But given everything AISD is already doing with consolidation, buildings and feeder patterns, it's not a crazy question.

I don't agree with a lot of what is happening in Texas regarding public education. But I still find fault with Austin ISD when we know the law, dislike the law, don't get the law changed, and then act surprised when the law finally applies to us.

Parents Still Have a Say

Burnet and Webb parents have a specific right under §39A.112 to petition Morath for the sanction they want. Parents representing more than 50% of the students at either campus can request closure of their campus or appointment of a board of managers, and the Austin ISD Board has a subsequent opportunity to request the other sanction.

I've written separately about how parents can organize that effort, get the TEA enrollment snapshot number, deal with Segura's validation process, collect signatures and work with their District 3 representative, Dr. Kevin Foster. My point here is simply that Burnet and Webb parents are not powerless while all of this is going on.

And while everybody is talking about takeover, there is another issue here that I don't hear people talking about nearly enough. It could make a takeover much more complicated for the State than it appears at first glance.

Recapture.

Now Add $630 Million

Austin ISD expects Austin taxpayers to generate approximately $1.48 billion during the 2026–27 school year. About $630 million of that will be sent to the State through recapture, making AISD the largest recapture payer in Texas.

We have been fighting about recapture for decades. And rightfully so, in my opinion. It's a bad system. Lawsuits challenging the Texas school-finance system are nothing new either. What is new is HB 3, passed in 2019, and the constitutional challenge Midland ISD has now launched against the current system.

Midland's argument is not simply that recapture is unfair or that the State takes too much money. The argument goes directly to the Texas Constitution, which prohibits a State property tax.

For years, the State has defended the school property-tax system by arguing that these are still local taxes. Local school boards levy them. Local voters elect those boards. Local districts retain enough discretion over their taxing and spending decisions for the tax to remain local rather than becoming a State tax.

That was an important part of the Texas Supreme Court's reasoning when it upheld the system in 2016. The Court focused on whether local districts retained meaningful discretion, and it also recognized that this question depends heavily on the actual facts of the system being challenged.

I disagree with recapture, but I understood the Texas Supreme Court's logic. It made sense to me. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm mostly logic based. So there's that.

Then HB 3 changed the system, and I think it changed it enough that the constitutional question deserves another look. Again, just my opinion.

Under the current system, the State establishes the rules under which TEA calculates the Maximum Compressed Rate used for Tier One school funding. Midland's argument is essentially that HB 3 removed enough local discretion over that part of the tax system that the factual premise behind earlier court decisions has changed.

If the State determines the tax structure, determines the rate used in the funding system, determines how much money a district is entitled to keep and takes the rest through recapture, at what point does a supposedly local property tax become a State property tax?

No court has answered Midland's new challenge yet.

So now think about that and add Austin ISD to that equation.

Houston and Fort Worth Already Give Us Part of the Answer

Houston ISD has been governed by a TEA-appointed board of managers since 2023. During the 2024–25 school year, while already under State-appointed governance, Houston still paid $55.5 million in recapture. Fort Worth ISD is now also governed by a State-appointed board of managers and projects a $1.4 million recapture payment for 2026–27.

Evidently, a takeover clearly does not automatically end recapture. I'm not arguing that it does.

But that isn't the question I'm asking.

The question is what these takeovers do to the constitutional argument about meaningful local discretion. In Houston and Fort Worth, the State established the funding structure, determined the recapture obligation and also appointed the people exercising the responsibilities that normally belong to locally elected trustees.

Now imagine doing that in Austin.

The State establishes the funding structure. The State determines how much Austin ISD is entitled to keep. The State takes roughly $630 million through recapture. And then the State appoints the people exercising the authority of Austin ISD's elected Board.

Again, I'm not a lawyer. But even I can see the pretty obvious constitutional question: exactly what part of that tax is still local?

Houston paid $55.5 million under a state-appointed board. Fort Worth is projecting $1.4 million. Austin is projecting $630 million. Same governance question — a very different number attached to it.

This Is Where I Think We Should Stop Complaining and Start Doing

Maybe there is a perfectly good legal answer to the recapture question. I want to hear it. Austin ISD's elected trustees should ask district counsel for a written analysis of Midland's case and specifically ask whether appointment of a State board of managers changes the constitutional analysis of Austin's "meaningful local discretion."

Austin's legislative delegation should be involved too. If the school-finance laws are hurting Austin's ability to educate children and pay teachers competitively, then our job is to work with the people we elect to the Legislature and change those laws. Build coalitions with other districts. Draft the legislation. Make the case. Get votes. Do the work.

The same applies to the budget. AISD has made enormous cuts, but a structurally balanced budget cannot depend on selling another $60 million in property next year and another $60 million the year after that. We need recurring revenue to pay recurring expenses, and once we have that structure right, I want teacher compensation treated as a priority, not whatever is left after everything else gets funded.

And the same applies to failing schools. Five years is too long. I don't want us to have another Burnet, another Webb, another Dobie or another Kirby where everybody suddenly discovers urgency when the State clock is about to expire. If a campus is failing, we should know exactly why and begin attacking the problem long before the State forces us to.

That is why I'm running for the Austin ISD Board. I'm not running because I think the State should take us over. I'm running because I think we should solve our own problems well enough that the State never gets the opportunity.

Wichita Falls is not Austin, and its solutions are not automatically our solutions. But what happened there should at least make us think. They were facing the same five-year trigger. They made big academic, operational and financial changes, formally closed the triggering campus, accepted oversight and kept their elected Board.

That sounds a lot better to me than another decade of whack-a-mole.

And while we are doing all of that, somebody still needs to answer the other question. If the State controls the funding formula, decides how much Austin keeps, takes $630 million and then appoints the people exercising the authority of Austin ISD's elected Board, exactly what is left that makes the tax local?

I just think that's a question we'd all like answered. And I wonder if, possibly, the answer to that question might just help us avoid a State takeover of the district.

Sources: Austin ISD 2026 Accountability Ratings; Texas Education Code Chapter 39A; Wichita Falls ISD Superintendent Response to TEA; Texas Tribune reporting on Wichita Falls; TEA 2026 Wichita Falls ISD Accountability data; Austin ISD 2026–27 Budget; Austin ISD School Consolidations records; Texas school district intervention overview.