(Texas Scorecard) – Texans can now see school accountability reports that districts tried to hide from the public.
Today, the Texas Education Agency released A-F Accountability Ratings for the 2022-23 school year for every public school district and campus in the state.
An appeals court ruled earlier this month that the agency could release the long-delayed ratings.
More than 120 school districts sued Education Commissioner Mike Morath in 2023 to block the release of that year’s ratings, claiming TEA failed to provide districts adequate notice of changes in how the scores were calculated and could unfairly assign lower grades.
A separate unresolved lawsuit is blocking the release of the 2024 ratings.
The accountability ratings serve as a “report card” for how well Texas schools are serving students and taxpayers.
The ratings are based on student achievement, student progress, and how well districts are closing gaps in academic performance for certain groups of students. The ratings metrics are required to be “refreshed” every five years.
The ratings also affect whether school districts can continue to operate as Districts of Innovation. The designation allows districts to exempt themselves from various Education Code requirements.
State law requires TEA to terminate a district’s DOI status after three consecutive years of unacceptable academic or financial performance, and the agency may do so after two consecutive years.
TEA rolled out the first accountability ratings in 2018. Since then, they’ve released incomplete ratings or none at all. During 2019-20 and 2020-21, no ratings were issued due to COVID-related school disruptions. In 2021-22, the districts earning a grade of D or F were not rated. Release of the ratings for 2022-23 and 2023-24 was blocked by lawsuits.
Texas school report cards for 2022-23 can be found at txschools.gov.