San Marcos schools ‘average’
The 2017-2018 Texas Education Agency academic accountability ratings are in, and San Marcos CISD’s ratings indicate that the district and schools are average.
This is the first year that Texas school districts are receiving letter grades on a scale of A-F. SMCISD earned a C overall, with a score of 72 out of 100. The state’s ratings website says that districts earn C ratings “for acceptable performance when they serve many students well, but there are still many other students who need more support to succeed academically.”
The district was also graded individually on three domains. Student Achievement depends on STAAR scores for elementary and middle school campuses, and depends partly on STAAR, partly on college/career/military readiness, or CCMR, and partly on graduation rates for high schools. SMCISD earned a C, with a score of 72. School Progress measures academic growth from grade to grade and takes into account how student poverty affects performance. SMCISD earned another C in this domain, with a score of 76. The third domain, Closing the Gaps, measures performance for different student groups. SMCISD earned a D, with a score of 63.
“We respect this score as a perspective on student performance and always seek to improve,” the district said in a letter sent to parents. “It is, however, simply one momentary snapshot of the value-added opportunities in SMCISD. Our district remains committed to the people and programs that will make all students college and career ready. We look forward to continuous improvement as the state accountability system evolves.”
Campus ratings
Individual campuses across the state will begin receiving letter grades next year, but for 2017-2018 they were still ranked as either “met standard” or “improvement required.” All of SMCISD’s campuses received overall rankings of “met standard.”
The district’s letter to parents reads, “While we have opportunities for growth, we are excited to inform you that all SMCISD campuses Met Standard in the new Texas accountability system. That success is a celebration for our students and teachers and an affirmation of your investment in them.”
The overall numeric scores for each campus are in the accompanying chart. In the three accountability domains, all campuses received “Met Standard” ratings with two exceptions. Miller Middle School ranked as “Improvement Required” in Closing the Gaps, and Travis Elementary ranked as “Improvement Required” in Student Achievement.
Objections to the A-F System
SMCISD stated in its letter to parents that test scores and state ratings are not the only way to measure student progress.
“There are multiple ways in which student success is demonstrated,” the letter reads. “Here in SMCISD, we offer the following programs for student success: CTE, dual language, AP, PSAT, dual credit, languages other than English, gifted and talented, JROTC, SAT for all juniors, Gear Up, AVID, athletics, the student device initiative, robotics, personalized learning and fine arts.”
The Texas American Federation of Teachers (AFT) issued a statement calling the accountability system inaccurate and unfair.
Louis Malfaro, Texas AFT president, commented, “The new A-F accountability system moves Texas in the wrong direction by reinforcing the test-driven distortion of the classroom experiences of millions of Texas students. Put simply, a comprehensive picture of all students’ abilities and performance at a school or district is not reducible to a one-letter grade label … There is nothing fair to students or parents about using a one-time multiple-choice test to labeling schools and districts. This system will stigmatize and demoralize our most impoverished schools and embolden school privatizers to take community schools away from the communities they serve.”
The Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA) has long objected to the new A-F system. In a statement issued Aug. 8, TASA said it will “continue to advocate for the establishment of a more comprehensive, community-based public school accountability system that looks beyond high-stakes, multiple-choice exams.
The ratings, set to be released Aug. 15, are based on the state’s new A-F Public School Accountability System. TASA and many school leaders across the state believe there is a better way to define school success and accountability.”
TASA Legislative Chair Doug Williams, superintendent of Sunnyvale ISD, added, “While letter grades seem simple, no one can explain why a district receives an A or an F. Numerous pages of complicated calculations are used to reduce district performance measures — mainly standardized test scores — into a single letter grade. There is also no guidance on how to raise a low grade, making it a punitive system. So, A-F systems are neither transparent nor useful for improvement.”
More than 600 school districts, including the neighboring Hays, Wimberley and New Braunfels districts, adopted resolutions in 2016 and 2017 opposing the A-F accountability system.
