HARLINGEN — If you thought there was controversy before, look what we’ve got now.
The A-F Work in Progress Report — just released by the Texas Education Agency — has people talking. It’s not good, or it is, depending on who you talk to and how you perceive their reaction.
“The state has created a system in which the letter grades are primarily sitting around a C,” said Alicia Noyola, chief academic officer for the Harlingen school district.
The A-F Work in Progress Report has been created only for informational purposes. The A-F rating system’s methodology is still under development. When the system becomes official in 2018, it will give campuses and school districts letter grades in five areas of performance, called domains.
However, the report only grades Texas schools on four domains: Domain I – Student Proficiency; Domain II – Student Growth; Domain III – Closing Achievement Gaps; Domain IV – College and Career Readiness.
These are closely aligned with the performance indicators in the Accountability Ratings System, which is TEA’s current system.
“What the system does is it takes basically the same things we looked at before but it’s assigned a letter grade versus pass- fail, Met Standard or Needs Improvement,” said DeEtta Culbertson, a TEA spokesperson.
“In 2015 the legislature passed House Bill 2804 which basically changed the system and asked us to create a new system based on an A-F ratings of letter grades.”
Culbertson said the state is doing away with “Met Standard” and “Needs Improvement,” which are too simplistic and don’t really tell much about how well a school or district is doing. However, the state will still use the same system, with some alterations in the way domains are calculated.
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In 2015, the 84th state Legislature passed HB 2804, changing the Texas school accountability system so that every campus and district receives one of five ratings from A-F.
Much like students receive grades in individual subjects and those are combined for a GPA, the law requires schools and districts to be issued grades based on five different areas of performance or “domains,” and those five grades must be combined into a single overall rating.
Want an evaluation which takes into account everything the school district is doing for its students?
The Texas Association of School Boards suggests districts develop a community-based accountability system.
Alicia Noyola, chief academic officer for the Harlingen school district, said districts would work with their communities to design these accountability systems.
The customized ratings would seek to meet state standards while innovating to meet their own unique needs.
74.9 percent – students in the Harlingen School District are economically disadvantaged– that has a great impact on education.
