TEA releases delayed 2022-23 school accountability ratings

The Texas Education Agency released long-delayed on Thursday.

The scores were being withheld due to years of legal wrangling. School districts sued over the agency's updated rating system, claiming it would take some "A" schools and grade them with a "C."

According to a 2023 온라인카지노사이트 5 report, the lawsuit claimed the drastic changes were not properly communicated to districts ahead of time and that they didn't have time to prepare. Some superintendents argued the change was an attempt by the TEA to make schools look worse and to help pass school choice in the state legislature and added that lower campus grades can impact teacher retention.

While the school districts have known their scores for years, an appellate court ruling earlier this month allowed the TEA to release the 2022-23 scores to the public.

“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 filed by those who disagreed with the statutory goal of raising career readiness expectations to help students,” Morath said in a statement Thursday. “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. Transparency drives progress, and when that transparency is blocked, students pay the price.”

The ratings released Thursday are only for the 2022-2023 school year. Due to a separate ongoing lawsuit, the TEA is still prevented from releasing ratings for the 2023-2024 school year. Ratings for the 2024-2025 school year are expected to be released in August.

In Dallas ISD, 45 of the district's 232 schools scored a D or an F in the 22-23 ratings. In Fort Worth ISD,  77 of the district's 108 schools scored a D or F.

Zach Leonard has three kids in Fort Worth ISD. He's a big research guy, and dug into txschools.gov and other sites to get their take on how his children's schools perform.  

"When we were trying to move to this area about seven years ago, trying to decide which schools to go in to," said Leonard.

He and parents like him have used the  website to track how well their kids schools compare to others across the area... schools are graded anywhere from an A to an F, on performance but no new grades have been uploaded since in more than six years.

"It hasn't really changed my opinion of my school or district due to the lack of data, to be honest with you," said Leonard of the missing data. "I really think as we evaluate schools, we should look at the lens a little more nuanced than an A-F rating."

In the Arlington ISD, 16 schools scoring Cs are now marked as Fs under the TEA's new scoring metric.

"It just tells me a little bit about how our students performed on one day, on a test, that was redesigned and how our schools are labeled because of that and we will use that information to get better but it doesn't tell the whole story," said Matt Smith, Superintendent, Arlington ISD. "I don't think it's fair and accurate, especially when we're talking about the 2023 school year testing cycle," he said. "We all know we were coming out of COVID at that time. and so to change the test and the accountability system after the first year that it was implemented in limited fashion to me that was a really flawed system right off the bat."

In the Fort Worth ISD, they confirmed the 2023 ratings are not new and that the district has adopted a strategic plan with the goal of improving student performance across the district.

"The 2023 state accountability ratings are not new to Fort Worth ISD. The district is moving with urgency to accelerate student academic achievement. This school year, we have made and will continue to make system-wide changes to address the needs of our students and work to accelerate student outcomes. The district and community have prioritized student literacy in Fort Worth and we are reallocating district resources to support student literacy," the district said in a statement. "Fort Worth ISD adopted a District Strategic Plan in the fall that reflects our commitment to literacy and math. There are four key priorities outlined in the plan: Student Academic Excellence, Student and Family Engagement, Employee Effectiveness and Retention, and Operational Alignment and Efficiency.

The district said the plan is a roadmap to address accountability ratings in the past and that they have an improvement plan for each campus.

"Campus Improvement Plans for the 2025-2026 school year are aligned to the District Strategic Plan," the district said. "The plans are developed based on a campus needs assessment that enables the campus staff to capture the unique opportunities for their campus. The needs assessment includes state performance data as well as a variety of other data that help campuses to develop plans that meet the unique needs of all students while fostering an environment where they can thrive academically."

Ratings were not published for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The TEA said the 2022 ratings "were heavily impacted by pandemic-related learning disruptions and a state law that prevented D and F ratings from being issued that year."

For the 2022 ratings, the TEA published a "What if" scenario showing that year's ratings scored using the updated metric so that parents and school districts could "provide an apples-to-apples comparison" between 2022 and 2023.

"I do think it's unfortunate that we have educators giving mixed and sometimes incorrect messages about the nature of these ratings," Morath said to reporters just before Thursday's release. "When ratings are issued this fall in August you can use that to evaluate the performance of your campus, you can look at this years ratings compared to last and you can easily tell if you school is getting better saying the same of getting worse."

Opinions on standardized tests differ greatly. While widely unpopular with parents, teachers, and school principals, many experts in the education field side with Morath and said the data matters.  

"It is the best system we have for explaining this information to parents. I think people forget how many different pieces of information are available within that platform for parents to dig into the things that they care about the most and compare campuses and school systems," said Bridget Worley, chief impact officer, Commit Partnership in Dallas.

The TEA's A-F rating system was first introduced in 2018 to show how schools performed in three areas: Student Achievement, School Progress, and Closing the Gaps. The methodology had been largely unchanged until the 2022-2023 school year. That year, the TEA said, "The methods of calculating A-F scores were updated to more accurately reflect performance."

Morath told 온라인카지노사이트 5 in 2023 that the state normally makes small tweaks to the test each year, but that superintendents asked them to do them all at once, and that's what he did.

The new numbers come at a time when Morath's boss, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, is pushing for school choice—a program that would let you take your tax dollars to a private school if your school is failing. On Thursday, state legislators passed a voucher bill that Abbott is expected to sign quickly.

Morath's new numbers increased the number of failing schools, making it easier to use vouchers. Morath said there's no connection.

"The governor is interested in better lives for Texas students, period, and frankly that's my only focus as well," he said. "A through F is a very useful tool to help public schools improve and the legislature is entertaining other options the governor has to help families so that students can improve broadly. "

To view 2023 A-F ratings for school systems and campuses, visit .