Public school accountability ratings for the 2022-23 school year will be released on April 24, the Texas Education Agency announced April 8.
In a letter sent to school administrators across the state, the TEA said school systems would be able to access the A-F accountability ratings on April 17. The ratings will be released publicly on www.txschools.gov a week later, according to the letter.
The announcement follows an April 3 ruling by Texas’ 15th Court of Appeals, which overturned a lower court's injunction that had blocked the 2023 ratings for over a year. The TEA remains blocked from issuing ratings for the 2023-24 school year due to a separate lawsuit, which is pending in the state appeals court.
What you need to know
State law directs the TEA to assign annual A-F ratings for school districts and individual campuses, although schools have not received complete ratings since 2019, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the two lawsuits. Ratings are based on student achievement and progress on the annual State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness.
The TEA said it would also release "what if" scores for the 2021-22 school year, based on an updated rating methodology that raised the bar for districts to earn high ratings. In 2022, schools that scored below a C were deemed “not rated” as they recovered from pandemic-related learning loss.
"While school leaders have been able to access underlying data subsets... since Nov. 16, 2023 to make timely and necessary decisions that support strong student outcomes, both school systems and the public, including parents and community members, will finally have access to scale scores and A-F ratings," the TEA said in the April 8 letter.
Published 11:41 a.m. April 4
The Texas Education Agency can now release its public school accountability ratings for the 2022-23 school year, a state judge ruled April 3. The ruling is a reversal of a 2023 injunction issued by a Travis County district court.
At a glance
Over 100 Texas school districts sued TEA Commissioner Mike Morath in August 2023, arguing that the agency’s revamped accountability system was “unlawful” and would unfairly harm school districts.
The system, designed in 2017 and updated in 2023, was created to give parents insight about the quality of their children’s campus and district through annual A-F ratings. However, schools have not received complete ratings since 2019, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and two lawsuits.
The April 3 ruling will allow the TEA to assign the 2023 ratings more than 1.5 years after they were originally due.
“This ruling is an important victory and restores a transparent lens into 2023 district and campus performance," a TEA spokesperson said in a statement shared with Community Impact. "Yet, there is still a second lawsuit that denies parents and the public access to 2024 accountability ratings. [The] TEA remains hopeful that the best interests of students, families and communities will prevail in this second suit and will share additional information on the issuance of 2023 A-F ratings soon."
The background
Over 100 Texas school districts were part of the 2023 case, including Cy-Fair ISD, Humble ISD, Klein ISD, Pflugerville ISD, Plano ISD, Prosper ISD and Spring ISD. Some education officials had said they were concerned that the updated accountability system would lower schools’ ratings, despite indications that performance had improved, according to court documents.
The TEA began updating its rating methodology in late 2021 and the changes would have taken effect in 2023. According to previous Community Impact reporting, the changes raised the bar for schools to receive an A based on the college, career and military readiness of students from 60% to 88%, a 28 percentage-point increase.
State law stipulates A-F ratings be issued by Aug. 15 of each year, but that date was repeatedly pushed back in 2023. The agency had not issued ratings for the 2022-23 school year by the time a Travis County district judge blocked their release in October 2023.
Two other Travis County judges later prohibited the TEA from assigning ratings for the 2023-24 school year. According to an August lawsuit, districts said the state had not fixed “mistakes” in the accountability system and made it “mathematically impossible” for many districts to receive a high rating.
Schools have not received complete A-F ratings since 2019. Accountability ratings were not issued at all in 2020 or 2021, due to the coronavirus pandemic. In 2022, schools that received a C or lower were deemed “not rated” as they recovered from pandemic-related learning loss.
On April 3, Texas’ 15th Court of Appeals reversed the district judge’s decision on the 2022-23 ratings.
The appeals court said the school districts did not sufficiently prove that it was outside Morath’s legal authority to release accountability ratings past certain deadlines. For this reason, Chief Justice Scott Brister wrote that the district court should not have blocked the ratings’ release.
In the ruling, Brister said the Texas Education Code does not include specific consequences for releasing A-F ratings or data after the deadline. State statute also allows the education commissioner to delay ratings due to a disaster, the court found.
“Generally, a late decision on the merits is better than never. ... The clear legislative intent... is to publish school ratings, not suppress them,” Brister wrote.
The 2024 case was also appealed to the state court, though a ruling had not been issued as of April 3.
At the Capitol
The Texas Senate Education Committee discussed on April 1 Senate Bill 1262, which would largely prevent school districts from challenging the TEA’s accountability ratings in court. Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles, who was appointed to lead the district by the TEA in June 2023, testified in support of the bill.
“Accountability without support just breeds a culture of fear, but accountability with strong support leads to a high-performance culture,” Miles told the committee.
SB 1262 was left pending in the committee on April 1.
