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The share of Texas public schools that are failing dropped by half in the past year, marking the lowest rate of underperforming campuses since letter grades were introduced for schools in 2019.
New data released by the Texas Education Agency on Friday show public schools have made overall gains in their state ratings, which measure how well they are educating their students. F ratings across campuses in the state declined from 8% to 4%. About one in three campuses improved their score from the prior year.
[Texas released two years of A-F ratings for schools and districts. See how yours did.]
The TEA also released grades for the 2023-24 school year, which had been held up in court.
These letter grades shape communities. Parents may pull their kid out of a school after a low score. And all it takes is five years of failing grades at one campus for a district to face bruising sanctions. The state has ordered underperforming schools to shut down and replaced a district’s democratically elected school board with state appointees when they have reached that threshold — like with the Houston school district state takeover in 2023.
More struggling schools are inching toward those state sanctions. According to an analysis from The Texas Tribune, the number of schools with consecutive years of grades considered unacceptable by the TEA — based on D or F ratings — jumped from 64 in the 2022-23 school year to 348 in the 2024-25 school year.
Connally Elementary School in Waco and Marilyn Miller Language Academy in Fort Worth are among the campuses feeling the most pressure. The ratings released Friday showed both schools have amassed five years of unacceptable grades. Districts with schools in that situation can pick a charter school to take over campus operations to avoid a state takeover. It was unclear Friday afternoon if those schools have arranged such a partnership. TEA did not immediately respond to questions about whether they qualify for a takeover.
Since campuses first got letter grades in 2019, education advocates have criticized the state’s school accountability system saying it doesn’t fully account for the challenges schools in low-income areas face, which often work with fewer resources to serve students with higher needs.
Ratings for schools and districts largely depend on standardized test scores and are based on three categories: how students perform on state tests and meet college and career readiness benchmarks; how students improve on their academic skills over time; and how well schools are educating the state’s most disadvantaged students.
Even so, districts with higher rates of low-income students are more likely to get a D or an F than their wealthier counterparts. This year, nearly one in four schools in the highest poverty bracket received a D or an F, compared to less than 1% of schools in the lowest bracket, according to the Tribune’s analysis.
Texas Education Agency commissioner Mike Morath has said schools in high-poverty areas can still score well on the A-F rating system. In TEA’s own analysis, 43% of high-poverty campuses received an A or B last school year.
The latest ratings also suggest middle schools face greater challenges educating their students. Commit Partnership, an education nonprofit, found 54% of Texas middle schools received an A or B, compared to 56% of elementary schools and 74% of high schools. Texas middle schools have the highest rate of Ds and Fs, compared to schools for other grades.
Texas lawmakers made some investments in middle schools earlier this year. They expanded a program that increases instructional time to middle schools as part of a $8.5 billion school funding package.
The release of two years of ratings Friday bookends a fight between school districts and the state over how grades were calculated. A state appeals court last month ruled TEA could release the ratings, overturning a freeze from a lower court. A similar ruling from the same high court allowed the state to release 2022-23 school year ratings in the spring.
“Today marks a return to clarity and accountability,” Morath wrote in a statement. “With the release of the 2025 A–F Ratings, we are reinforcing our commitment to transparency and to providing accurate, readily available information that helps every family understand how their school is doing.”
As Texas parents evaluate their schools’ performance, they face a changing education landscape with more access to alternatives to public schools. A school voucher program set to launch in the 2026-27 school year will allow families to get about $10,000 in public taxpayer dollars to pay for their children’s private schooling.
This is a developing story; check back for details.
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TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.
