Last year our state legislature agreed on a new ratings system for Texas schools, assigning scores for three main categories, and an overall letter grade that’s an easy, familiar way to compare school performance. Texas public and charter school districts received letter grades this year. Individual campus grades will be available starting in 2019. The first district grades were released last week, just as many students returned to school. Here’s what you need to know, and how our local districts fared.

                The new system assigns a numerical score for each of three main categories: Student Achievement, School Progress, and Closing the Gaps. Student Achievement scores are based primarily on STAAR test scores, including the number of students who meet the benchmarks for “approaching, meeting, and mastering” expectations as measured by STAAR assessments, college entrance exams, AP and dual credit exams, etc. on the high school level. Elementary and middle school scores will be based only on STAAR performance. School Progress scores are given by assessing how many students achieve an entire academic year’s worth of growth on STAAR assessments, by comparing student performance to the previous year’s and uses some comparisons to other similar schools as well. Closing the Gaps scores looks more closely at groups of students broken down by race, special education, income, etc. to determine whether all students are doing well or if any disadvantaged groups are being left behind. The better of the Student Achievement and School Progress makes up 70% of the overall score, and the remaining 30% comes from the Closing the Gaps rating. Just like a student’s report card, the letter grades correspond with the numerical grade, with 90 or above being an A, 80-89 a B, and so on. In addition, the website txschools.org was created for Texans to view school ratings with ease.      

                Here are the grades assigned to some of our larger local districts:

A School Districts:

• Allen (95)

• Argyle (95)

• Carroll (96)

• Celina (90)

• Coppell (95)

• Frisco (96)

• Grapevine-Colleyville (92)

• Highland Park (96)

• Hurst- Euless- Bedford (90)

• Keller (90)

• Lovejoy (97)

• Mansfield (90)

• Mckinney (90)

• Melissa (94)

• Northwest (91)

• Plano (93)

• Princeton (92)

• Prosper (94)

• Rockwall (93)

• Wylie (90)

B School Districts:

• Aubrey (87)

• Carrollton-Farmers Branch (87)

• Dallas (81)

• Denton (86)

• Eagle Mountain- Saginaw (85)

• Garland (81)

• Grand prairie (80)

• Irving (80)

• Kennedale (84)

• Lake Dallas (86)

• Lewisville (89)

• Richardson (88)

• Royse City (81)

C School Districts:

• Anna (78)

• Arlington (78)

• Cedar Hill (75)

• Crowley (70)

• Duncanville (73)

• Fort Worth (75)

• Krum (79)

• Little Elm (78)

• Mesquite (79)

• Pilot Point (79)

• Sanger (79)

• White Settlement (78)

                Take these ratings with a grain of salt, however. Critics argue that the scores weigh too heavily on standardized test scores, a subject that’s been very controversial already.

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Sources:

Texas Education Agency

Dallas News

The Texas Tribune

Txschools.org