Some 90% of families in the Houston Independent School District view Texas’ largest school system favorably, according to a winter 2025-26 survey. The largest gains were in areas related to whether the district — which has been under state control since 2023 — is heading in the right direction.
“Families are seeing real improvement in their schools and across HISD,” Superintendent Mike Miles said in a statement Thursday. The results were based on 11,008 family respondents chosen at random to take the survey — or a 26% response rate.
The survey asked families across both New Education System schools — a model put in place as a result of the state takeover — and PUA campuses. PUA, which means per student allocation, campuses do not have the new model in place, typically have a higher level of autonomy in the district and are usually schools that were already performing well before the state intervention.
According to the results, families at both NES and PUA schools had similar sentiments compared to families on PUA campuses in many surveyed topics. The finding is particularly positive considering many education system experts expected family and community resistance to the takeover when it was announced in 2023.
Overall, slightly over 90% of families on both NES and PUA campuses had a positive perception of the district.
NES and PUA families also responded similarly when asked whether their child is learning as they expected and if what’s being taught in school meets the child’s needs, with around 87% responding favorably.
However, the largest difference in sentiment between NES and PUA families was in their perception of the district’s improvement, with 78% of NES families saying they believe HISD is improving and that the district is headed in the right direction, compared to only 62% of PUA families. White families were significantly less likely than Hispanic, Black, and Asian families to have a favorable view of the district’s improvements and path forward, regardless of which campus their child attended.
In the 2024-25 survey released last year, White families and economically advantaged families reported that HISD was “getting worse,” indicating that sentiment among these groups is negative. However, that survey is not directly comparable to this year’s results due to changes in the most recent survey.
Perceptions in the most recent round of results around special education support — such as whether individualized education programs were being followed and communicated effectively — were also more favorable at NES campuses.
The New Education System schools — which are targeted for wholescale, systemic reform rather than incremental changes as sometimes seen in other state takeovers of school systems — approach include:
- An innovative staffing model with regular coaching and on-campus support.
- Consistent high-quality instruction.
- Higher salaries and differentiated compensation based on subject and teacher evaluations.
- A specific instructional program with extra resources and support, including critical thinking and problem solving courses.
- Specialty classes taught by community members and in addition to elective courses, including fitness, music and fine arts, 21st century media and technology, and hands-on science.
- Free field trips for middle school students.
Following the takeover, Hostoun initially launched 85 NES schools on campuses that were underperforming, which amounted to about a third out of its 274 campuses at the time. Since then, the number has increased to at least 130 in the 2024-25 school year, with the model gaining steam in the district.
NES campuses have also shown better academic performance in some instances, with state standardized assessment scores in the 2023-24 school year — the first year after the takeover — almost double the scores of the average district student.
The high-profile and large-scale takeover, which was initially considered controversial due to political and racial tensions within the community, has also produced positive results on broader benchmarks such as reducing the number of F-rated schools.
Experts who have studied school district takeovers also cite positive community partnerships and school climate as indicators of a successful takeover.
Houston’s most family sentiment survey results “reflect the hard work of our educators, staff, and school leaders who are committed to student success every single day,” Miles said in his statement Thursday.
Despite the positive outcomes, however, the takeover was still extended to at least 2027 last year.
“With the changes made in the last two years, Houston ISD is well on its way to being a district where all of its schools provide students with the educational opportunities that will allow them to access the American Dream,” said Texas Education Commissioner Mike Mora that the time of the extension announcement. “Ultimately, two years has not been enough time to fix district systems that were broken for decades.”
