State Takeovers Are About Control and Corruption, Not ‘Results’

We live in a results-driven society, but in a political situation, “results” often mean a change in power relationships rather than a specific outcome. This is especially true when state governments seize control of something that had been under control of local communities. Black communities experience first-hand the effects of mistaking power grabs for tangible results.

As New York University professor Domingo Morel documents in his book Takeover: Race, Education, and American Democracy, in the late 1960s, after white flight led to the abandonment of urban communities across the nation and control of municipal services such as schools and police protection fell under the purview of Black governance, the policy of state takeovers of schools began to emerge to disempower and disenfranchise those Black communities.

Rescuing Black and brown children may be the given rationale for state takeovers of schools, but the truth is that they don’t work, although perpetrators of takeovers often argue that they do. 

As I have shared previously, the takeover of a school district involves dissolving the locally elected school board, and the superintendent’s office is often deposed or rendered powerless. Either a superintendent is appointed by the state or an appointed board or a state-hired consultant or management firm rules with impunity.

So rather than rescuing children, Morel writes, the more frequent reason for takeovers is retaliation for Black people exerting their political power to extract justice for their children. State takeovers wrest control of the education of Black and brown children out of the hands of Black and brown people.

There is something else that state intervention does: It creates the opportunity for corruption among politicians and education officials.

In 2023, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) assumed control of the Houston Independent School District, the eighth-largest school district in the United States, and appointed Mike Miles as superintendent of schools.

Miles applied student behavior practices that contributed to the disproportionate disciplining of Black children and installed a curriculum that lies about Black history and American history in a district where Black students compose a higher percentage of the student body (22.7 percent) than the state average in schools (12.7 percent).

Miles, a former charter school CEO of Third Future Schools in Colorado, sought to expand the network to Texas and did so with the help of TEA commissioner Mike Morath. Morath installed the infrastructure in place for then-CEO Miles to gain financial support for Third Future Schools’s expansion into Texas. An investigation by The Texas Observer found that this arrangement may have resulted in Miles moving Texas public school dollars into the coffers of Third Future Schools to help alleviate the network’s debt.

Although the TEA—the same state agency that put Miles in charge of Houston schools—has cleared him of any wrongdoing, his financial shell game puts his ethics into question.

Not only is Miles bad for Black children, but he’s bad for schools because he’s corrupt. Yet, when under the control of the state, this sort of corruption isn’t preventable. The same is true in Camden, New Jersey.

New Jersey is no stranger to state takeovers of schools. The state has previously taken over three school districts before its most recent takeover in Camden. 

As I’ve previously reported, the state takeover has facilitated public school closures in Camden, an increase in charter schools, and a reduction of Black teachers. The intervention also morphed the elected school board into an appointed advisory board—with no governing power.

Camden is unique in that its schools, police, and municipal government have all been under state control at one time or another since the turn of the century. The result is a state-run political machine monopolizing how Black and brown people are policed, educated, and governed.

The president of the school advisory board, Wasim Muhammad, was eventually pressured to resign from his post by the state-appointed superintendent, Katrina McCombs, in response to years of criticism from Governor Phil Murphy and Camden residents.

Muhammad was accused of sexual assault by a former student who alleged she was abused by him when he taught for the Camden City School District in the 1990s. Her suit against him alleged the abuse began while she was in middle school.

Although charges of sexual assault were dismissed against Muhammad, the same jury found him to have “recklessly or intentionally committed extreme and outrageous conduct” with the former student.

His legal fees cost the school district more than $220,000, on top of the $2 million the district was ordered to pay the former student in damages.

The state-appointed superintendent, who has power over the advisory board, is only mandated to hold two meetings a year. Additionally, all members were appointed by the mayor, who worked closely with the state vis-à-vis Norcross.

Because of the takeover rules, advisory board meetings, where public sentiment was expected to be in opposition to Wasim Muhammad remaining the president, were often canceled and rescheduled—until it was no longer feasible to do so.

Although Muhammad eventually resigned, had the power remained with the people, this fiasco would likely have resulted in his removal early on.

Now, Camden’s mayor, city council president, and advisory board president seek to oust the current superintendent—Katrina McCombs—speculatively due to her public call for Muhammad to step down. Her contract runs through the 2024-25 school year. McCombs’s response: “I’m not ready to leave because we have more work to be done.”

What’s most unfortunate is that Camden officials, rather than advocate for a return to local control, are pushing for more of the same with a newly appointed leader.

Stripping power from the people is never the answer. For those in control, empowering the people comes at a cost—accountability. A takeover does the opposite; it takes power away from residents in exchange for so-called reform. 

Advocates of takeovers tout test scores, declining criminal statistics, and the arrival of corporations as markers of takeover success, but for the people, the fruits of takeovers are bitter. 

While neither municipal takeovers nor school district takeovers produce the promised results, the mechanisms deployed in places like Houston and Camden do nothing to empower Black and brown people and instead work to keep them under control.

There will be those who use these instances as an opportunity to continue saying that Black and brown people are incapable of self-governance and that the state is still the best alternative despite any hiccups. But because control is the goal, the truth is state intervention creates chaos, and Black and brown people are the ones left holding the bag and bearing the blame.