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TEA's accountability ratings release: what they are and how they might affect Austin ISD
- Aug 13
- 4 min read
Today, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) released its A-F accountability ratings on schools across Texas.
Austin ISD (AISD) is just one district that faces potential takeover, as Webb Middle School and Burnett Middle School have both received their fifth consecutive F rating following the release of the 2025-2026 accountability ratings. It is unclear whether this takeover will happen, as no announcement has been made. However, a state takeover of AISD risks a detrimental impact on students, as state takeovers bring instability in leadership and instruction, disrupted programs, and a loss of community input in decisions directly affecting students. Fort Worth ISD saw the departure of more than 1000 staff after it was announced that TEA would assume control of the district.
After state takeover, four Houston ISD elementary schools all received F ratings following last year's record of having no failing campuses. This comes after state appointed superintendent Mike Miles expressed his belief that the district was on track to end its takeover. The district was taken over by the state in 2023 following Wheatly High School’s fifth failure. This year the high school received an A rating. However, the significant increase in elementary schools receiving F ratings during a state takeover provides a clear example of the state’s shortcomings in its approach at “assisting” school districts without a proper understanding of what these districts actually need.
According to the state, A-F accountability ratings help monitor how well districts and schools are educating their students. The ratings are based on multiple measures of student achievement, including state assessments, graduation rates, and college, career, and military readiness outcomes. 70% of district and campus letter grades come from two distinct categories:
Student achievement: Measures whether students are meeting expectations on state standardized testing
School progress: Shows how students perform over time and how district performance compares to other school districts with similar economically disadvantaged student populations
The other 30% of these ratings comes from “Closing the Gap,” which measures how well a district is ensuring all its students are successful and is especially concerned with how some populations, such as emergent bilingual students, are being served.
The legislative groundwork for these ratings was laid in 2013, following the passage of House Bill 5, which overhauled public school graduation plans by creating the current 22-credit foundation high school program. HB 5 also reduced the number of end-of-course (EOC) tests from 15 to 5, implemented career and technical endorsements, and ultimately shifted districts towards an A-F accountability rating system. During the passage of HB 5, state legislators said the transparency provided by these ratings would help parents understand the performance of the schools in their district. This legislative framework was updated in 2017 with HB 22 which also granted substantial authority over the system to the commissioner of education.
With the implementation of this rating system came various debates about its effectiveness. Some state legislators believed that this system would push schools towards the wrong goal, i.e. “teaching the test,” or that urban schools would be vulnerable to low ratings based on economic rather than academic factors. Others contended that putting important metrics into a simplified letter grade could mislead parents about how a specific school would benefit their children.
This system also creates the risk that parent anger would be directed towards schools while the individuals with the most influence over education – legislators and the Texas Education Agency – would rather pin the blame on districts and campuses for lackluster performance instead of curating avenues to properly support educators and students. The emphasis on standardized testing scores in the rating system, especially for elementary campuses, remains a central criticism of A-F.
After TEA proposed to add a requirement that would make schools prove high school students were pursuing a career after high school, more than 120 school districts sued the TEA to halt this update, arguing this system created an inaccurate narrative about the work being done and placed campuses at greater risk of state intervention. The lawsuit ultimately failed and TEA released a backlog of academic ratings in April 2025.
The most concerning and until recently overlooked concern raised by the A-F system is its potential to put schools at risk of being taken over by the state. HB 1842, passed in 2015, requires that TEA intervene in any school district with a campus that receives five consecutive F ratings, by either closing the campus or initiating a state takeover of its entire district. In the case of HISD, Morath initiated the takeover based on one campus despite the district having an overall B rating.
Every accountability law, however, overlooks the underlying causes leading to a school receiving an F rating. Many schools that have received an F rating all serve students from marginalized backgrounds, low-income households, or both. These factors often play a significant role in a student being at risk of dropping out. But as we’ve seen in Houston, the takeover can lead to far more disruption and uncertainty for students and families.
Test-based accountability has been the norm since the advent of No Child Left Behind (2001). Many in the education reform movement still cling to it as the only way to measure student success despite the obvious importance of other indicators for academic growth. Nevertheless, some think tanks insist on not only perpetuating but growing this system via HB 8 (89th).
The future of Austin ISD and others are uncertain, but if the pattern continues, we will again see the erosion of local democratic control of several districts as Abbott and Morath continue their slow-motion steam roll over our last truly public institution.
