The Dallas Express looked into the student achievement data behind the worst-performing high school in Bad Apple Justin Henry’s education district in Dallas ISD, where one subject saw a rate of at-grade-level STAAR scores in the single digits.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Henry was named Bad Apple of the Quarter due to the number of students he abandoned as a trustee during the 2021-2022 school year, dooming about 10,000 of them to underperforming neighborhood schools.
Out of the 17 campuses in Henry’s district that received poor marks for student achievement outcomes by the Texas Education Agency (TEA), James Madison High School logged the worst metrics out of all the high schools in the trustee’s purview, according to the state agency’s latest accountability report.
James Madison High School is located in South Dallas, just a couple of blocks away from Fair Park and across the street from the Dallas Civil Rights Museum.
Students at the campus clocked alarming scores on their STAAR exams. Only 19% of students at the school scored at grade level, a considerably lesser share than the district-wide average of 41%, which itself is lower than the 48% statewide average.
Digging deeper into the testing figures, it appears the campus’ students performed the worst in science, with only 9% scoring at grade level, despite the work of the school’s hardworking and undervalued teachers.
In reading and math, 20% and 21% of students scored at grade level, respectively. The district average for reading was 43% that school year. The district average for math was 39%.
James Madison High School’s graduation rate also leaves much to be desired, with almost 15% of the graduating Class of 2022 failing to earn a diploma in four years. The statewide average for on-time graduation in the 2021-2022 school year was 90%.
The school’s TEA profile notes that 416 students were enrolled at James Madison High School that year — more than 400 students abandoned by Henry, the overwhelming majority of whom were categorized as economically disadvantaged (95.7%) and either black or Hispanic (99.1%).
James Madison High School is also responsible for educating roughly 35 students with special needs and about 135 emergent bilingual or English language learners.
The Dallas Express reached out to Trustee Henry about why James Madison High School performed so poorly in the 2021-2022 school year, but no response was received by press time.
