Texas public school performance as a whole flatlined on state accountability grades, as chronically underperforming districts learned whether they edged closer to state sanctions.
Campuses and districts got their state report cards Friday, providing families a glimpse of how well schools educate students. Those who consistently get low grades inch toward state takeovers.
Of the more than 9,000 campuses in the 2025-26 school year, 24% scored an A, 34% scored a B, 23% scored a C, 10% scored a D and 4% scored an F. Some schools did not receive grades.
About one in four schools saw their ratings improve, while a nearly similar rate of campuses (22%) saw a drop.
Schools with high poverty performed worse than more affluent campuses, while campuses with predominantly Black or Hispanic students scored lower than those where white or Asian students make up the majority.
Still, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath characterized the ratings as a win, pointing to the hundreds of campuses in high-poverty communities that earned an A.
“We are teaching them handwriting. They are memorizing the timetables. They are thinking through more and more advanced math problems. All children can learn and achieve,” Morath said as he visited a New Braunfels campus Friday morning.
Prior to this year’s ratings release, at least five school districts sat on the brink of state intervention — Austin, Waco, Greenville, Ector County and Ralls.
Austin ISD officials said Thursday that two middle schools hit the threshold for a state takeover this year after failing state standards for a fifth consecutive year with this year’s ratings. Meanwhile, Ector County and Greenville district officials said their campuses made gains in the ratings this year.
AISD Superintendent Matias Segura told the Austin Current he has not been in communication with state officials regarding the education commissioner’s plans for the district.
“I understand there is an anxiousness and concern in the community,” Segura told the Current. “We are going to be here tomorrow, the teachers are going to show up, we are going to do the work to ensure their student gets what they need, regardless of what that looks like for that specific family, for that specific school. AISD will continue to be here; we have been here for 145 years.”
The letter grades campuses receive can shape community perceptions. Often, parents use the scores to pick a school for their kids. Businesses may also weigh the ratings when choosing which regions to invest in or move to, as they anticipate that schools labeled high-performing will graduate more students prepared for the workforce.
Meanwhile, Texas leaders are leaning on state intervention to fix chronic academic underperformance as five years of failing grades brings bruising state sanctions. The education commissioner must close a persistently failing campus when it reaches that threshold or replace a district’s locally elected school board with appointees he selects.
Ratings for schools and districts largely depend on three primary metrics: how students perform on STAAR and meet college and career readiness benchmarks; how results on state tests improve over time; and how well schools educate underserved children.
Texas schools that trigger state takeovers tend to serve predominantly Black, Latino and low-income students, while majority-Black schools last year received more Fs than A ratings.
Critics of the state’s accountability system say school ratings fail to account for the challenges facing high-poverty schools, which often work with fewer resources to serve children with higher needs. They say it pressures districts to focus more on improving their letter grades than helping students grow academically.
Proponents of the grades say Texas families deserve transparency about how well schools educate their children. State leaders also say the ratings allow them to identify which districts fail to concentrate on student learning.
The Texas Education Agency took over Houston ISD in 2023 after one of the district’s campuses failed state standards for multiple years. That campus, Wheatley High School, received an A this year.
The state’s largest district, however, declined from no F-rated campuses last year to five this year. One of those schools did not previously receive a rating.
Parents face a changing education landscape with more access to schooling options outside of traditional neighborhood campuses. This school year marks the first time Texas families can use public taxpayer dollars to fund their children’s private schooling or home-school education.
Districts have until Sept. 11 to appeal their grades to the Texas Education Agency.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
