Arlington ISD plans to appeal its accountability rating as the Texas Education Agency releases STAAR test results. TEA released results Friday morning; Arlington ISD received a score of 76 out of 100 giving the district a "C" grade.
Arlington ISD says the score was a two point increase from last year, and 48 campuses improved their score. The district says the number of schools with an "A" grade increased from three to six; the number of schools graded an "F" dropped from 14 to nine. Twelve schools improved from a D or F to A, B or C.
A complete list of accountability scores is available here.
At a school board meeting earlier this month, Superintendent Matt Smith said the state uses artificial intelligence to grade STAAR tests. He said districts have the ability to ask the Texas Education Agency to re-score tests, and the scores released Friday do not include 4,370 tests Arlington ISD asked to be reviewed.
"While we are proud of the measurable progress across our district, these official scores are strong, but they don’t yet show the complete picture of our students’ gains,” Smith wrote in a statement. “Our rescore analysis shows clear improvement, and we are committed to making sure those results are recognized.”
At the school board meeting, Smith said teachers and administrators found tests that should be reviewed based on the students' scores compared to how they perform in the classroom.
"It is disheartening to think an AI-generated product is impacting student learning and school district accountability in a way that it is right now, but that's the reality we're living with," he said.
Smith said Arlington ISD uploaded information in June, but in July, he said TEA had an issue and would not include new calculations in school accountability scores.
"We obviously voiced some concerns to TEA at that time," Smith said. "I had a conversation directly with Commissioner [Mike] Morath about our concerns. I will say he was responsive to some concerns on the student level. We were very clear some of our students were relying on that for summer graduation."
When tests were reviewed, Smith said 25% of students should have had higher scores. While students' scores have been updated, he said they are not included in the assessment of the district overall.
"Our plan is to appeal those TEA scores," he said. "We actually believe these testing scores will improve the performance of our schools."
Smith said Arlington ISD believes in accountability, but "we also want to make sure that we’re held accountable in a fair, productive and, I would say, accurate way."