Long-awaited accountability data shows growth in Dallas County and across Texas

The amount of students attending A- and B-rated districts and campuses across the state increased from 2024 to 2025. 24% of districts and 31% of campuses improved their rating year-over-year, with only 15% seeing a decline in the same time period. These insights come as the Texas Education Agency (TEA) releases A-F ratings for both school years. Due to the pandemic, lawsuits, and a methodological update in 2023, this marks the first time we’ve had access to several consecutive years’ worth of comparable accountability data since the creation of the system in 2017.

"Our educators deserve tremendous recognition for increasing the number of top-rated campuses and districts across Texas,” said Commit Partnership CEO Todd Williams. “Today’s release reinforces the importance of student-centered actions such as expanding Pre-K, adopting high-quality curriculum, providing targeted professional development, and retaining effective educators through the Teacher Incentive Allotment. Our Dallas County school systems have led the state on many of these efforts, and are now experiencing the positive impact. Now is the time to celebrate these remarkable efforts, as well as identify where additional support and resources are needed.”

Local Leadership Drives Outsized Growth

Here in Dallas County, positive trends mirrored and, in many cases, exceeded those seen across the state. The proportion of students attending an A- or B-rated campus in the county grew 13 percentage points this year, compared to 7 percentage point growth across the state of Texas. Now, over 75,000 more students are attending top-rated campuses than in 2023.

This is especially important as Dallas County serves a population of students experiencing economic disadvantage at a rate higher than the average seen across the state. But as TEA pointed out in their initial press release, “43% of high-poverty campuses were rated an A or B, continuing to prove demographics do not equal destiny.”

These gains come on the heels of several systemic changes implemented by our local school leaders in recent years. Most of our local districts have successfully implemented the Teacher Incentive Allotment, a model of strategic compensation shown by new research from Texas Tech to have a positive impact on student outcomes. Many are also strategically expanding Pre-K and career-tech offerings and adopting high-quality curricula, all steps shown to drive academic growth.

The “Accelerating Campus Excellence” Turnaround Model Shows Sustained Success

In 2017, with several campuses experiencing several consecutive years of “Improvement Required” ratings (the equivalent to an F in our current system), Dallas ISD spearheaded the “Accelerating Campus Excellence,” or ACE, school turnaround model. Building on the district’s Teacher Excellence Initiative multi-measure evaluation system, the district placed its top-rated teachers on historically underserved campuses and saw immediate results.

Accountability grades for 2024 and 2025 underscore how this method of strategic staffing, intensive resources and intervention continues to have sustained success, both in Dallas and across the state of Texas. Several former ACE campuses received A or B ratings this year after multiple failing grades in recent memory – including Titche and Truett Elementaries in Dallas, Boulevard Elementary in Ft. Worth, and Worsham Elementary in Aldine.

This is particularly significant as the state of Texas continues to scale ACE statewide through the School Action Fund and Resource Campus Designation. These policies aim to provide additional support and resources to campuses experiencing several years’ worth of low accountability ratings. This year’s House Bill 2 expanded Resource Campus eligibility significantly in hopes of driving more turnaround success.

Middle School Remain An Area of Continued Focus

Across the state of Texas, 54% of middle schools received an A- or B-rating, compared to 56% of elementary schools and 74% of high schools. While middle schools have seen some success, they face a greater uphill climb in improving their overall performance. Texas middle schools have the highest proportion of D- and F-rated campuses by school type.

These findings echo concerns raised during the 89^th Texas Legislature, where several strategic reforms were passed into law aimed at improving student outcomes on middle school campuses. Specifically, the Additional Days School Year, which provides funding for school systems seeking to increase instructional time, was expanded into middle schools with HB2. With data demonstrating a major positive impact to the addition of 25 instructional days to a school calendar, this reform has the potential to drive continued gains on our campuses that need them most.

State Policy Must Continue to Prioritize Transparency

All this comes against the backdrop of a special legislative session aimed, in part, at creating “effective tools to assess student progress and ensure school district accountability.” We are encouraged that the main vehicles for assessment and accountability reform being discussed, companion bills HB 8 and SB 8 (89 1), preserve an accountability system rooted solely in student outcomes. By maintaining a reliable, apples-to-apples comparison of academic success across our state’s over 1,200 school districts, we can continue to celebrate success as well as determine what strategies are needed in order to continuously improve.