State and Federal Accountability

State Accountability

The state of Texas assigns ratings that designate acceptable and unacceptable performance for districts and campuses. The following ratings are assigned to each district and campus based on its performance on the required domains. 

  • A, B, C, D, or F: Assigned for overall performance and for performance in each domain to districts and campuses (including those evaluated under alternative education accountability [AEA]) that meet the performance target for the letter grade.

  • Not Rated indicates that the campus did not receive a rating.

Districts and campuses that receive acceptable accountability ratings are eligible to earn distinction designations (acceptable performance is defined as an overall rating of A, B, or C). Distinction designations are awarded for achievement in several areas and are based on performance relative to a group of campuses of similar type, size, grade span, and student demographics. Districts are eligible for a distinction designation in postsecondary readiness.

Federal Accountability

At the close of 2015, Congress passed and the President signed into law the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The ESSA provides greater flexibility on federal accountability, allowing states to use their accountability systems to identify schools in need of improvement. To align identification of schools for improvement under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) with the state’s accountability system, TEA utilizes the Closing the Gaps domain performance to identify comprehensive support and improvement (CSI), targeted support and improvement (TSI), and additional targeted support (ATS) schools.

  • Comprehensive Support and Improvement schools  are schools with a six-year federal graduation rate of less than 66.7% and/or schools with a Closing the Gaps score at the bottom five percent of each school type in the state.

  • Targeted Support and Improvement schools are schools that have consistently under-performing student groups. A student group that misses the targets in at least the same three indicators in domain 3, for three consecutive years, is considered "consistently underperforming."

  • Additional Targeted Support schools are schools identified as Targeted Support and Improvement who in addition have a Closing the Gaps score that is lower than the score used to identify the lowest performing five percent of each school type.

Federal designations are available posted in the state accountability reports.

Accountability Resources

Texas Performance Reporting System (TPRS)

The TPRS is the most comprehensive state academic accountability report published by the Texas Education Agency. It combines data previously released in state accountability reports and shows results for student groups that were not previously reported separately.

Texas School Accountability Dashboard

Designed by the Texas Education Agency, the dashboard provides a summary of state, district, and school performance. It also allows users to compare performance between districts or schools. 

A.R.E.A. SharePoint Site

Texas Education Code

Texas Education Agency