The Texas Education Agency (TEA) has decided to put a hold on releasing the yearly school ratings for a while. They believe it’s important to reconsider how schools are ranked, especially since students’ performances might have changed due to the pandemic. This delay is also happening at a time when some school districts have taken legal steps to prevent the new rating system from coming into play.
Keep reading to understand more about what’s happening and how it might affect schools in Texas.
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) has decided to wait a bit longer before sharing the yearly school ratings. This change is happening because they want to adjust the new system of grading schools to avoid any negative effects.
Instead of releasing the scores on September 28 as initially planned, they are now aiming to share them next month. It’s still unclear if these ratings will be shared before the big meeting about education happening later this year in Austin.
This delay is coming after many school officials said that the new system might unfairly lower their ratings. To explain a bit, schools and districts get grades from A to F based on different things like how students do in state tests, how much they learn each year, and how well the school is helping students get ready for life after school. These grades help parents and the community understand how good the school is at teaching the kids.
Last year, when students got back to school after the pandemic, they did much better in their tests. The TEA wants to adjust the scores to take this improvement into account so that schools don’t suddenly see a big drop in their grades.
Mike Morath, the head of Texas Education Agency, mentioned that these changes are to make sure the grading system remains useful for parents and teachers in understanding how well the schools are doing.
However, not everyone is happy with the new system, especially a part of it that decides how well high school students are prepared for college or a job after graduation. Earlier, schools got a top grade if 60% of the graduating students went to college, got a job, or joined the military. But now, the school needs to have 88% of students doing one of these things to get that grade, which many school heads think is too much, particularly as schools are still getting back on track after the pandemic.
In fact, several school districts have taken legal action against Texas Education Agency, saying these sudden changes will unfairly lower their scores. They feel that changing the rules so suddenly is not fair to students and teachers, and gives a wrong idea that the performance in schools is going down.
Matthew Gutierrez, a school district head, also voiced that schools should be given more time to improve their scores gradually, instead of facing sudden big changes.
So, in short, while changes are necessary, they should be done slowly and carefully to avoid putting too much pressure on schools and showing a wrong picture of their performance. Stay tuned for more updates on this important topic.
