Texas Letting Districts Rate Themselves
March 7, 2019
When Texas “rolled out its new accountability system under the Every Student Succeeds Act late last year, local superintendents en masse sent letters home to their students’ parents telling them that the letter grade report cards were flawed, simplistic evaluations of their schools,” writes Daarel Burnette II in Education Week. But now, thanks to a law passed by the state legislature in 2017, districts can get state approval to “craft their own accountability system using several metrics.” The state “will then use the district’s own rating for up to half its final state rating.” According to Burnette, “state politicians and many civil rights activists have long been skeptical of districts rating themselves, arguing they’re not likely to be objective… It’s not clear if the state’s new grading system would be compliant under ESSA.”