Texas Educational Institutions can publish public school accountability assessments for grades 2022-23. The state judge ruled on April 3rd. The ruling is the reversal of a 2023 injunction issued by Travis County District Court.
At a glance
More than 100 Texas school districts sued tea committee member Mike Moras in August 2023, claiming that the agency’s improved accountability system was “illegal” and unfairly harmed the district.
Designed in 2017 and updated in 2023, the system was created to give parents insight into the quality of their children’s campus and districts through the annual AF assessment. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and two lawsuits, the school has not received a full evaluation since 2019.
The April 3rd ruling allows tea to be assigned a 2023 rating after 1.5 years or more after the original deadline.
“This ruling is a significant victory and will restore a clear lens to district and campus performance in 2023,” a Tee spokesperson said in a statement sharing the impact of the community. “Even so, there is still a second lawsuit denying general access to parents and 2024 accountability assessments.
background
More than 100 Texas school districts were part of the 2023 incident, including Cy-Fair ISD, Humble ISD, Klein ISD, Pflugerville ISD, Plano ISD, Prosper ISD and Spring ISD. Some educators said they were concerned that the updated accountability system would lower school ratings despite indications of improved performance, according to court documents.
TEA began updating its evaluation methods in the second half of 2021, and the changes were implemented in 2023. According to previous Community Impact Reports, the change allowed schools to receive A based on university, careers of 60% to 88% of students, and military preparation.
State law provides for the publication of an AF rating by August 15th each year, but that date was repeatedly pushed back in 2023. The agency had not issued a grade rating for the 2022-23 grade by the time the Travis County District Judge blocked release in October 2023.
Two other Travis County judges later banned them from assigning grades for the 2023-24 grade. The district said the state had not corrected “mistakes” in its accountability system, making it “mathematically impossible” for many districts to receive high ratings.
The school has not received a full AF rating since 2019. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, no accountability ratings have been issued in 2020 or 2021. In 2022, schools receiving C or lower were considered “unrated” as they recovered from pandemic-related learning losses.
what’s happening
On April 3, Texas’ 15th Court of Appeals overturned a district judge’s decision regarding the 2022-23 assessment.
The appeals court said the district had not fully demonstrated that it was outside Moroto’s legal authority to release the accountability rating past certain deadlines. For this reason, Chief Scott Blister wrote that the district court should not block the release of the rating.
In its ruling, Blister said the Texas Education Code did not include specific results for releasing AF ratings or data after the deadline. State law allows education committees to delay ratings due to disasters, the court found.
“In general, slow decisions about merit are better than never better. … The clear legislative intent is to make school assessments public and not to restrain them,” writes Blister.
The 2024 case was also appealed in state court, but as of April 3rd, no ruling had been issued.
At the Capitol
The Texas Senate Education Committee discussed the April 1 Senate Bill 1262. Houston ISD testified in support of the bill, Principal Mike Miles, who was appointed to lead the district in tea in June 2023.
“Accountability without support only breeds a culture of fear, but accountability with strong support leads to a culture of high performance,” Miles told the committee.
SB 1262 was pending the committee on April 1st.
