Judge blocks Texas from releasing this year’s school accountability ratings

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A Travis County judge has blocked the Texas Education Agency from releasing its ratings of the state’s school districts and campuses for a second year in a row.

Judge Karin Crump on Monday issued a temporary restraining order the same day Texas school districts filed their second lawsuit over the state’s changes to the metrics used to measure their performance. Here’s what you need to know:

The background: How Texas school districts should be graded for their performance has been a contention point since last year.

The ratings that public schools receive are in large part based on how their students do on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, an annual statewide standardized test that measures students’ understanding of state-mandated core curriculum.

Texas legislators required the TEA to redesign the STAAR test by 2023 so it could be administered almost entirely online and wouldn’t have so many multiple choice questions. Following the redesign, the TEA moved to use computers to grade students’ written answers for the first time this year.

The state also announced last year that schools would need to meet stricter benchmarks to get a good rating on its accountability system, which grades them on an A-F scale. High schools can now only get an A if 88% of their seniors enrolled in college, pursued a non-college career or entered the military. That benchmark used to be at 60%.

The state says stricter benchmarks will mean schools will be required to better prepare students for life after high school. And while Texas school districts agree they would like to raise the number of students who are ready for life after high school, they argue that the state is moving the needle too fast.

Why Texas schools are suing a second time: Texas school district leaders are questioning the validity of STAAR results since an automated system started scoring them this year. They say low scores on STAAR’s reading section are because of the new grading tool, not necessarily because of students’ skills or teachers’ performance.

As a result, school district leaders contend, the STAAR test cannot be trusted to produce fair grades of school districts’ performance. They say TEA needs to get a third party to review the test.

“The STAAR test itself, the changes were fairly radical this time around,” said Nick Maddox, an attorney representing the school districts. “The trend for all school districts is that scores have decreased fairly significantly. We believe that the issue is this test itself.”

Why Texas schools sued the first time: The lawsuit filed Monday is the second legal battle over the A-F rating system.

Last fall, a Travis County judge temporarily blocked the release of the 2023-24 ratings, siding with more than 120 school districts who argued that the TEA had not given them enough notice before introducing stricter college readiness standards. The judge still has to make a final ruling on that lawsuit. The TEA has already said it plans to appeal the judge’s decision.

Families have had five years without a complete set of school ratings. Texas schools and districts did not get ratings in 2020 or 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. And in 2022, struggling schools set to get a D or an F got extra relief: Senate Bill 1365 directed TEA to forgo official ratings for those schools, sparing them from any sanctions and giving them time to respond to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Why the A-F accountability system matters: Each school district and school is graded on an A-F scale every year based on their students’ standardized test scores and academic growth. The TEA also looks at their progress on closing racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps.

Parents rely on the rating system to see how successful school districts are in preparing their children and to decide where to enroll their kids.

For schools, a bad grade could mean big consequences. If a failing score leads to families leaving the district, that means less money for the school since state funding is tied to student attendance. Consecutive years with a failing grade could trigger a state takeover, like the one at Houston ISD.

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

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