After a judge blocked the release of Texas’ A-F accountability ratings for the second year in a row this week, districts and education experts have responded with a wide range of perspectives on its impact on school communities.
Tarrant County school districts, in addition to state and federal education experts, have come forward with a variety of reactions on what it means going forward to have these ratings put on hold again; Some have voiced worries about how parents will be able to analyze their child’s school performance while others have encouraged stakeholders to turn to their attention to other measurements of success.
The ratings were scheduled to come out on Thursday, but Travis County Judge Karin Crump blocked their release on Monday. Various Texas school districts also filed on Monday a second lawsuit challenging the state’s changes to performance measure metrics, which comes about a year after several districts challenged the accountability rating system in light of state officials announcing there would be “further re-examination of the baseline data used in the calculation of (school) progress” just before the scheduled release of the 2023 ratings.
The ratings issued to districts and campuses by the Texas Education Agency give a snapshot of how they’re faring with student achievement, school progress and closing the gaps. The State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, carry a heavy weight on these annual ratings. The STAAR has been especially scrutinized recently as it’s undergone changes with more written-response questions and a new computer-based grading system.
Angélica Ramsey, superintendent of the Fort Worth Independent School District, said the fact that the scores won’t be published as scheduled was disappointing, in a way. Ramsey said Fort Worth ISD’s STAAR scores show that the number of D- and F-rated campuses declined compared to the last time scores were published. Although the ruling blocked TEA from publishing the scores publicly, school districts have access to their own STAAR scores, which they can use to calculate their own letter grades.
That being said, the question of whether or when A-F scores are released doesn’t change the work the district is doing, Ramsey said. Fort Worth ISD collects its own data on student achievement and progress, and uses that information to guide instructional decisions. So state accountability scores don’t offer any insight district leaders didn’t already have, she said.
“We know that achievement isn’t where we want it to be, and we need to continue working on increasing that,” she said.
Susan Therriault , an institute fellow at American Institutes for Research who’s studied ways to improve K-12 outcomes at the state and federal level for more than 20 years, echoed Ramsey’s point of view that both campuses and districts still have access to data that can help them measure how they’re performing internally. Beyond test scores and academic performance, factors such as attendance, chronic absenteeism, school climate surveys, educator retention and relationship dynamics among students, teachers and staff are valuable indicators that can be utilized when measuring school and district performance.
In terms of how families utilize school ratings to get a pulse on how their child’s school is doing, state designations are important to consider but identifying a student’s needs and the resources that the school offers are most important, Therriault added.
“The accountability status of a given school is important to know over time. But there’s a lot of ways to look at the data, and really, ultimately, you have to decide, ‘Is the school serving my student?’” Therriault said. “I don’t think people should be lost without a grade on their school.”
Texas A-F scores seldom see the light of day
Kate Greer, managing director for policy and state coalition at the Dallas-based Commit Partnership, said A-F accountability scores were designed to give parents and community leaders a clear, consistent metric to see how their schools are faring academically compared to other campuses across the state.
But Greer pointed out that scores have only been released in their entirety once since 2017, when lawmakers passed the bill that created the accountability system. In 2018, the agency issued letter grades for school districts, but not individual campuses. In 2019, it issued A-F grades as called for in state law. Then, in 2020 and 2021, no ratings were issued due to the pandemic. The following year, lawmakers directed the agency to issue only A-C ratings. A Travis County judge blocked the release of last year’s ratings after 120 school districts, including Fort Worth ISD and Crowley ISD, sued the agency, arguing they hadn’t received enough notice about changes to the way scores were calculated.
Greer said the fact that those ratings have so seldom been released as lawmakers originally intended leaves parents without a clear, easy-to-understand tool to help them decide where they want to send their kids to school.
Miguel Solis, president of the Commit Partnership and a former teacher, administrator and board member in the Dallas Independent School District, said public school leaders don’t do themselves any favors by opposing the release of A-F scores. At a time when Gov. Greg Abbott and a number of state lawmakers are pushing legislation to create a school voucher system, districts need to be forthcoming with information showing where they’re helping students make progress and, if they aren’t doing so, their plans to improve.
Assuming lawmakers show up in Austin with a genuine interest in looking for solutions in education, school leaders need to be as transparent as possible about how they’re doing, so lawmakers can make informed decisions about issues like whether to increase school funding, Solis said.
“The second that we start stripping away that transparency, then all that the legislature is left with are anecdotes,” Solis said.
Out of the 19 school districts in Tarrant County besides Fort Worth ISD, three responded to the Star-Telegram when asked for their comments and reactions to the news of the ratings being blocked.
Godley ISD officials said their families put standardized testing at the bottom of the list when measuring student success and turn to a “community-based accountability system.”
“Our parents consistently rank standardized test scores the lowest among ways to monitor the success of our students, and these lawsuits and judicial rulings reflect the many flaws with the current state system. In Godley, we developed a community-based accountability system based on the hopes and dreams of our community. We work diligently on several key areas and regularly report on our progress,” according to officials.
Kennedale ISD officials noted that they are analyzing the resulting impacts and are awaiting guidance on how to move forward.
“Kennedale ISD is aware of the recent court ruling and is carefully reviewing its impact and implications. We will remain focused on providing our students with a high-quality education as we await further guidance on the next steps,” officials said in a statement.
In Grapevine-Colleyville ISD, spokesperson Rosemary Gladden told the Star-Telegram that the district was unaffected by the blocked release of ratings.
“The A-F accountability ratings release being blocked will not impact GCISD. We received our spring 2024 STAAR and EOC individual student scores during the spring and summer,” she said.
The 2024 STAAR test results were publicly released on June 14 with state officials characterizing them as a mixed bag of gains and declines across various grades and subjects. Other available data sources and reports that include Fort Worth ISD measures include the 2023 Texas Academic Performance Reports , 2022 School Report Cards and the 2023 Federal Report Cards .
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