The preliminary results for the Texas Education Agency’s new A-F accountability rating system, which were published Jan. 6, has school districts across the state up in arms, especially the portion of the ratings that measure postsecondary readiness. About 60 percent of the nearly 1,000 school districts in the state received a grade of C, D or F in that category.

In a Senate Finance Committee hearing held Jan. 24, Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath said he has heard “buckets” of feedback regarding the A-F system. He said there has been a small, quiet group, in support of the evaluation, but a multitude of others with louder criticism.

Morath said although three of the categories within the new rating system have clear metrics, the category that measures postsecondary readiness is a strange mix of remaining qualifiers that don’t necessarily fit well together.

“[The metrics for the postsecondary domain read] more like anything the commissioner can think of except for the STAAR test,” Morath said.

The new rating system is required by House Bill 2804, which was passed during the 2015 Texas legislative session. The bill required the TEA to present an informational report to the state Legislature by Jan. 1.

The A-F system will replace the existing accountability system that simply says whether school districts “Met Standard” under certain performance indicators. The A-F rating system, which will be fully implemented in 2018, will give districts and their campuses an overall grade of A, B, C, D or F, as well as an individual grade in five domains: Student Achievement, Student Progress, Closing Performance Gaps, Postsecondary Readiness and Community and Student Engagement.

The results published Jan. 6 only measured the first four domains and reflect a system that is a work in progress, TEA spokesperson Lauren Callahan said.

In Fort Bend County, both Fort Bend ISD and Lamar CISD scored Ds in Domain IV. Leaders in both school districts, including FBISD Superintendent Charles Dupre and LCISD Superintendent Thomas Randall, have criticized the ratings system for being what they consider an incomplete presentation of student progress.

The LCISD board of trustees, along with numerous other school districts across the state, is considering passing a resolution opposing the new A-F rating system. A fifth grading domain is under development and requires school districts to decide what metrics should be used for that letter grade, according to FBISD.

Domain IV looks at three variables on the high school level to measure postsecondary readiness: the graduation rate, the percentage of students graduating with a higher level graduation plan, and college and career readiness.

To measure college and career readiness, several indicators are considered, including SAT and ACT scores, postsecondary credits earned and how many students took AP courses. The indicators that were not measured for the preliminary ratings but will be used in the final ratings in 2018 include the number of students who enlisted in the armed forces and the students who earned an industry certification.

Callahan said the Domain IV ratings may change by 2018 because the TEA did not have all the data required under HB 2804. The bill requires the TEA to gather data that the agency was not required to gather before.

Under HB 2804, all campuses are to be graded on postsecondary readiness, but a district’s score will only consider the score for its high schools in most cases. For Domain IV, elementary schools are graded on the number of students who are chronically absent, and middle schools also are graded on the absenteeism rate as well as the dropout rate.

“In its current form, attendance needs to be modified to reflect the day-to-day challenges some students face in attending school,” Randall said. “Domain IV needs a significant overhaul and Domain V is not even available at this time.”

Domain IV trends

Out of the 150 school districts that received an A rating in Domain IV, more than two-thirds of them are categorized as “rural” school districts by the TEA. One such district is Malta ISD, which scored an A in Domain IV and has only one elementary school with an enrollment of less than 200 students.

Since it has no high schools, Malta ISD’s score is based on the absenteeism rate only. By comparison, FBISD is categorized as a “major suburban” school district and LCISD is categorized as an “other central city” school district.

A major suburban school district’s enrollment is at least 3 percent that of the largest contiguous major urban district, at least 15 percent that of the largest major urban district in the county or at least 4,500 students. Other central city districts’ enrollment must be the largest in the county or at least 75 percent of the largest district enrollment in the county and not contiguous to a major urban school district.

The only ISD categorized as an “other central city” school district to receive an A in Domain IV is United ISD in Laredo. The district has more than 40 campuses with an enrollment of approximately 43,000 students, compared to LCISD’s 37 primary and secondary school campuses with a total of 30,511 students, according to the latest enrollment count.

College readiness

The problem with determining whether students are ready for college-level courses is that there is no common definition for college readiness, said Raymund Paredes, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board commissioner.

“There’s a great variance in what might be college readiness at a community college and what might be college readiness at [The University of Texas] or Texas A&M University,” Paredes said. “There’s no certain definition of college readiness. It means different things to different people.”

According to The College Board, nearly 32 percent of Texas students in the class of 2015 met the SAT College and Career Readiness Benchmark.

“There’s a persistent problem with the numbers of students who require developmental—or what is also known as remedial—education before they are able to take credit-bearing courses, particularly at community colleges but also at universities across the state,” said Harrison Keller, UT deputy to the president for strategy and policy.

Paredes said most first-time college students struggle with math, writing and science. Domain IV measures SAT scores and students who take Advanced Placement classes but does not specifically measure skills in math, writing or science.

Margaret Hale, associate professor in the University of Houston’s College of Education, said the state’s metrics for college readiness do not always align with teaching at the college level. Her specialty is language arts, which, in college calls for heavy amounts of reading.

“I think that what we’re getting at [is] making sure that everything they’re doing in school is building that bridge,” Hale said.

Robert McPherson, dean of UH’s College of Education and interim associate provost at UH Sugar Land, said it is too early to determine how successful the A-F rating system is for Texas schools.

“I think we would have been better served going through two or three years worth of data collection to look at the validity of the grading system,” McPherson said. “All grading systems are imperfect and have problems, and this one is fairly complicated and not well-researched at this point in time.”

He added different colleges have different admissions requirements for incoming freshmen, further complicating the definition of college readiness.

Next steps

Despite the fact that school districts across the state are seeking to appeal the A-F rating system, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has said A-F will not be repealed or replaced. State legislators seem poised to move forward with the new system.

Some bills that have been filed in this legislative session either add more indicators to Domain IV or slightly change the wording in the Education Code for the accountability system. All of FBISD’s and LCISD’s area representatives voted in favor of HB 2804.

“This policy aligns school accountability evaluations and allows parents to better understand their local school,” state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, said in a statement. “That is why this policy should serve as a wake-up call to parents and the community to help their local school improve on every level.”

In a statement, state Sen. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, who sponsored HB 2804, said the new system is staying.

“I realize that some folks are frustrated with accountability,” Taylor said, “but the taxpayers of Texas deserve to know if their hard-earned tax dollars are being wisely spent and that our students are getting the quality education they deserve.”

During the Senate Finance Committee hearing held Jan. 24, Taylor said he would devote part of this session to refining the domains so they would be better indicators of student performance going forward.

The primary author of SB 2804, Jimmie Don Aycock, R-Killeen, retired in 2015 and the joint bill author, Morgan Meyer, R-Dallas, declined comment to Community Impact Newspaper.

Emily Donaldson, Joe Giuliani and Beth Marshall contributed to this story.