Texas School Ratings Released After 2 Years of Silence

By Mackenzie Sams, masams@ttu.edu

The Texas Education Agency released its 2022-2023 school accountability ratings in late April, allowing parents to compare schools in each district. 

The agency is still not able to release its 2023-2024 data due to ongoing legal action, according to a press release. The school accountability ratings from the 2024-2025 school year will be released in August as usual. 

“Every Texas family deserves a clear view of school performance,” said Texas Education Commissioner, Mike Morath. “And now those families finally have access to data they should have received two years ago.” 

Performance ratings for schools in Texas are given in three areas: student achievement, school progress and closing the gap.These are evaluated using various assessments including graduation rates, STAAR scores and differentials between children of different racial groups and socioeconomic backgrounds. 

Each school is given a rating from A-F. These ratings have been given out each year since 2017, with exceptions made during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In 2022, the TEA changed its rating system, raising the requirements for certain letter grades. The metrics by which schools are graded are publicly available in the 2023 Accountability Manual and are split up into three categories: student achievement, school progress and closing the gaps. 

Student achievement and school progress are measured using graduation rates, STAAR scores and college readiness assessments. “Closing the gaps” scores are calculated by comparing data from children of various racial groups and socioeconomic backgrounds. 

The TEA also released a series of “what if” reports, applying the new standards to data from the previous year to show districts how the new system would work. 

Several school districts across the state, including West Texas, filed for an injunction to prevent the data from being released, arguing in court documents that the state had “retroactively chang[ed] the rules,” in a way that would “arbitrarily lower performance ratings for many school districts and campuses.” They also argued that they hadn’t been given enough time to respond to the changes that were made. 

A trial court found in favor of the schools and granted the injunction, but that ruling was struck down by an appellate court on April 3. The results were released to schools on April 17 and became publicly available on April 24.

In response to the lawsuit, the Texas Senate passed a bill that would make it more difficult for school districts to block the release of accountability ratings. 

Of the 60 schools in Lubbock County that had been graded both in 2022 and 2023, only two scored higher than the previous year, Lubbock-Cooper East Elementary and Evans Middle. About half the scores were worse than the previous year, while the other half stayed the same. The median rating was a B. 

Some schools did significantly worse, such as Dunbar College Prep Academy, which went from a C to an F. Texas Tech K-12 went from an A to a D. Any campus with a D or an F rating must engage in school intervention plans, according to the TEA. 

All 2023 accountability ratings are available at https://txschools.gov/?lng=en.