After two year pause, Texas Education Agency releases 2023 A-F accountability scores
The Texas Education Agency on Thursday morning released two-year-old academic accountability scores for school districts and campuses statewide after an appeals court lifted a temporary block on the release of performance ratings earlier this month.
Due to several pandemic-related exemptions, the data the TEA released Thursday is the first time since 2019 that families across the state have access to a complete suite of information detailing how the state is grading campuses and districts. It is also the first glimpse into the results of the state's 2023 refresh to the accountability system's rubric.
Seventy-three percent of campuses received a passing accountability rating in 2023, compared with 87% in 2022, according to the TEA data.
The agency rates districts and campuses on an A-F letter grade scale, in which a C or higher is passing, or at least a 70 out of 100.
Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath told reporters in a call that if the updated 2023 rubric had been applied to the 2022 accountability scores, about 85% of campuses would have passed.
The 2023 scores also show a dip in campuses that passed compared with 2019 when 82% of schools received an A, B or C.
Morath said the 2022 scores had been unusual because students showed unusual levels of growth — one of the factors on which students and campuses are graded — upon exiting the pandemic. Students didn't show the same levels of growth in 2023, he said.
'That is not inherently because of the refresh," Morath said. 'That is because academic growth for students was way down.'
The new grading system also gives less weight to high schools than previous performance measures, he said.
The A-F accountability ratings score campuses on how students perform on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness test, their growth or performance relative to other similar schools, college and career readiness, and the performance of certain high-needs student groups.
Comprehensive A-F scores haven't been released publicly since 2019.
The state didn't score schools and districts in 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and it exempted the lowest scoring schools from ratings in 2022.
In 2023, the TEA rolled out a newly designed version of the STAAR test, which students in grades three through eight and high school students take. The new test features an online format, more short written responses and reading passages that reference information students should have learned in their classes.
Although the test was administered in 2023, the state has been blocked from releasing its accountability ratings due to it updating its measuring system. A group of about 100 districts sued the TEA in 2023, accusing the agency of unfairly recalibrating the rubric, delaying communication of changes, and alleging that the adjustments would result in lower scores.
A smaller group of districts filed a similar suit in 2024.
Earlier this month, the state's 15th Court of Appeals — created in 2023 by the Texas Legislature — ordered the TEA to release the 2023 scores, but the 2024 ratings are still blocked from becoming public.
'That's not all that helpful for a family trying to make a decision in the summer of 2024, and so unfortunately, parents have been denied access to this benefit for a long time now,' Morath said in the call.
If districts had been scored using the new 2023 system in 2022, about 58% of the total 1,188 public school districts in Texas would have maintained the same score, 14% would have increased their scores and 29% would have seen their scores go down, according to TEA data.
In response to the lawsuits, Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, has filed Senate Bill 1962, which would allow the state to appoint oversight over districts that use public money to sue the TEA over accountability measures. The Texas Senate on April 16 approved Bettencourt's proposal by a 20-11 vote. The measure has been assigned to the House Public Education Committee but it has not yet been scheduled for a hearing.
The release of the TEA scores coincides with the Austin district weighing options for Dobie Middle School, which administrators project will receive a fourth consecutive F rating this year. If the school receives five Fs consecutively, the state is required by law to either close the school or take over the entire district.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas Education Agency releases 2023 A-F accountability scores
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