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March 2nd, 2023:

So it looks like that TEA takeover of HISD is going to happen

Welp.

Mayor Sylvester Turner sounded alarm bells Wednesday when he announced that he has heard from multiple sources that the state intends to take over Houston ISD as early as next week.

“I’m talking to legislators, and what they’re saying to me is that the state intends to takeover the district, replacing the entire board, replacing the superintendent … And they intend to do it next week,” said Turner, who spent three decades as a state representative.

Turner questioned how the state would take over 273 schools successfully, and urged the community to sound speak out against the takeover.

“We can’t be silent on this one. The state is overreaching on this one,” Turner said. “It is a total obliteration of local control, and when you take it, you own it… You are destroying the public education system.”

Rep. Alma Allen, who had also been hearing various rumors of a soon-to-be takeover, asked TEA commission Mike Morath about the possibility at a Public Education Committee meeting Tuesday.

“The streets have it…that it’s going to be March 6, and there are already persons that have already been asked to take over the position of superintendent,” Allen said. “Do you have any idea (if this is true)?”

Morath did not give a timeline.

“All I will say is we’re waiting to evaluate the Supreme Court’s ruling that has not yet been finalized,” Morath said during the meeting. “What we’re going to do is going to be a mandatory action under state law, not a discretionary action.”

Houston ISD did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Texas Education Agency said: “TEA continues to review the Supreme Court’s decision in order to determine next steps that best support the students, teachers, parents, and school community of the Houston Independent School District.”

See here and here for the background. The Trib also quotes Morath at that same hearing saying they “have not made any final decision and not announced any final action”. There’s nothing here to contradict what Mayor Turner says, but it’s not totally clear what Morath means. This Chron story lays out some possibilities.

What is the TEA’s likely first step?

The Texas Education Agency likely would choose one of the following options: It could:

1) Appoint a conservator, effectively a state-appointed manager to oversee district operations.

2) Replace Houston ISD’s 9-person elected board with a state-appointed “board of managers.” If this happens, based on previous experience, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath would select those new trustees and potentially pick a new superintendent.

3) Allow the district to remain autonomous but retain a degree of oversight.

The state agency will have to release the details after they pull the trigger on the takeover.

Door #3 is the obvious choice, if we have one. My thought on trying to parse Mike Morath’s words is that the TEA and its lawyers want to read the SCOTx decision before they do whatever it is they will do. Depending on whether that decision says or implies that the TEA “shall” take over HISD or that it “may” take over HISD could be the difference between a conservator and an appointed Board on one hand, and a monitoring situation on the other. Or maybe I’m full of hopium and Morath already has a full-on takeover plan at the ready and he’s just waiting for the ink to dry on the SCOTx decision before they hit Send on the press release. Hell if I know. But if the Mayor’s threat intel is accurate, and I tend to think he has the goods, then we’ll know very soon what’s up. Reform Austin has more.

So about that DPS delay in notifying the victims of the credential stuffing attack

Here’s their explanation.

[DPS Director Steve] McCraw said DPS officials kept the news under wraps to avoid jeopardizing the agency’s investigation, including efforts to arrest the fraudsters who organized the scheme.

The explanation came in response to questioning from state Rep. Mary González, D-El Paso, who expressed bewilderment over the delay.

“So, hold on,” González said. “It could be my driver’s license, and somebody could be going around as Mary González right now for two months, and nobody has been notified.”

González also queried McCraw and one of his top deputies, Jeoff Williams, about whether the state could face fines for possibly running afoul of federal regulations requiring timely notice of certain security breaches.

Williams, DPS’ deputy director of law enforcement services, said that was not the case. He added that the criminal investigation — which includes at least four states — “has taken priority at this point.”

“We recognize that there’s a requirement to notify people, and we want to do that more than anyone, believe me,” Williams said. “ — We’re going to handle each one of those (affected Texans) with the individual care that’s required, given what occurred to them.”

On Tuesday, DPS confirmed that it had begun sending letters informing victims of “fraudulent activity that resulted in your driver license card being sent to an unauthorized party.” The agency reportedly told the victims they would be issued a new replacement license at no charge.

Under state law, anyone who “conducts business” in Texas and owns or licenses data that includes “sensitive personal information” is required to notify people within 60 days if their information is compromised in a breach. The law provides an exception, however, if a law enforcement agency “determines that the notification will impede a criminal investigation.”

“The notification shall be made as soon as the law enforcement agency determines that the notification will not compromise the investigation,” the law states.

In 2021, state lawmakers tacked on a requirement to notify the state attorney general about any breach that involves at least 250 Texans. The attorney general’s office is required to post a publicly accessible list of the breaches on its website, updated within 30 days of each breach notice.

The attorney general’s office has tallied 468 such breaches since the law took effect in September 2021 — an average of 26 per month.

See here for the background. I get the reason for the delay, though perhaps there should be some limit to that, and the earlier stories mentioned that the FBI and Homeland Security were also involved, so that’s good. I just don’t trust Steve McCraw. But unless there’s some other nuance to this, I’ll have to get over it.

Of more interest to me is what DPS and the Texas Department of Information Resources will learn from this. Will they take proactive steps to notify their customers whose passwords are known to have been compromised? How about doing a better job of screening where these logons come from, and put in extra verifications to filter out unwanted foreign actors? McCraw specifically said there weren’t adequate controls in place. What controls does he have in mind, and who is responsible for implementing them? Put the cybersecurity stuff aside for a second, was this an unusual number of license requests, was there a way to detect that, and what if anything was supposed to be done if so? And if there wasn’t any way to flag that as suspicious, is there now? This is the kind of review process that an enterprise has to undertake when there is a successful attack like this. All of us drivers license holders need to know that this is happening. Please keep the pressure on them, legislators.

You still have time to donate to the Democratic judges’ legal fund

Just a reminder:

See here for the background. That link takes you here, and while the in-person fundraiser mentioned there is now over, the Donate link remains. But due to a change in state law, you only have until March 8 to make a contribution. That’s a new statutory deadline for all judicial fundraising – it used to be the case that judges who were involved in lawsuits could continue past that deadline, but the law was changed in the last session, so here we are. Please give a few bucks if you can and help them all out. Thanks!

Texas blog roundup for the week of February 27

The Texas Progressive Alliance is studying pitch clocks and base sizes as it brings you this week’s roundup.

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