The Texas Education Agency decided to change things up a bit with their system for assigning school ratings. This year’s school ratings were released on Thursday, and they’re pretty straightforward, in terms of what ratings can be assigned. Each district, campus and charter across the state was assigned one of three ratings: met standard, met alternative standard, or improvement required. “Met alternative standard” is for alternative education campuses, so campuses that qualify for that designation have a different set of standards to meet. So really, the TEA is doling out one of two designations: met standards, or didn’t meet standards.
You might remember hearing terms in the past like acceptable, recognized and exemplary, or seeing those terms listed on school buildings (“Exemplary Campus, 2011-2012”). This new “either/ or”, met or didn’t meet system is replacing that system. There used to be four ratings given to schools: unacceptable, acceptable, recognized or exemplary. In making over the system, the TEA is trying to respond to various criticisms, among them: it was confusing and out of touch. The terminology wasn’t particularly clear: what is acceptable versus recognized? Recognized versus exemplary? As for being out of touch or disconnected with reality, there was a sense that they were overly punitive (a district could be doing really well overall, and then get a bad ranking for slipping in one particular area) and that, by overly focusing on test scores, they weren’t connected to kids’ actual success in life.
In the past system the TEA looked at various factors, including district’s performance on standardized tests, dropout rates and financial health. In the new system, there are four categories the TEA is taking into account when assigning a rating: student achievement (what were kids’ scores on tests); student progress (are they showing growth on those tests); closing performance gaps; and post-secondary readiness. So they threw in a few new categories to try to be less punitive, trying to create a more comprehensive view of how schools and districts are doing. About the “closing performance gaps” factor, Michael Williams, the Education Commissioner, said that they’re “attempting to weight (the closing the gap component) a tad bit greater than the others because of the significance of closing the achievement gap”.
In theory they’ll be rewarding not just the best schools, but also the schools that are starting lower and are working hardest to close the gaps. In reality, this first version of the new ratings system is not the be-all-end-all. Williams admitted that the first iteration is just about STAAR scores (the new standardized test that replaced the TAKS test) and graduation rates, but it will evolve to add more components like the number of students completing career certifications and advanced courses (trying to track indicators for that new “post-secondary readiness” factor).
It’s a nice idea, but in this first version 93% of school districts across the state were awarded “met standards”. So, it’s not particularly helpful information. Hopefully future iterations will truly be more comprehensive, like Williams has promised.
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