AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Education Agency (TEA) plans to fight back against a Travis County judge’s ruling that halted the agency from releasing its A-F performance ratings for the 2022-2023 school year.
Thursday night, Travis County Judge Catherine Mauzy ordered a temporary injunction that would halt the release of the TEA’s accountability system until the court makes a final decision.
The ruling comes after over 100 school districts across Texas joined a lawsuit filed against the agency, expressing concerns over the implementation of a new rating system.
"This is a system that is long overdue for accountability reform,” said Temple ISD Superintendent Bobby Ott.
Superintendents of several Texas school districts say that not notifying schools of rating benchmarks left educators in the dark, claiming when the TEA changed its rating system during the year, and then applied it retroactively, it led to schools receiving lower ratings.
"If these ratings would have come out, they would have shown a false narrative about failing and declining school districts,” said Kingsville ISD Superintendent Cissy Reynolds-Perez.
Kingsville ISD was the first district to initiate the lawsuit. Reynolds-Perez said that those ratings would have had a significant economic impact as well.
“Businesses think twice about coming to a district where they're showing a failing or declining school district,” Reynolds-Perez said.
Superintendents said Thursday's ruling was a victory, but the fight is far from over.
"This is not a final victory lap by any stretch," Ott said. "It's really the initial step in a long process with the ultimate goal being accountability reform."
Superintendents say they want to work with the TEA Commissioner of Education Mike Morath to create a more fair and transparent accountability system. But the TEA says the judge’s ruling “completely disregards the laws of this state” and they plan to appeal the decision immediately.
KVUE obtained the TEA’s full statement on the ruling.
This ruling completely disregards the laws of this state and for the foreseeable future, prevents any A-F performance information from being issued to help millions of parents and educators improve the lives of our students. The A-F system has been a positive force in Texas public education, supporting improved outcomes for students across the state, especially those most vulnerable.
There have been many constructive conversations about the methodology with districts and among legislators. Though about 10% of our school system leaders disagreed with the methods used in A-F enough to file this lawsuit, the complete absence of public performance information means that 100% of our school systems cannot take actions based on these ratings, stunting the academic growth of millions of Texas kids.
TEA will appeal this decision immediately.