For nearly a century, Phillis Wheatley High School in Houston’s Fifth Ward has been one of the city’s most important institutions of Black education. Its classrooms have produced trailblazers across generations: the late Barbara Jordan, a pioneering congresswoman; Mickey Leland, a congressman and humanitarian; and Ruth Simmons, the first Black president of an Ivy League university. But in recent years, Wheatley became known for something very different. Years of failing state accountability ratings at the historically Black high school helped set in motion one of the most consequential—and controversial—education interventions in Texas history: the state takeover of the Houston Independent School District. Now, three years into that takeover, Wheatley has reached a milestone that would have seemed unlikely just a few years ago. The school earned a 92 out of 100 in Texas’ latest accountability ratings, securing its first-ever “A” from the state. And it isn’t the only historic Black Houston high school celebrating.
Across town in Third Ward, Jack Yates High School earned a 93, also receiving an “A” as the institution celebrates its 100th anniversary. Together, the achievements mark a remarkable moment for two schools that have spent nearly a century educating Black children in some of Houston’s most storied communities, while also raising larger questions about what it has taken to produce that progress. But Wheatley’s “A” means something different when you consider just how much the school—and the community surrounding it—has weathered. The Fifth Ward school received seven consecutive failing accountability ratings before beginning its recent climb. Its persistent low performance became central to the Texas Education Agency’s case for intervening in HISD, the largest public school district in Texas. After years of legal battles and widespread community resistance, the state took control of HISD in 2023, stripping Houston voters of their elected school board and replacing it with a state-appointed Board of Managers, which installed Mike Miles as superintendent. His appointment and sweeping overhaul of the district were met with sustained pushback from parents, educators, students and elected officials, who packed board meetings, organized protests and repeatedly called for an end to the takeover and a return to local control. Wheatley became one of the schools placed under HISD’s New Education System, or NES, the reform model introduced under Miles. The approach reshaped classroom instruction and staffing while providing participating schools with additional resources, higher teacher compensation and a highly structured instructional model. The changes have coincided with measurable academic gains across much of the district. HISD now has 205 schools rated A or B, compared with 197 the previous school year, while the number of campuses receiving D or F ratings has fallen significantly from where it stood at the beginning of the takeover. Wheatley’s trajectory has been among the most striking. The school earned a D in 2023 before improving to a B in 2024. Now, it has a 92-point A rating. The campus currently serves 494 students, more than 60 percent of whom are Black and 96 percent economically disadvantaged. For Wheatley principal Crystal Blanchard, those demographics should never be treated as a predictor of what students can achieve. “Race, ZIP code, or socioeconomic status should never determine the expectations we have for children,” Blanchard tells ESSENCE. “For me, the conversation should never begin with whether Black students or students from economically disadvantaged communities are capable. They are.” Instead, she says, the responsibility falls on educators to create environments where that ability can be “developed, challenged, and celebrated.” Still, the gains have not erased the tension surrounding the takeover. While HISD has pointed to rising accountability scores as evidence that its reforms are working, those improvements have unfolded alongside significant changes to how students are taught and how teachers are expected to lead their classrooms. With the state extending its intervention through at least June 2027, Houston is still grappling with what the takeover has meant for its teachers, families and communities, even as schools like Wheatley begin to tell a different academic story. That story became even more complicated just days before the state released its latest ratings. Wheatley teacher Darius Williams, better known online as DariusCooks, went viral after posting a video claiming that some of his seniors struggled to read and write. The video drew millions of views, putting a national spotlight on students at a school already closely associated with the debate over HISD’s academic performance.
