Texas released its public school ratings for the first time in five years, showcasing a troubling academic decline in the Lone Star State between 2022 and 2023.
On Thursday, the Texas Education Agency released the 2022-23 academic year public school accountability ratings, which measure how well districts educate their students. A state appeals court allowed the ratings to be made public this month after over 100 school districts mounted a multiyear lawsuit against the TEA over changes to its grading standards.
The plaintiffs cited worries that the new A-F accountability rating system would unfairly reflect academic performance even if students were improving.
The new data in the 2022-23 ratings showed that the number of schools rated “A” dropped 9 percentage points compared to 2021-22 results, while those rated “B” dropped 14 points. Meanwhile, the number of schools rated “C” increased by 6 points compared to the 2021-22 rankings.
Schools rated “D” or “F” in the 2023 rankings increased by 16 points, according to data highlighted by the Texas Tribune. Overall, 3,609 campuses declined and 3,675 stayed the same, while 1,084 schools in Texas experienced academic growth in the 2023 rankings.
“For far too long, families, educators, and communities have been denied access to information about the performance of their schools, thanks to frivolous lawsuits paid for by tax dollars,” TEA Commissioner Mike Morath said. “Every Texas family deserves a clear view of school performance, and now those families finally have access to data they should have received two years ago.”
“If you went from a ‘C’ before to an ‘A,’ I mean, this is worthy of a ticker tape parade,” Morath continued, per the Houston Chronicle. “If I could roll back time, I would be doing this celebration. … Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to do this for almost two years now because of lawsuits.”
The TEA updated its accountability system to the current system in 2023, when over 100 districts sued to block the release of data from the 2022-2023 school year. They alleged that the changes were unfair because the new methods “were not provided to districts in the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year as required by state statute.”
The superintendent of Beaumont Independent School District, which received a “D” in the 2023 rankings, argued that the new benchmarks were implemented without proper notice in comments to a local news outlet.
STUDY SHOWS WIDE RANGE OF POSITIVE EFFECTS FROM OHIO SCHOOL CHOICE PROGRAM
“Litigation occurred because the accountability system changed,” Superintendent Anita Frank said. “We did not receive how we were going to be rated and scored until after our students took the test.”
After a Travis County judge agreed with the districts, the TEA appealed the decision. Earlier this month, the 15th Court of Appeals delivered the TEA a victory, ruling that Morath acted within legal bounds when he adopted new metrics to assist in determining schools’ performance ratings.