"At Last, School Ratings Which Mean Something"

Monday, December 20, 2004
by Donna Garner

With the advent of No Child Left Behind plus the new TAKS accountability system, many people in Texas are confused as to how their schools and districts are performing on academic measures. 

Because the Texas Legislature in 2001 established the Gold Performance Acknowledgements to recognize publicly those schools/districts which have achieved above the minimum, the public can now access data which means something. The Texas Education Agency has posted the 2004 Gold Performance Acknowledgements at the following website: http://www.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/account/2004/statelist.html . 

Each school and school district in Texas is listed on this site. Beside each school/district are the ratings on each of eleven indicators. A ++ means "Gold Performance Acknowledged" in that particular indicator. "NQ" means the school/district did not qualify in that indicator (in other words, did not meet the Gold Performance Acknowledgement standard). A helpful explanation about how each of the eleven indicators is calculated is given on http://www.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/account/2004/manual/sec_4.pdf . 

The reason the Gold Performance Acknowledgements (GPA) is significant data is that it covers not just the TAKS test results, but it also covers indicators which are tied to nationally normed tests (ACT, SAT, AP/IB tests). 

To put it another way, the GPA results do include some state-controlled data but also include data which cannot be controlled at the state level. This lends more credibility to the GPA results. Another reason this data is significant is that the TAKS data (Reading/ELA, Math, Writing, Science, and Social Studies) in the Gold Performance Acknowledgements is based upon the "Commended" level -- not just the "Passing" level which was set much lower on the 2004 TAKS. 

The eleven indicators are listed below: Advanced Course Completion Advanced Placement/International Baccalaureate Results Attendance Commended on Reading/English Language Arts Commended on Math Commended on Writing Commended on Science Commended on Social Studies Recommended High School Program SAT/ACT Results TAAS/TASP Equivalency