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TEXAS EDUCATION AGENCY
Weimar and Columbus ISDs receive B grades
Rice CISD lags behind with C
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) released the 2023 A-F accountability ratings for school systems and campuses statewide last Thursday, April 24 with Colorado County school districts all grading similarly across the board.
Weimar ISD leads the Colorado County districts with the highest accountability rating of an 85 out of 100, or a B overall rating. Columbus ISD in comparison has an accountability rating of 80 out of 100, or a B overall rating and following just close behind are Rice CISD, who barely miss the B mark with an accountability rating of 78 out of 100, or a C overall rating.
“While it is our goal to continuously improve in all areas across all campuses, it is important to create a more reflective system that accurately demonstrates the effectiveness of a school or a school district,” said Columbus ISD Superintendent Jim Connor. “Columbus High School had its scores based on multiple data sets including graduation rate, college and career readiness, industry- based certifications, and more. They earned an “A” for the outstanding work they do. Columbus ISD as well as many school districts across Texas adopted Legislative Priorities that would allow all schools to utilize multiple data sets to determine their grades.” Though these ratings reflect performance from the 2022-23 school year, TEA is now able to publicly release them for the first time and make them available at TXSchools.
gov.
TEA is prevented from sharing more recent school ratings from the 2023-24 school year due to a separate, ongoing lawsuit. School performance ratings from the 2024-25 school year are scheduled to be issued in August 2025.
“For far too long, families, educators and communities have been denied access to information about the performance of their schools, thanks to frivolous lawsuits paid for by tax dollars filed by those who disagreed with the statutory goal of raising career readiness expectations to help students,” said Texas Education Commissioner, Mike Morath. “Every Texas family deserves a clear view of school performance, and now those families finally have access to data they should have received two years ago. Transparency drives progress, and when that transparency is blocked, students pay the price.”
A-F ratings were first issued for Texas public school systems in 2018, and the rating methodology had been largely unchanged since that time. For this set of ratings from the 2022-23 school year, the methods of calculating A-F scores were updated to more accurately reflect performance, as part of a previously communicated system refresh.
To provide an apples- to-apples comparison between 2022 and 2023 A-F ratings, TEA also published What If overall scale scores and ratings for 2022 on TXSchools.gov using the refreshed system. These ratings do not replace the final 2022 A-F ratings but are intended to provide a clear picture for school systems to support self-evaluation and improvement planning.
Rice CISD and Weimar ISD representatives have not responded for comment as of press time.
