Advocacy group holds Fort Worth workshop to challenge Texas A-F school ratings
As the Texas Education Agency continues its takeover of two Fort Worth-area school districts due to failing grades in the state’s yearly accountability ratings, an Austin-based advocacy group is traveling the state holding workshops to show local school board members, superintendents and elected officials that school ratings should be more complex than just standardized testing.
On Tuesday night, Raise Your Hand Texas held an interactive workshop at the Betsy Price Community Center in Fort Worth, including informational and role-playing sessions to teach local education leaders more about the “unfairness” of the state’s current A-F accountability rating system.
Texas middle schools’ yearly A-F grades are currently 100% determined by STAAR test results. High schools have college, career and military readiness and graduation rates taken into account on top of STAAR results when given a rating. If a campus receives an F grade five years in a row, a state law is triggered allowing the TEA to either take over the district or close the campus.
A takeover includes naming a state-appointed superintendent, replacing the current school board with a state-appointed board of managers and hiring a conservator to oversee the takeover process. Fort Worth ISD and Lake Worth ISD are both currently undergoing state takeovers because of underachieving elementary or middle schools — schools that receive grades solely reliant on STAAR testing.
When announcing the takeovers, TEA officials pointed to more widespread problems with academic achievement in both districts. “Lake Worth ISD’s low level of student achievement is a long-standing issue, predating the COVID-19 disruptions, and has gotten worse recently,” Education Commissioner Mike Morath said.
On Tuesday night, Raise Your Hand Texas advocates gathered Fort Worth-area education leaders to display what they describe as the unfairness and “element of randomness” that goes into the grades schools receive from the state. The event started with groups creating an artificial middle school, with each school rolling dice that represented their school’s socioeconomic status. A low roll meant a low-income district, a high roll represented a wealthier district.
“We can’t help where we are from and where we are born, and what home district we belong to,” said Chris Robey, Raise Your Hand Texas’ regional advocacy director.
Each “school” then made decisions on how they would allocate funds to different areas of their campus, and what subjects to give special focus to, while other ones would be forced to stay underfunded. Each set of choices had one “STAAR-aligned” answer. If they chose it, it would lead to a higher accountability grade at the end of the game.
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No group received an A grade during the exercise. Just one was given a B. Other groups were given a C, D, and F.
“Are you feeling like this is maybe a bit unfair? Are you wondering what the criteria was that determined what your final grade was?” Robey asked the participants after he told them their mock accountability grade.
Most of the participants agreed.
STAAR testing will come to an end in Texas starting during the 2027-28 school year, and will be replaced with a three-test system that will take less pressure off one “all or nothing” test that decides the fate of students and districts. But education advocacy groups, including Raise Your Hand Texas, still aren’t satisfied with that solution. They say accountability ratings will still ultimately be formulated through standardized testings — just now three tests instead of one.
The Texas Legislature formed an Accountability Advisory Committee tasked with advising Morath on changes and improvements to the A-F system. The committee will consist of one governor appointee, one lieutenant governor appointee, one House speaker appointee, two education committee appointees, and one appointee for educators, parents and businesses.
Raise Your Hand Texas is urging the committee to consider the “entire child” and not just English and math through standardized testing, whether that be through the current STAAR testing model or the future three-test system. The advocacy group is encouraging the committee to consider fine arts, local and state assessments, job training, extracurricular activities, family and student engagement, health and safety, quality instruction and dual language.
During Tuesday’s mock accountability rating exercise, a group’s grade was knocked down when they chose to allocate funds to extracurricular activities and fine art topics that took away from English and math.
In the last seven years, seven Texas ISDs qualified for state takeovers for academic reasons. Raise Your Hand Texas is estimating that 45 districts could face a takeover for academic reasons in the next two years if their STAAR testing results and accountability grades do not improve.
“Assessment and accountability has been a focus of Raise Your Hand Texas’ work since we launched our Measure What Matters campaign in 2021, pushing for an accountability system that moves beyond the A-F system and its heavy emphasis on standardized testing,” wrote Anne Lasseigne Tiedt, Raise Your Hand Texas’ senior director of strategic communications, in a news release. “The 89th Legislature may have passed HB 8 to eliminate STAAR, but the success of our schools is more complex than standardized testing.”
