Austin ISD Receives "B" Grade from Texas Education Agency
District's overall score was 89%
By Austin Sanders, Fri., Aug. 17, 2018
The Austin Independent School District received a "B" letter grade from the Texas Education Agency in a report released Wednesday for a new "A-F" school rating system passed by the Legislature last year. Following pushback from school leaders, state lawmakers delayed implementation of letter grades for individual campuses until 2019, although each campus did receive a numerical grade. Five AISD campuses received failing grades, one more than last year.
The letter grade for each district is based on three metrics: "student achievement," which consists of scores on standardized tests, graduation rates, and other post-high school readiness indicators; "school progress," which looks at how a district's students have improved in STAAR results and how economically disadvantaged students perform academically relative to other districts with similar socioeconomic populations; and on a district's ability to "close the gaps," which measures student performance based on racial and ethnic grouping, economic status, and other factors that could impact a student's learning ability. The metric with a better score underneath the student achievement and school progress categories accounts for 70% of the district's grade, while the "closing the gap" score accounts for 30% of the overall grade.
AISD's overall score was 89%, with an 87% in student achievement, 87% in student progress, and 88% in closing the gaps. Districts that receive "F" ratings (or the equivalent under previous ratings systems) in consecutive years could face intervention or sanction from the state's education agency. TEA Commissioner Mike Morath said the A-F system will not see any major changes over the next five years, so that districts and communities can assess accurately how grades change over that period. View district and campus ratings at www.txschools.org.
