This story has been updated.
The Texas Education Agency is delaying the release of school district accountability scores, which are expected to be lower than years past due to a controversial overhaul. The letter grades, which are based on a combination of academic achievement and growth, college readiness and other metrics, were already being released later this year following the changes.
Education commissioner Mike Morath made the announcement in a statement Tuesday, weeks before the expected release of the letter grades.
“Maintaining high expectations helps guide our efforts to improve student learning and support,” said Morath in the statement. “The A-F system is designed to properly reflect how well our schools are meeting those high expectations, and the adjustments we are making this year will ensure it continues to serve as a tool for parents and educators to help our students.”
The delay comes in part due to ongoing impacts of the COVID pandemic, according to the agency.
In the portion of the system that evaluates school progress, TEA initially proposed setting goals using a baseline of the average level of student growth for the 2018-19 and 2021-22 school years.
Analysis of the 2022-23 growth data shows that the 2021-22 growth was “more anomalous than expected,” according to the agency, so setting baselines that partially incorporate data from the 2021-22 school year “may not adequately take into account the impact of the pandemic.”
The delay will allow the agency to conduct “further analyses of the growth data to inform cut score.”
Other changes to the rule, including the identification of schools needed for targeted improvement, are also being added based on teacher feedback.
The delay comes as a growing number of schools join a lawsuit against the changes, which include raising cut scores for College, Career and Military Readiness. Using the new preliminary criteria, districts are expecting declines in some areas, even if scores go up.
A spokesperson for the agency said the delay was not related to the lawsuit
Letter grades are largely based on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) test, which district officials tell parents is only a “snapshot in time.” With the most recent changes, district officials are telling parents a fair comparison can’t be made.
The TEA has also made that a point, providing districts a set of “what-if” scores, that measure last year’s scores against the new criteria.
That comparison is also tenuous, however, since the STAAR test at the core of the letter-grading system was also changed with the addition of more open-ended questions and all students taking the test online for the first time. With those changes, San Antonio Independent School District Superintendent Jaime Aquino said he would be focused on the data, and not the letter grade.
“It would have been great if the TEA would have decided to this year not rate schools,” he said. “Just give us the data. The data is meaningful.”
Morath has said the changes are necessary and required by law. He also cited a change to the law in 2017, shifting the system from making small changes every year, to holding off for the purpose of consistency.
“Most school leaders that we talked to around the state want consistency year over year in the system,” he told reporters earlier this year. “They don’t want to go back to the old way of doing accountability in Texas where there were these small changes made every year.”
