Understanding Texas School Ratings: A-F Grading Explained

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) gives a letter grade from A to F to every public school and school district in the state. These grades help parents understand how well their schools are doing. They are based on three main things:

• Student Achievement: How students perform on state tests.
• Academic Growth: How much students improve from one year to the next.
• Closing Gaps: How well the school helps different groups of students, like those who are still learning English or have special needs, to succeed.

How Texas School Ratings Were Established

The Texas A-F school accountability system was created by the Texas Legislature in 2017 to provide a simple, clear, and consistent way for everyone to understand how schools and districts are performing. The system encourages schools to keep getting better and to make sure all students get a good education.

The ratings are based on three main categories, or “domains,” which are combined to give a school its final letter grade:

• Student Achievement: This measures how well students do on state tests, like the STAAR test.
• School Progress: This looks at how much students improve from one year to the next.
• Closing the Gaps: This measures how well schools are helping specific groups of students, like those with special needs or who are still learning English, to succeed.

To calculate the final grade, the TEA takes the better score between the Student Achievement and School Progress domains, and this makes up 70% of the school’s overall rating. The Closing the Gaps domain makes up the remaining 30%. This “best of” approach is meant to be fair and give schools a chance to show their strengths.

A Closer Look at Big Districts

Some of the largest school districts in Texas have been in the news for their recent ratings.

Houston ISD (HISD) Houston ISD has shown great improvement. The district’s overall rating is now a B, up from a C. The superintendent, Mike Miles, and the TEA commissioner, Mike Morath, have both praised the district’s progress. One school, Jefferson Elementary, went from a D to an A rating. Morath called the academic growth in HISD “unprecedented” in the history of the United States.

Dallas ISD Dallas ISD also saw a big jump, improving from a C to a B. The district is doing much better in a number of areas. For example, the number of A-rated schools in Dallas ISD doubled, going from 30 to 60. The number of F-rated schools also went down, from 24 to just 2.

Arlington ISD Arlington ISD is facing a different kind of problem. The district is appealing its new ratings because it believes there was a mistake by the TEA’s automated scoring system. Arlington ISD officials say that if the scores were corrected by humans, at least five of its schools would get a better grade. Without the corrected scores, the district is expected to get a C rating.

How are Districts Doing Overall?

Across Texas, many schools have improved. In East Texas, for example, 11 districts received an A, while 72 got a B. The superintendent of Longview ISD said that the goal for every district is to improve each year.

Other districts in Texas have also seen good results:

• Fort Worth ISD also improved, from a D to a C. It saw a 70% increase in A-rated schools.
• Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD improved from a C to a B rating.
• Highland Park ISD and Carroll ISD are among the top-rated districts in North Texas.

What about Challenges?

Some districts are still facing challenges. The lowest-rated schools in North Texas received grades in the D range. One school, the Marilyn Miller Language Academy, received an F for five years in a row, which could lead to a state takeover.

The Stakes are High: Funding and State Control

The ratings are not just a letter grade; they have real consequences for schools and communities.

• State Intervention: If a school receives an F rating for five years in a row, state law requires the TEA to take action. This can mean the state will either close the campus or take over the entire school district by replacing its elected school board with state-appointed managers. This is what happened in Houston ISD. The state is also evaluating Fort Worth ISD for a potential takeover.
• Funding and Resources: While funding is not directly tied to a specific letter grade, a school’s rating can indirectly affect its resources. If a school gets a low rating, some parents might choose to move their children to a higher-rated school in another district. Since school funding is based on student attendance, this can mean the school loses money. Conversely, some state funding is set up to direct more resources to schools in high-poverty areas, and good leadership can use these funds to improve.
• Public Perception: The A-F ratings can shape how the public sees a school. High grades can make a neighborhood more popular and increase property values, while low grades can have the opposite effect. This creates a lot of pressure on schools to perform well.

School Consolidations

Some districts have closed and combined schools to save money and resources. This has had different effects on their ratings.

• Richardson ISD: After closing four elementary schools, some of the schools that took in new students saw their ratings drop.
• Allen ISD: This district consolidated schools a year earlier and has since bounced back. Schools that saw their ratings drop at first are now improving.
• Garland ISD: This district has had a good experience with school consolidations, with all consolidated schools seeing their ratings improve.

How to Find Out More

The TEA ratings give parents important information about their children’s schools. You can find the full list of ratings and more details on the txschools.gov website.