In Reality Check stories, Star-Telegram journalists dig deeper into questions over facts, consequences and accountability. Read more. Story idea? RealityCheck@star-telegram.com.
Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker made a public statement Tuesday about the need for education reform in the Fort Worth Independent School District , urging the school board to create a plan to improve student achievement through academic interventions, teacher retention and compensation programs, and audits of the district’s budget and personnel. She compares Fort Worth ISD to two other urban school districts in Texas, which she says have made notable progress. Here’s a deeper look into what those comparisons look like.
Parker’s call to action that she shared in a letter to school board members and elaborated on in-person through public comment at Tuesday’s school board meeting highlights Dallas ISD and Houston ISD as examples of districts with successful reform stories. She specifically mentions how their academic achievement has outpaced Fort Worth ISD’s over the years and still does.
In spring 2024, for example, the percentage of third-graders in Dallas ISD and Houston ISD who respectively had met or were above grade level in reading were 42% and 45%, according to test results on the STAAR, or State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. In comparison, 33% of Fort Worth ISD third-graders met this performance level. When looking at math scores for the same grade level, 42% of Houston ISD students had met or were above grade level, while 35% of Dallas ISD students and 29% of Fort Worth ISD students met this mark.
Historical STAAR data from the Commit Partnership shows Fort Worth ISD and Dallas ISD had the same percentage of students — 26% — in grades 3-8 who were meeting standards in reading and math in 2015. Over the following years, Dallas ISD made greater strides than Fort Worth ISD, even when COVID-19 hit and sent scores surging in 2021, according to the data. Both Dallas ISD and Houston ISD remained 3 to 16 percentage points above Fort Worth ISD when looking at these grades and subjects from 2016 to 2023.
“A great city demands a great public education system, and our future depends on it. Fort Worth ISD is one of 12 public school districts in the City of Fort Worth, our largest ISD, and unfortunately, it has not kept pace with our city’s rapid ascent,” Parker said. “The data tells a sobering story: our district has consistently lagged behind other large Texas school systems. In Spring 2024, our students trailed 11 percentage points behind Dallas ISD, 14 behind Houston ISD, and 18 behind Brownsville ISD.”
The percentage point gaps were calculated by analyzing raw STAAR data for students in grades 3-8 who achieved a “meets and above” performance level in math, reading, science and social studies in each school district, according to city staff.
In terms of student populations, Houston and Dallas ISDs have larger student populations compared to Fort Worth ISD. TEA data shows Houston ISD has 184,109 students; Dallas ISD has 139,246 students; and Fort Worth ISD has 71,060 students. Beyond sizes, the student demographics among the three districts are fairly similar, as all three have a predominantly Hispanic or Latino student population and consist of student bodies where at least 80% are economically disadvantaged, according to state data.
Parker also notes a letter recently sent from Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles to Houston-area lawmakers that celebrates the district’s improvements in its state accountability ratings after it “saw significant academic growth in nearly every grade level and subject,” according to Parker. The district released its own projected A-F accountability ratings for its campuses last Monday after a Travis County judge blocked the Texas Education Agency from releasing the official 2024 ratings for a second year in a row.
The Houston Landing reported that out of 265 Houston ISD schools with ratings, 149 improved their accountability scores by one or more letter grades and that “Wheatley High School, which triggered the appointment of Miles and a new school board after it received a seventh straight failing grade in 2019, improved from a D to a B.”
“Houston ISD accomplished these results following state-mandated intervention due to chronic academic failure, while Dallas ISD implemented a strategic turnaround plan from within,” Parker said in her letter to Fort Worth district officials. “Greatness is possible for ALL kids — with inspirational and accountable leadership that channels the dedication of teachers, principals, and staff to focus on high-quality instruction implemented with fidelity. Fort Worth ISD has the opportunity to lead with courage to turn around our district and avoid state intervention.”
Miles, who was appointed by Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath in the summer of 2023, called Houston ISD’s improvement “miraculous” while urging state representatives to visit Houston ISD schools in-person to see the transformation first hand and meet educators and advisory committee members. He also urged lawmakers to “use your positions to fight for increased education funding in the state budget.”
“Over the past year, 55 HISD schools have gone from a ‘D’ or ‘F’ rating to an ‘A’ or ‘B’ rating. In 2024, these schools served over 27,000 of Houston’s students. In this moment of genuine success, we owe it to our students and teachers to be just as swift and forceful with our celebrations and accolades as some have been with their skepticism,” the letter reads.
🚨 More top stories from our newsroom:
→ Mayor calls Fort Worth ISD scores 'unacceptable'
→ How Houston, Dallas schools outperform Fort Worth
→ School board approves closing last 6th grade campus
[Get our breaking news alerts. ]
Miles’ letter was issued after a group of Democratic legislators asked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to investigate the district’s $4.4 billion bond proposal and the Colorado-based charter school network founded by Miles. The scrutiny of the charter school network came about after a cable TV news outlet claimed that the network sent millions in taxpayer dollars from its Odessa school to a Colorado campus in need of financial support, violating Texas law.
Miles was appointed by Morath as a result of multiple issues, including “years of poor academic outcomes at a single campus in the district, Phillis Wheatley High School; allegations of misconduct against school board members; and the ongoing presence of a conservator who’s been overseeing the district for years,” according to the Texas Tribune.
Most Popular
Comments / 0