The state looks at three major categories for the grades: student achievement, school progress and “closing the gaps.”<\/p>\n

Student achievement is mostly made up of how well students did on STAAR tests. School progress includes how much improvement students made from one year to the next, or how well they did in relation to comparable campuses, whichever is greater. “Closing the gaps”\u00a0looks at how well schools do educating children in different subgroups, such as those living in poverty, enrolled in special education or of various racial backgrounds.<\/p>\n

Seventy percent of the grade is based on either student achievement or school progress — whichever is the higher grade —\u00a0while closing the gaps makes up 30 percent.<\/p>\n

Supporters of letter grades for schools say the new system is more transparent and easier for the public to understand. Former education commissioner Michael Williams, who now is chairman for Texas Aspires, said it will better drive policy to help improve schools quicker.<\/p>\n

“Accurate and accessible school and district ratings provide actionable data for educators and the public alike,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

But the parent group Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment issued a news release saying the letter grades place even more emphasis on standardized testing.<\/p>\n

“The result will be an increased focus on these faulty assessments rather than a\u00a0move toward the robust education parents want for their children,” Theresa Trevino, TAMSA president, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

School administrators have been fighting the rollout of the new letter grades since the state decided to move to the new system in 2015. Last year Texas had its first look showing “what if” grades that gave low marks to many typically high-achieving school districts, particularly in Collin County.<\/p>\n

Those C’s and D’s were mostly for “closing the gaps.”\u00a0Last year, the state calculated that based on how well students from low-income families did on STAAR as well as how students in the two lowest-performing racial groups performed on tests.<\/p>\n

Now the grade looks at all student subgroups — such as those in special education, all racial groups and those from low-income families — giving schools credit not only for how well children did but also how much they improved.<\/p>\n

But this year, no district in the northern North Texas suburbs earned a D or F in “closing the gaps.”\u00a0In fact, more than half received A’s under the new system, which modified the grading formula to score districts based on\u00a0how much progress they had made on teaching all student groups from children enrolled in special education to those living in poverty.<\/p>\n

Plano ISD, for example, earned a C last year in this category. But this year\u00a0it received an A with a score of 95.<\/p>\n

Dash Weerasinghe, senior executive director for assessment, research and program evaluation at Plano ISD, said last week that he didn’t pay attention to the “what if” scores that gave districts a first look at the A-F grading system, adding that it was “too simplistic.”<\/p>\n

“The only thing we learned from that preliminary rating is that the system had to be changed,” he said.<\/p>\n