Texas Education Agency Releases Preliminary Ratings for 2015-2016
State accountability ratings for 2015-2016 were released in August for each district and campus within Texas. The official 2016 state accountability rating for each campus and our district was Met Standard. Forney ISD also received 8 distinctions across multiple campuses.
In addition to the overall rating, House Bill (HB) 2804, passed by the 84th Texas Legislature in 2015, created an upcoming change to state accountability effective August 2018. The accountability system redesign replaces the four indices used to rate public schools with five weighted domains that will be used to evaluate districts and campuses. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) released these preliminary ratings for all schools and school districts in the State of Texas to the public today, Friday, Jan. 6, 2017.
Although the new five weighted domains are very similar in title to the old four indices, the indicators and methodologies used for calculation are not equal; therefore a side by side comparison of the indices and the domains is not applicable. Below are summaries of the five domains that will be utilized in the 2018 accountability system:
Domain I: Meeting standards at satisfactory and college readiness levels on STAAR
Domain II: Growth of All students on STAAR/EOC
Domain III: Closing the achievement gap for low-socioeconomic students and low-performing ethnic populations
Domain IV: Academic attainments (other than STAAR) that differ by campus level, including dropout and graduation rates, CTE sequence completion, AP course completion, TSI benchmarks and more for high schools; attendance, dropout rates and high school, college and career preparatory instruction for middle schools; and attendance for elementary schools.
Domain V: Three self-selected categories of the Community and Student Engagement ratings.
(Domain V is not included in this year’s preliminary ratings)
A preliminary A-F rating system was recently released to our district from the TEA. The system used to calculate these scores will not be final until the Commissioner adopts final rule this spring. Forney ISD received a preliminary rating of an A in Domain II (Growth of all students) and a B rating in Domains I, III, and IV. This is the fourth accountability measure (A-F, met standard, distinctions, and federal) that districts are working to understand and navigate.
You can view Forney ISD’s Accountability Ratings, the Distinctions that were awarded to several schools in the District as well as the Preliminary A-F ratings for the District and individual schools may be viewed at the following link:
Although we believe in accountability and are proud of our ratings as a district, we also believe that an accountability system based on standardized testing will never truly reflect the successes of our district as a whole. Accountability systems, however, allow for celebrations of identified successes and goal setting for continuous improvement for our campuses and school district. In Forney ISD, we will continue to focus on meeting the individual needs of all of our students and preparing every student for a successful future.
