Texas Education Agency to release schools’ 2023 performance ratings after court ruling

A state appeals court has ruled the Texas Education Agency can release its 2023 ratings of the state’s school districts, overturning a previous injunction in a legal battle that has stretched 19 months.

The 15th Court of Appeals — all Republicans appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott — argued on Thursday that TEA Commissioner Mike Morath did not overstep his authority when he changed the college readiness metrics that help determine schools' performance ratings.

"It is not our role as judges to decide whether the Commissioner’s decisions were necessary or fair. The Districts’ burden … was to show the Commissioner acted 'without legal authority,' not that he should have exercised his discretion another way," Chief Justice Scott Brister wrote in an opinion for the court.

The Texas Education Agency plans to release the 2023 ratings on April 24. A separate lawsuit over the schools' 2024 ratings is still waiting a decision from the same appeals court.

Families have gone five years without a complete set of school ratings. Texas schools and districts did not get ratings at all in 2020 or 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. And in 2022, Texas lawmakers spared schools with low ratings from releasing the scores or sanctioning them so they could recover from the COVID-19-related learning disruptions.

Here’s what you need to know:

The background: How Texas school districts should be graded for their performance has been a contention point for the last two years.

The state announced in 2023 that schools would need to meet stricter benchmarks to get a good rating on its accountability system, which grades them on an A-F scale. High schools can now only get an A if 88% of their seniors enrolled in college, pursued a non-college career or entered the military. That benchmark used to be at 60%.

The state says stricter benchmarks will mean schools will be required to better prepare students for life after high school. And while Texas school districts generally agree with the goal, they argue that the state is moving the needle too fast.

The ratings that public schools receive are also in part based on how their students do on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, an annual statewide standardized test that measures students’ understanding of state-mandated core curriculum.

Texas legislators required the TEA to redesign the STAAR test by 2023 so it could be administered almost entirely online and wouldn’t have so many multiple choice questions. Following the redesign, the TEA moved to use computers to grade students’ written answers for the first time this year.

Why Texas schools sued the first time: More than 120 school districts sought to block the release of 2023 performance ratings, arguing that the TEA had not given them enough notice before introducing stricter college readiness standards.

The ratings were initially held up when a Travis County judge court had sided with the school districts in October 2023. The appeals court ruling on Thursday means the agency is free to share school performance grades.

Texas law "requires the Commissioner to solicit input from school boards, administrators, teachers, and parents in establishing and implementing this system. But it also gives him broad discretion that, along with the general immunity from suit provided to all state officials, was intended to keep academic ratings 'out of the courts,'" the court's opinion reads.

It was immediately unclear whether the districts will seek an appeal with the state's highest court.

Why Texas schools sued a second time: In a second legal battle over the A-F rating system, Texas school district leaders questioned the validity of STAAR results since an automated system started scoring them this year. They say low scores on STAAR’s reading section are because of the new grading tool, not necessarily because of students’ skills or teachers’ performance.

As a result, school district leaders contend, the STAAR test cannot be trusted to produce fair grades of school districts’ performance. They say TEA needs to get a third party to review the test.

“The STAAR test itself, the changes were fairly radical this time around,” said Nick Maddox, an attorney representing the school districts. “The trend for all school districts is that scores have decreased fairly significantly. We believe that the issue is this test itself.”

Why the A-F accountability system matters: Each school district and school every year based on their students’ standardized test scores and academic growth. The TEA also looks at their progress on closing racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps.

Parents rely on the rating system to see how successful school districts are in preparing their children and to decide where to enroll their kids.

For schools, a bad grade could mean big consequences. If a failing score leads to families leaving the district, that means less money for the school since state funding is tied to student attendance. Consecutive years with a failing grade could trigger a state takeover, like the one at Houston ISD.

What Texas lawmakers have to say: In response to the pair of lawsuits, Texas lawmakers are proposing legislation to deter districts from using legal channels to challenge the ratings system.

The Texas Senate is set to vote on a bill that would restrict districts's ability to sue over performance ratings. Under Senate Bill 1962, the TEA could appoint a conservator to oversee any district that does sue.

Those districts could also face several restrictions paying their attorneys. Schools would be required to deposit the money to pay those fees into an escrow account. The attorneys then wouldn't be able to get that money until the case was resolved and only if the district won.

Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, has a filed a similar bill in the House.