Education
BY EMILY LINCKE CONTRIBUTIONS BY DANICA LLOYD, HANNAH NORTON & RYAN REYNOLDS
New Caney ISD received a “C” for the 2022-23 school year with 72 out of 100 possible points in the Texas Education Agency’s accountability ratings system for school districts statewide. The ratings were released April 24 after a delay due to lawsuits, TEA officials said. The announcement follows an April 3 ruling by Texas’ 15th Court of Appeals, which overturned a lower court’s injunction that had blocked the 2023 ratings for over a year. In August 2023, over 100 school districts sued TEA Commissioner Mike Morath, arguing the agency’s revamped accountability system was “unlawful” and would unfairly harm school districts. According to the TEA, 9.5% of districts earned an “A” rating, while 42.4% earned a “B.” About 33% received a “C,” 13.7% earned a “D” and 1.2% earned an “F.” New Caney ISD earns ‘C’ for 2022- 23 school year New Caney ISD accountability ratings Since the A-F system launched in 2017-18, NCISD has only received three official ratings due to three years of State of Disaster declarations. 2017-18: Not rated due to Hurricane Harvey 2018-19: B (85) 2019-20: Not rated due to the COVID-19 pandemic 2020-21: Not rated due to the COVID-19 pandemic
What they’re saying
TEA officials said the methods of calculating 2022-23 ratings were “updated to more accurately reflect performance.” Scott Powers, NCISD’s executive director of public relations, said district officials will use the ratings as a tool moving forward. “Public schools are nearly two accountability cycles past the ratings that the TEA is releasing for 2023,” Powers said in an April 24 email. “The district will review and consider the information shared by TEA this week in our ongoing efforts to provide a high-quality education for all students.” “There are changes because we are statutorily required to make sure that we set goals in the A-F system to make Texas a national leader in preparing students for postsecondary success." MIKE MORATH, TEXAS EDUCATION AGENCY COMMISSIONER
The state’s A-F accountability system was designed to measure whether students are ready for the next grade level and how well each district prepares them for success after high school, Community Impact previously reported. “For far too long, families, educators and communities have been denied access to information about the performance of their schools, thanks to frivolous lawsuits paid for by tax dollars filed by those who disagreed with the statutory goal of raising career readiness expectations to help students,” Morath said in an April 24 news release. Morath further defended the ratings system in an April 22 press call. “Accountability works. The public issuance of ratings for school systems does positively affect the academic and life outcomes of children,” Morath said. “This is a good thing. We do this because it helps children.”
The breakdown
The district’s lowest rated schools that received an “F” include Dogwood Elementary and Tavola Elementary.
NCISD’s top-rated schools that received an “A” include Bens Branch Elementary, Infinity Early College High School and West Fork High School.
District snapshot, 2022-23
New Caney ISD ratings by campus, 2022-23
18,315 students enrolled 74.2% economically
34% emergent bilingual 92.2% average attendance rate
A: 3 B: 4 C: 5 D: 5 F: 2
disadvantaged 11.3% special education
26.7% missed 10% or more of the school year
2021-22: B (84) 2022-23: C (72)
SOURCE: TEXAS EDUCATION AGENCY/COMMUNITY IMPACT
SOURCE: TEXAS EDUCATION AGENCY/COMMUNITY IMPACT
What’s next
publicly funded and having the public’s children in our schools,” Morath said April 22. “It’s up to us to operate with the highest degree of transparency to deliver the best outcomes that we can for our kids.”
2024-25 school year on Aug. 15. “A-F ratings are very public, and so that is a leadership challenge that our leaders bear, but this is the cross that we bear for being
The TEA remains blocked from issuing ratings for the 2023-24 school year due to a separate lawsuit, which is pending in the state appeals court. Morath also said the TEA intends to release ratings for the
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