A Travis County judge has further delayed the release of school performance ratings , prohibiting Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath from sharing A-F grades for Texas school districts and campuses for the 2023-24 school year.
Several Texas school districts, including the Kingsville Independent School District, filed a lawsuit in August calling for a delay in A-F ratings for 2023-24, arguing that the Texas Education Agency didn't share final accountability rules until the end of the school year and expressing concerns about how college, career and military readiness scores are calculated, as well as the use of artificial intelligence to grade reading portions of the 2024 State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness.
The lawsuit, filed initially by the Pecos-Barstow-Toyah, Crandall, Forney, Fort Stockton and Kingsville districts, is similar to an earlier lawsuit filed in 2023 impacting 2022-23 school performance ratings, which still have not been publicly released.
Though the TEA has calculated and assigned annual A-F grades assessing academic achievement and growth for every public school district and campus in the state, the last grades the state was able to share with the public are from the 2021-22 school year. Before that, the state chose not to release performance ratings from 2019-20 and 2020-21 due to the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on education.
This means it has been years since the public has had a clear indicator of whether local schools and campuses are improving academically.
The performance ratings evaluate how well schools are helping students reach learning goals, taking into account how much academic growth students show over the course of the year and whether schools are closing racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps. The ratings are based primarily on State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness test results, but data on graduation rates and college, career and military readiness plays a role in high school ratings.
On the day the school districts filed the second lawsuit, a temporary restraining order was issued preventing the release of the 2023-24 ratings until after hearings were held this week.
After the petition was filed in August, other school districts beyond the original five districts joined, bringing the total number of school district plaintiffs to more than 30 from across the state. The earlier lawsuit relating to the 2022-23 ratings was similarly joined by additional school districts, and more school districts filed an intervener petition sharing concerns about the transparency of a 2023 refresh to the accountability system.
A response to the school districts' petition from the education commissioner, filed Aug. 21, argues that the districts are "holding hostage" performance ratings, which allow Texas parents, educators and students to make informed decisions.
"By delaying A-F ratings, Plaintiffs are hurting Texas school children, their parents, and educators for their own short-term gain," the Aug. 21 response's conclusion reads. "While Plaintiffs attempt to run from the reality that they did not prepare their students to succeed on this (year’s) STAAR test, many other school districts did—and those school districts and their students deserve to receive the recognition they are owed."
Additionally, IDEA Public Schools, Texas' largest public charter school network, filed a petition to intervene in the lawsuit, claiming the ratings are critical for the network's campuses and that the lack of ratings undermines the schools' credibility and presents challenges to the network's financial stability and recruitment efforts. The IDEA Public Schools petition was denied Wednesday.
"I want to make it very clear that superintendents like myself truly believe in being held accountable," Kingsville ISD Superintendent Cissy Reynolds-Perez said Wednesday. "We believe in accountability. We just want to make sure it is accurate and it is fair, it is reliable and it is valid."
After attorneys for the school districts and education commissioner presented evidence and arguments Monday and Tuesday, presiding Judge Daniella DeSeta Lyttle issued an order Wednesday finding that the plaintiffs sufficiently showed that the implementation of the accountability system for the 2023-24 school year is unlawful and would cause injury or harm to the plaintiffs.
Morath is temporarily prohibited from assigning A-F ratings pending further court orders and a final trial on the merits of the lawsuit. The TEA will still be able to use data from the 2023-24 school year to obtain federal funds for low performing campuses.
A trial is currently scheduled for February in Travis County.
In a separate effort, more than 70 Texas school district leaders sent a letter to the TEA expressing concerns about the implementation of a new data reporting system, according to reporting from the Texas Tribune.
Superintendents including Reynolds-Perez and Corpus Christi Independent School District's Roland Hernandez signed the letter, sharing that districts have been unable to verify the accuracy of data in the new system, which will be used to collect data on students, staff and finances to determine funding and whether schools are meeting performance standards.
Kingsville ISD, school districts seek to delay school accountability ratings again
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This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Here's where Texas school district lawsuit to delay release of A-F school ratings stands
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