What the Texas Education Agency’s A-F ratings actually mean

August 15, 2026 - 03:05

Friday brought the release of the Texas Education Agency's yearly accountability scores for public schools, and with them came the usual mix of celebration, frustration, and confusion. The familiar A through F labels are meant to give parents a quick snapshot of campus performance, but the system behind those letters is more layered than it appears.

The ratings are built on three main pillars. The first is student achievement, which looks at how well students performed on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, tests. The second is school progress, which measures whether students are improving over time, even if they have not yet reached grade-level standards. The third is closing the gaps, which compares outcomes for different student groups, including those from low-income families, English learners, and students receiving special education services.

Each campus earns a score out of 100, and that number is then translated into a letter grade. A school needs a 90 or above for an A, 80 to 89 for a B, 70 to 79 for a C, and 60 to 69 for a D. Anything below 60 results in an F. But the final grade is not a simple average of the three domains. Instead, the state applies a heavier weight to student achievement and school progress, while closing the gaps carries less weight. That means a school with strong test scores can still earn a high rating even if some student subgroups are lagging behind.

The ratings also come with a separate distinction designation for schools that excel in specific areas, like science or comparative academic growth. These are not factored into the main letter grade but are meant to highlight particular strengths.

For parents, the letter is a useful starting point, but it does not tell the whole story. A B-rated school might still have serious struggles with certain groups of students, while a C-rated campus could be showing rapid improvement. The TEA updates the methodology every few years, and the pandemic years brought temporary pauses and rule changes, which makes year-to-year comparisons tricky.

the ratings are a snapshot, not a verdict. They offer a standardized way to look at hundreds of campuses side by side, but they do not capture everything that happens inside a classroom. Teachers, principals, and local communities know their schools far better than any single letter can convey.