FACT CHECK: Is the Abbott Administration Closing Libraries as Part of Its Houston Public School...

exas in 2015 passed a law by Rep. Harold Dutton Jr.—a black Democrat who has represented Houston in the State Legislature for nearly four decades—that requires the state's education agency to intervene in failing school districts. If a public school receives a failing grade on its academic performance for five consecutive years, the Texas Education Agency must appoint a new board of managers for the school district.

Houston-based Wheatley High School received failing grades from 2010 to 2019, triggering an intervention under the Dutton-written law. Texas education commissioner Mike Morath subsequently appointed a new Houston Independent School District board in June. That board, along with state-appointed superintendent Mike Miles, is tasked with implementing a revamped education plan to improve reading and math scores in the 28 elementary and middle schools that feed into Wheatley High School and other struggling schools.

Analysis: Central to Miles's plan to improve academic performance are so-called team centers, which the superintendent describes as spaces "for an individual learning environment."

At "team centers"—located in libraries and large classrooms not used for traditional class instruction—students receive individualized attention from tutors and teaching assistants, the Texas Education Agency told the Washington Free Beacon. A student who mastered a reading assignment in English class, for example, might use time in a "team center" to read more advanced material, while a student struggling with the assignment might work with a tutor to catch up.

Miles's "team centers" are also used to host students who disrupt class time. Under the superintendent's plan, students who misbehave in class are sent to their "team center" to watch a live video feed of the remainder of their teacher's lesson. As a result, those students still receive instruction without disrupting their classmates.

That is the basis for the Times's assertion—and that of other news outlets—that Texas is "closing libraries" and turning them into "multipurpose computer rooms … used, in part, for discipline." But the libraries are not closed. They're still stocked with books that students can read while in their "team center," that other students can access even if the given library is not home to their "team center," and that students can use freely before and after school.