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.
In September 2023, KISD and SISD were two of over 100 school districts to sue TEA Commissioner Mike Morath, arguing the agency’s revamped accountability system was “unlawful” and would unfairly harm school districts.
"The 2023 ratings just released by the state are outdated and do not reflect the real progress happening in our schools,” KISD Chief Academic Officer Anthony Indelicato said in an April 24 email statement. “While the state focuses on releasing old data, KISD has surged ahead.”
In a nutshell
The state’s A-F accountability system was designed to measure whether students are ready for the next grade level and how well each district prepares them for success after high school, Community Impact previously reported.
“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 an April 24 news release.
KISD received 80 out of 100 points for 2022-23 while SISD received 69 out of 100 points, TEA data shows.
“It is important to know that the state’s accountability system is heavily based on one test: the [State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness] exam, taken by students in grades 3–11. ... While this gives a narrow snapshot of performance, it doesn’t capture the full story of our students, staff and community,” SISD Superintendent Lupita Hinojosa said via an email release sent to families in the district.
The breakdown
According to the TEA’s latest accountability report, 9.5% of traditional school districts across Texas earned an "A" rating, while 42.4% earned a "B." About 33% received a "C," 13.7% earned a "D" and 1.2% earned an "F."
KISD and SISD had 53,558 and 34,076 students enrolled, respectively, in 2022-23. About 53.7% and 84.3% students were economically disadvantaged; 12.4% and 10.5% were in special education programs; and 20.3% and 31% were emergent bilingual students for KISD and SISD, respectively, TEA data shows.
Out of the KISD campuses that received ratings:
- 10 earned an A
- 26 earned a B
- Nine earned a C
- Two earned a D
- None earned an F
- Three earned an A
- Nine earned a B
- Three earned a C
- 16 earned a D
- Eight earned an F
Texas school districts last received ratings through the A-F system for the 2021-22 school year, when about one-third of districts statewide earned an "A" rating for 2021-22, and slightly more than half earned a "B," according to prior reporting.
Since the A-F system launched in 2017-18, KISD and SISD have only received three official ratings due to three years of State of Disaster declarations:
- 2017-18: not rated due to Hurricane Harvey
- 2018-19: B for KISD; C for SISD
- 2019-20: not rated due to the COVID-19 pandemic
- 2020-21: not rated due to the COVID-19 pandemic
- 2021-22: B for KISD; B for SISD
- 2022-23: B for KISD; D for SISD
What’s next
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. Morath also said the TEA intends to release ratings for 2024-25 on Aug. 15, per state law.
“A-F ratings are very public, and so that is a leadership challenge that our leaders bear, but this is the cross that we bear for being publicly funded and having the public’s children in our schools. It’s up to us to operate with the highest degree of transparency to deliver the best outcomes that we can for our kids,” Morath said April 22.
Hannah Norton and Ryan Reynolds contributed to this report.
