Two middle schools in Austin drew a fifth straight failing grade in the school report cards the state released Friday, and that makes Austin the only district in Texas where the education commissioner is now required by law to step in.
The Texas Education Agency published the 2026 A-F ratings at noon on Aug. 14, covering 1,202 school systems and 9,105 campuses. Burnet and Webb middle schools, both in the Austin Independent School District, each landed on a fifth consecutive F.
Under state law, five failing years in a row means the agency must intervene. What that intervention looks like is the open question. It can run from targeted oversight to closing the two campuses to removing the superintendent and replacing the elected school board with a state-appointed board of managers, according to The Texas Tribune’s account of the agency’s options.
For students in Austin schools, and for every district watching, the question is not whether the state will act but how far it will go. The range is wide, and Texas has recent examples at both ends.
At one end is Houston. One failing campus triggered the state’s 2023 takeover of the Houston Independent School District, though the agency also cited open-meetings and procurement problems. The commissioner installed a superintendent and a nine-member appointed board. Results have moved: Houston had 56 failing schools before the takeover, and four elementary campuses received an F this year, according to the Houston Chronicle.
A January study from the University of Houston Education Research Center found 13,000 students left the district in the takeover’s first two years, with annual enrollment decline accelerating from 1 to 2 percent to 3 to 4 percent, and the share of uncertified teachers climbing from 0.3 percent in 2016-17 to 19.8 percent in 2024-25.
At the other end is Wichita Falls, where the agency in March allowed the superintendent and elected board to stay and appointed a conservator to watch the district’s progress. The campus that triggered the intervention there moved from an F to a C this year, Superintendent Donny Lee told The Texas Tribune.
Austin’s superintendent, Matias Segura, is arguing the district is already turning. Austin ISD earned a B overall this year, up from a C, according to its state report card, and Dobie Middle School — one failing year away from the same trigger — came in at a D. “We have two new leaders at those schools,” Segura said. “The system is now better positioned to move the outcomes based on what we went through last year.” The district can appeal any campus rating, and the agency does not finalize the 2026 ratings until December.
Statewide, the picture the ratings paint is one of steady, real improvement. Twenty-four percent of districts and 24 percent of campuses improved their letter grade over 2025, the agency said, and 585 campuses climbed to an A from something lower.
Eighty-five percent of rated campuses earned a C or better. The share of campuses rated A or B rose from 59 percent to 61 percent, according to Texas 2036, a nonpartisan policy group that tracks the state data. Among campuses where at least 80 percent of students are economically disadvantaged, 49 percent earned an A or B, up from 47 percent, and 396 of them earned an A outright — evidence that the highest grades are reachable in the schools with the hardest circumstances.
“This year’s A-F ratings illustrate the progress Texas public schools are making,” Education Commissioner Mike Morath said in the agency’s announcement, “while illuminating areas of needed improvement.”
The ratings system dates to House Bill 22, passed in 2017, which scores every campus on student achievement, year-over-year progress, and results for each group of students. The Dispatch previewed Friday’s release earlier this week. Families can look up any campus at TXschools.gov.
What happens to Burnet and Webb now rests with Morath, and the agency has given no timetable. For the students walking into those two buildings this month, the practical question is narrower and more urgent than the governance fight around them: whether the adults in charge next year can do what the adults in charge for the last five could not.