House easily passes bill overhauling school ratings

The House passed a major overhaul Wednesday of a rating system that would give schools and districts grades between A and F.

Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Houston, proposed House Bill 22 as a way to get more superintendents and teachers to support the new A-F accountability system, slated for implementation in 2018. Huberty accepted more than a dozen amendments to the bill proposed by fellow representatives, which were intended to make the graded system more understandable and palatable to educators and parents.

“We wanted to solve the problem of accountability in the state of Texas,” Huberty said.

The bill passed quickly, without a record vote. House members still must take a final vote on the bill.

In 2015, legislators changed the system for rating schools and districts, from a pass/fail system to an A-F letter grade system. Educators argued the proposed grades were too reliant on standardized tests and did not adequately represent school achievement.

The original proposal for the new graded system would give schools and districts letters in five categories: student performance on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) exam, student progress on STAAR, closing the achievement gap, college and career readiness, and community engagement.

HB 22 would roll back those categories to just three: student achievement, student progress and school climate.

Districts would also be able to use locally selected exams, not just the state STAAR test, as a factor in their grades.

It would require grading schools on factors beyond standardized tests, including student participation in fine arts and extracurricular activities. It would also delay implementation of the new system from 2018 to 2019, and require the state to release two preliminary reports with unofficial grades for each school and district.

School superintendents have been open to the changes proposed in this bill, but many would prefer having no graded system for rating their schools.

Its companion bill was heard, but not voted on, in the Senate Education Committee late last week. The Senate’s version would also compress the five categories into three, but it would not delay the rollout of the A-F system or allow schools to use local alternatives to standardized tests.

Supporters of the current proposed A-F rating system argue the changes proposed in the bill will dilute the mechanism for judging whether schools are educating students.

“We’re hopeful that today’s House proceedings weren’t an effort to avoid thoughtful, productive dialogue about the importance of accountability in school quality,” said Courtney Boswell, executive director of Texas Aspires, a nonprofit advocating for more testing and stricter accountability. “As HB 22 makes its way through the legislative process, there is still a chance to make meaningful collaborative improvements in the A-F system to benefit students.”

House members Wednesday also prepared to debate Rep. Gary VanDeaver’s House Bill 515 to roll back high-stakes testing, in part by eliminating standardized exams currently required or suggested for graduation.

Read related Tribune coverage:

• The House Public Education Committee passed a bill to overhaul a proposal to give schools and districts grades between A and F, to try and get educators on board with the accountability system.
• House Public Education Committee Chairman Dan Huberty and Senate Education Committee Chairman Larry Taylor filed bills to help make the A-F accountability system more palatable to educators, who say grading their schools won’t help them serve students better.