Thursday night I routinely checked my email only to discover that the Houston ISD Board of Trustees had voted to end the Teach For America contract. Wait, what? Yes, HISD had effectively ended a relationship that started in 1991.

Over those 28 years, 2,000 Teach For America corps members and alumni have worked in and around Houston ISD. According to the latest alumni data, 70 percent of Teach For America-Houston alums work in education or in jobs directly affecting low-income communities. Nearly 300 of these former corps members are currently building their careers in HISD. Those alumni include 11 principals, 10 assistant principals and, ironically, two trustees.

I’ve posted my dismay over the vote on Facebook and received long trails of comments voicing everything from confusion to outrage about the HISD board’s vote. During the years that I served on HISD’s board, the district was viewed as a bold leader in evidence-based education reforms. But this vote is only the latest blow in what appears to be an effort to dismantle every education reform the district has ever put in place.

First, the current board eliminated the nationally normed test. While nobody likes testing and we needed less of it, that test allowed us to compare HISD kids’ progress to other that of kids throughout the U.S. Now, if all of Texas is falling behind, it’ll be harder for us to tell.

Next, the board eliminated the higher-than-required standards HISD had long held for passing and graduation. We used to believe that Houston kids could and should perform as well as or better than the rest of the state. Apparently we don’t anymore.

Then the board eliminated the analytic tool we used to track student academic growth. It was controversial for sure, but instead of searching for something better, they summarily dumped the contract in a routine board vote.

Around the same time, they cut all funds for performance pay or bonuses for teachers. The board didn’t put any of that money in teachers’ pockets; they just used it to balance the budget.

The board has also refused to consider options and significant state money available to restart our most persistently failing schools.

And finally, last week, they voted to end the long-standing association with Teach for America.

Teach for America hires require extra funding for training and support. At the height of the organization’s involvement with HISD, the district’s central office paid that fee, and corps members made up 10 percent of HISD new hires. These days, with principals required to pay the fees out of their own budgets, corps members had been down to about four percent — which seemed a shame, but at least allowed the possibility of growth.

People who run hard-to-staff schools choose Teach for America corps members because they want them as a part of their team. It's a myth that corps members take jobs from veterans. They take jobs that other teachers don’t want, and which are typically filled by a revolving door of substitutes.

I hope HISD will reconsider this move. With votes like Thursday’s, no commitment to teacher raises, and a leadership vacuum that has created an uncertain working environment, new teachers — regardless of how they came to teaching — will quit choosing HISD altogether. And teachers already teaching in HISD will exit — along with the 38,000 families who send students to charter schools, and 28,000 who choose private school.

Our school system is in bad shape. People have known it for some time, but this decision hit a raw nerve. We’re not focused on how to get better and do more for the kids in our city who deserve it. The abandoned reforms I listed above were by no means silver bullets, but they reflected a dedication to continuous improvement on behalf of our students. For the sake of our city and its future, we need to be fully committed to creating, growing and maintaining more high-quality schools for our kids.

And, yes, Teach For America should be a part of that movement.

Eastman joined the regional board for Teach for America last year after having served eight years as an HISD trustee.