The Texas Education Agency (TEA) has published their state legislature mandated A-F 2016 ratings for Texas schools.
The A-F ratings system is a new one and is sometimes criticized for the methodology used. The system is evolving but at least applies a fixed standard against each school district and its schools.
The system may be improved in the future. The 2016 ratings give us a look at how our school districts are rated. Remember that they are rated using the same methodology as all other Texas school districts.
The TEA has provided grades in four domains:
Domain I–student achievement (STAAR test scores)
Domain II–student progress (compares each student’s STAAR scores from last year to this year)
Domain III–closing the gaps (achievement of economically disadvantaged students)
Domain IV–post secondary readiness
The results are summarized below. Beside each letter grade is the numerical score TEA gave the district.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
A-F scores match very well with the socio-economic status of the neighborhood, and are a better indicator of how much $$ the parents make than of how well the school is doing.
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So are you saying that people in the Socorro and Ysleta districts are wealthier than the people in the city?
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Hence, poor people can’t do well? Is that what you’re saying?
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No, I asked you a question. You weren’t clear which socio-economic class you are saying performs best or how those districts compare socio-economically.
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I was asking Annonymous … He’s suggesting that the scores don’t show how the schools are performing. I disagree.
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Advocates present A-F school rating systems as a simple,
accurate, easy-to-understand way to inform the public as to school
quality. This is where a saying of a colleague is appropriate to
add: Simple is good, unless it is wrong. And, in the case of A-F
school rating systems, it is wrong on all counts. A-F systems are
anything but simple, prone to inaccuracies, and impossible to understand. They represent one more way to punish poor schools for being poor and reward rich schools for being rich, rather than look at the unique needs of each to determine the degree to which of those needs are being met.
The issue is not one that can be remedied by a retooling of the process, or a rethinking of the rules. The reduction of everything in a school to a single grade, even if performed in a statistically robust manner with rigorous rules that do not change based on political whims, ignores the fact that most of what happens in that school is well outside that letter grade.
Reducing a school to a crude representation of average hides the fact that somewhere in that school exist students and issues and needs that cover the entire range of possibility. A school that gets an A, however, will be presumed to be doing a better job of meeting all of those needs, for all its students, just as a school that gets a D will be presumed to be doing a worse job of meeting all of those needs, for all its students. Yet the A school will have students it is failing, and the D school will have students who are achieving success. No amount of retooling can overcome that bluntness. Leaving it in place risks the grade badly misrepresenting what happens in schools, completely failing any test of a rational accountability system.
-TASA
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Well, we know that the peasants must not be allowed to become educated for then they will realize their deprived position at the bottom of decent society! They might even become (GASP) Republicans!
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“Annonymous,” it may be a poor reflection of a specific school. Across the board, it does give a decent picture of a district. From the district standpoint you have multiple scores over multiple years … not just one crude measure. We don’t seem to see much variance.
Giving out free Ipads with wifi will probably improve this over time, assuming those lazy parents don’t screw it up.
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