Dallas ISD superintendent worries new schools rating system will lead to drop in scores

Dallas ISD Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde is bracing for her schools to score lower on the state’s accountability system because of a major overhaul that moves the goalposts.

Texas’ A-F system grades every district across the state, giving families a sense of how their local schools are performing. The ratings are key in how the community perceives its campuses and parents often consider the scores when enrolling their children.

The grades are largely based on standardized test scores, taking into account how well a school grows academic achievement and closes gaps between student groups.

The formula has remained largely static since lawmakers created the system in 2017. But widespread changes will be factored in when the Texas Education Agency releases the new scores in September.

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It will now be more difficult to score well in the metric that assesses how prepared graduates are for college, career or the military. Changes will impact other data points as well, including by weighing scores differently based on campus size.

District leaders statewide have raised the alarm about the new formula for months, saying they are worried it will give families the idea that schools are suddenly worse — even if their performance stays the same or improves. Their concerns come as Republican state leaders lambast public schools in conjunction with a political push to funnel public money toward private schools through a voucher-like program.

“They want a narrative to be provided that says public schools are failing,” Elizalde said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News.

Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath told reporters last month that the changes to the system are due as part of a five-year cycle. Updates are needed, he said, to ensure schools are continually working to improve outcomes for children and set Texas up as a national leader.

Last year, nearly three-quarters of Texas schools earned an A or B. Dallas ISD earned a B.

If the new rules had applied to last year’s data, Dallas ISD’s score would have dropped to a C. And the number of middle and high schools to score as a D or F would have nearly quadrupled, from seven to 26, according to a data analysis provided to The News by DISD.

“This is the same data, applying new rules,” Elizalde said.

Elizalde said the new rules could lead people to draw erroneous conclusions when analyzing letter-grades between the 2022 and 2023 school years. People’s perceptions of the local schools can influence what neighborhood they choose to move to and what type of campus they choose to enroll their children in, incentivizing districts to keep their reputations strong.

To explain the changes to families, the TEA will publish “what if” scores for 2022, to be shared alongside the 2023 grades. This tool is designed to give school trustees, educators and parents a sense of how performance has changed over the last year.

“We want to make sure that we provide an accurate year-over-year performance picture so that parents can have that information to help inform them in terms of how they support their kiddos,” Morath said in a briefing with reporters.

A major change is coming for a key component of the high school evaluations: College, Career and Military Readiness, or CCMR. In 2017, the state said if 60% of graduates proved CCMR ready, the school earned the equivalent of an A. Since then, campuses have made major progress in this metric. That standard will be raised to 88%.

“What used to be an A is now a D,” Elizalde said. “None of these approaches are consistent with best practices in anything we would do with students in grading and schools.”

The system also awards schools for the number of students who leave high school with an “industry-based certification.” But the new rules will roll back credit for some of the popular options that students take, like Google Analytics.

The TEA has acknowledged that campuses with A ratings in 2022 may have shown improvement in 2023 but still receive a B rating.

Morath, who previously served on the DISD board, said the changes to the system are part of the state’s plan to push for continuous improvement in its public schools. The state determined it was better to make large-scale changes at once, rather than constantly tweak the metrics every year.

“The A through F rating system is fundamentally about having clear information for us, as adults, in how we are supporting kids,” he said. “We do this because it is good for kids, but it doesn’t make it easy.”

Ben Mackey, a DISD trustee and member of the TEA’s accountability advisory group, said in a statement that these changes should be embraced and not be seen as punishment for school districts.

“This refresh and the proposed changes to the system represent raising the bar for what we expect for our school systems and should be seen as such,” he said.

The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.

The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.