The scores were blocked for nearly one year after 33 school districts sued the TEA last August, arguing that the agency unfairly raised the bar for schools to earn a high score and waited too long to notify districts about the changes.
As of press time, the TEA had not announced when it would issue the 2024 A-F ratings, and an agency spokesperson told Community Impact that officials were reviewing the court ruling.
TEA Commissioner Mike Morath has said he plans to release ratings for the 2024-25 school year Aug. 15, per state law.
The background
Texas’ school accountability 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.
Schools are rated based on three criteria: student achievement, school progress and closing the gaps. The A-F scores are closely tied to how students perform on the annual State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR.
Over 30 school districts—including Hays CISD and Plano ISD—said in the 2024 suit that the TEA had made it “mathematically impossible” for many districts to receive an A rating, echoing a 2023 lawsuit from more than 100 school districts. The new system raised the bar for high school campuses to receive an A based on students’ readiness for college, a career or the military from 60% to 88%, according to previous Community Impact reporting.
Accountability scores for the 2022-23 school year were released on April 24, marking the first time since 2019 that schools received complete ratings, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the two lawsuits.
State law requires that the A-F system be updated every five years. Morath told reporters April 22 that changes made in 2023 reflected “how well schools close the gaps between students and how well they're accelerating students, basically catching students up to grade level.”
“It is absolutely mathematically possible for every [school] to get an A, but they have to earn it,” Morath said. “It's not just given away.”
On July 3, Texas’ 15th Court of Appeals reversed a 2024 ruling by a Travis County district court, which had blocked the TEA from assigning A-F ratings since September.
The school districts said the TEA did not provide fair notice of changes to the accountability system. The appeals court noted that Morath has the authority to adopt new standards “at any time during a school year.”
The court also rejected districts’ concerns that the STAAR test—which the state redesigned to feature more open-ended questions and be administered fully online—was not “valid and reliable.”
For these reasons, Chief Justice Scott Brister wrote that the district court should not have blocked the ratings’ release.
“Millions of dollars and thousands of hours of work by teachers, administrators and experts have been invested in creating the A to F ratings system; courts can decide only whether it is legal, not whether it is wise or fair, much less commandeer the job of running it,” Brister wrote.
More details
Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican who has frequently criticized lawsuits challenging the A-F system, called the July 3 ruling a “major legal victory.”
“The public, families, teachers, students, plus taxpayers deserve to know how their schools and ISDs are performing,” Bettencourt said in a July 8 statement.
During Texas’ regular legislative session, which ended June 2, Bettencourt authored legislation that would have made it harder for school districts to sue the TEA over the accountability system.
House Bill 4, which sought to eliminate the STAAR test and adjust the A-F system, died in the final hours of the regular session after House and Senate lawmakers disagreed over whether a new testing system should be owned by a third party or the state. Gov. Greg Abbott asked lawmakers to consider similar legislation during a 30-day special legislative session, which begins July 21.
