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State issues first A-F grades for school districts

Most Texas school districts earned passing grades as TEA issued its first A-F academic accountability ratings.

The Texas Education Agency issued the grades Aug. 15 to all public school districts and charters, with 92 districts exempt from a grade this year due to the impact of Hurricane Harvey along the Gulf Coast.

TEA released the following breakdown of grades:

RATING	DISTRICTS	CHARTERS	TOTAL
A	121	32	153
B	334	22	356
C	232	15	247
D	46	11	57
F	9	7	16
Total	742	87	829

Along with the districts qualifying for the Hurricane Harvey provision, 13 others received a "Not Rated" label.

Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath commended the work taking place in high-performing school districts statewide. “Achieving an A rating reflects the hard work and commitment of everyone within a school district, starting with our classroom teachers. We should all celebrate the outstanding work of these dedicated educators,” he said.

School districts and charters were graded on their performance in three areas:

Student Achievement measures what students know and can do by the end of the year. It includes results from state assessments across all subjects for all students, on both general and alternate assessments; college, career, and military readiness (CCMR) indicators, like AP and ACT results; and graduation rates.
School Progress measures how much better students are doing on the STAAR test this year versus last year, and how much better students are doing academically relative to schools with similar percentages of economically disadvantaged students.
Closing the Gaps looks at performance among student groups, including various racial/ethnic groups, socioeconomic backgrounds and other factors.

For more on each domain and the A-F state accountability system, click here.

Complex system

Although use of A-F rating labels is intended to be simplistic and easy to understand, the process of arriving at the rating label is anything but. Rather, it involves a complex series of steps that eventually results in a numeric overall score. The score is then scaled to an A-F range as follows:

District Overall and Domain Rating Cut Points
A	B	C	D	F
scaled score 90-100	scaled score 80-89	scaled score 70-79	scaled score 60-69	scaled score 59 or lower

Although the same process was followed for campuses, for the 2017-18 school year, rating labels continued to be Met Standard and Improvement Required. Again, the final numeric scale was scaled as follows:

Non-AEA Campus Overall and Domain Rating Cut Points
Met Standard	Improvement Required
scaled score 60-100	scaled score 59 or lower

AEA Campus Overall and Domain Rating Cut Points
Met Alternative Standard	Improvement Required
scaled score 60-100	scaled score 59 or lower

Campus ratings

Campuses received one of three ratings this year: Met Standard, Met Alternative Standard or Improvement Required. This is the last year of the pass-fail ratings for campuses. In August 2019, campuses also will be given A-F grades.

RATING	DISTRICT CAMPUSES	CHARTERS	TOTAL
Met Standard	7,128	473	7,601
Met Alternative Standard	132	85	217
Improvement Required	293	56	349
Total	7,553	614	8,167

TEA said 86 campuses that would have received an Improvement Required rating were instead given a "Not Rated" label under the Hurricane Harvey provision.

Districts, charters and campuses can appeal their assigned ratings, and final ratings will be released in December.