A new report found that only 36% of public school students in the City of Fort Worth performed at grade level standards during the 2021-2022 school year.

The report from the Fort Worth Education Partnership (FWEP) covered not only Fort Worth ISD students but students in other public ISD schools and public charter schools within the city limits. The FWEP’s framework is intended to encourage more citywide participation in improving education rather than focusing solely on individual school districts.

The data revealed that nearly two-thirds of students in third-eighth grades are not attaining scores of “at grade level” on their STAAR tests.

The scores are higher than last year when only 28% of Fort Worth students tested at grade level, but they are still behind the 39% clocked in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’d love to see more … city leaders taking responsibility for the education of the kids in their area,” stated FWEP President Brent Beasley, speaking with CBS News.

“They have a lot of informal authority and power and access to resources,” he continued. “There’s so many things that the city leaders can do.”

He compared his vision for a city council member’s involvement in education to the way that they can try to get power restored to an area or clear debris after a storm. His point was that even if council members do not have formal authority over certain entities, they can still help make improvements to them.

Over the past two years, school districts have implemented programs to address learning loss caused by the pandemic, often adding weekend classes, tutoring, new specialists, or additional staff training.

According to Crowley ISD Superintendent Michael McFarland, there is still room for municipal leaders to step up. In a district where 85% of the students are probably in the City of Fort Worth, he said, municipal leaders can make an impact across school district boundary lines.

“Elected officials normally have a reach across the city, and so we think that influence, that ability to pull people together, is much more valuable quite frankly,” he told CBS News.

“They have influence to pull people together,” he continued, “They can pull nonprofits. They can pull ministers and religious leaders. They can pull community groups together.”

FWEP’s Beasley shared examples of city council members attending school board meetings to express appreciation or concern over student outcomes or going to Austin to lobby for additional funding.

He pointed out that citywide educational outcomes will become more critical as Fort Worth climbs in the ranking of the nation’s largest cities and city leaders look to attract companies to grow the economy.

“The first thing everybody talks about is, ‘look at the school systems, and look at how the kids are being educated,'” said Beasley.

Dallas ISD is also struggling, with only 41% of its students meeting grade level on STAAR tests during the 2020-2021 school year, joining Fort Worth ISD below the unimpressive statewide average of 48%.