Dive Brief:
- Houston Independent School District has made "dramatic progress" in reducing the number of failing schools — down by nearly two-thirds in 2024 year over year, according to school-level accountability ratings released by the district Monday.
- Texas’ largest school district, which was taken over by the state in 2023, decreased its F-rated schools from 121 in 2023 to 41 in 2024. Meanwhile, its schools rated A or B jumped by 82%, from 93 in 2023 to 170 in 2024.
- In the past year, 55 district schools serving over 27,000 students improved from a D or F rating to an A or B rating.
Dive Insight:
"We are incredibly proud of what we’ve been able to achieve in one year,” said HISD Superintendent Mike Miles in a statement Monday. “Across the district, schools delivered significant improvements in student achievement on state assessments."
The news confirms Miles' prediction in June that many of the 123 schools previously rated D or F would be able to improve, potentially marking the beginning of a positive trend in student and school performance.
Preliminary data at the time showed that students in grades 3-8 and in high school had “one of the highest years of academic growth the district has ever experienced.”
The improvements in accountability ratings follow a controversial takeover last year that was preceded by political turbulence between district and state leadership, as well as in the school community.
The takeover was partly prompted by the poor performance of Wheatley High School, which Texas Commissioner of Education Mike Morath said had received "consecutive unacceptable academic accountability ratings" between 2011 and 2019. In 2021-22, Wheatley "earned an acceptable academic rating," Morath added, but that didn't undo the previous damage. By 2023, the school had received a D rating.
In 2024, that school received a B.
The positive results follow the implementation of the district's New Education System initiative, which was implemented in 85 out of 274 schools that were targeted for wholesale, systemic reform — rather than incremental changes as sometimes seen in other state school system takeovers.
In 2023, 11 NES schools received A or B ratings. That number jumped to 53 this past year.
For the 2024-25 school year, 45 additional campuses have been designated as NES schools, bringing the total to 130.
Miles said in June that if a positive trend in district performance were to continue, HISD could exit state intervention sooner and transition into an elected board in the next few years.
