This year’s A-F ratings, used by the state to capture how effective schools are at teaching students, show almost every school district in San Antonio faring better than last year.
Known as the accountability system, A-F is sometimes criticized for relying heavily on state assessments and getting progressively harder when the state updates the system every five years.
Most of San Antonio’s failing schools are located in underserved neighborhoods with high economically disadvantaged rates, according to the results released Friday. But there are some bright spots, where students and teachers beat the odds and get an A or B rating.
In the Bexar County area, the number of failing school districts went from three to one, and five districts went up a a full letter grade, including Harlandale ISD, Judson ISD, North East ISD, South San Antonio ISD and Southside ISD.
Across the state, the number of F-rated schools decreased by 1%.
Texas education commissioner Mike Morath often says any school can score an A under the system, regardless of a school’s demographics. Other supporters of the system say it’s a consistent and fair way to measure how students are doing across the state.
“Tracking school performance over time is one of the strongest tools Texas has for improving public education,” said Carlo Castillo, senior research analyst at Texas 2036, a nonpartisan policy think tank focused on education and workforce development.
“The state’s accountability system gives school system leaders the information they need to identify what’s working and what isn’t inside their own schools,” Castillo added.
How is A-F measured?
Texas’ A-F rating system measures how much students are learning, but the formula looks different for different grade levels.
At the elementary and middle school levels, ratings are weighed by combining the better of student achievement or student growth with how much a school closes learning gaps for historically underserved students.
Often, campuses who’ve jumped up letter grades did so with a “growth” score, showing that students are learning more than they did last year because STAAR scores improved.
High school ratings use the same formula, but the student achievement section weighs college, career and military readiness and graduation rates on top of STAAR results.
Students can show college, career and military readiness, or CCMR, by doing things like taking a certain number dual credits courses, earning an industry certification or scoring highly in college entrance exams.
After all of those factors are measured — STAAR, CCMR, closing the gaps, etc. — the state compares schools in groups of 40 that have similar demographics. This part can also affect scores, factoring in how a school performs within their group.
F and D ratings are considered unacceptable ratings by the state, and if a school earns a failing rating five years in a row, the Texas Education Agency is required by law to either close that school or take over the district by replacing the locally elected school board with a state-appointed board of managers and superintendent.
In recent years, TEA has taken over school districts at a breakneck pace, including some of the state’s largest districts like Houston Independent School District and Fort Worth ISD. Last February, the state took over South San Antonio ISD after a TEA investigation found the board was dysfunctional and mismanaging funds.
This year, South San actually saw the largest score growth, going from a 65 to a 75, driven largely by student improvement on the STAAR.
How did ‘turnaround’ schools do?
No San Antonio school district was in danger of meeting the five-year threshold for state takeover this year like others in Texas, but several were on notice after getting failing ratings for three years in a row for the 2024-25 school year.
Last year, five area-school districts had campuses that required TEA-mandated “turnaround” plans because of unacceptable ratings.
San Antonio ISD had 18 campuses with turnaround plans, the most in the area, and district officials placed them on a “watchlist.”
But early projections showed officials that several of those campuses were unlikely to earn a higher score for the 2025-26 school year, so SAISD closed two schools and handed control of another three to an outside group called Third Future Schools, known for quickly turning schools around academically.
The 2025-26 ratings back up the fears of SAISD officials. Carvajal Elementary and Rhodes Middle School, which closed in May, both received their fourth consecutive F ratings.
The two elementary schools now under the Third Future School network — Hirsch and Ogden — also got failing ratings despite some improvement in overall student achievement.
Tafolla Middle School is also under Third Future Schools, but the campus letter grade hasn’t been published yet, because the campus had two different school identification codes for the 2025-26 school year.
Among the other schools on SAISD’s watchlist, almost all went up a letter grade, and at least two have passing, C ratings now, including Herff Elementary and Highland Hills Elementary.
Other school districts with turnaround campuses included Northside ISD, Judson ISD, Edgewood ISD and Harlandale ISD.
At Northside ISD, only one campus was in need of urgent turnaround, Mead Elementary, which went from three consecutive Fs to a B for the 2025-26 school year, driven largely by student improvement on the STAAR.
Like SAISD, Edgewood ISD also partnered with Third Future Schools for the current school year, giving the network control of Brentwood Middle School, which got a fourth consecutive failing grade for the 2025-26 year.
Other priority campuses, like Roy Cisneros Elementary, Las Palmas Leadership School For Girls and Roosevelt Dual Language Academy saw some improvement but still have unacceptable ratings.
Now, Edgewood ISD is the only district with a failing rating from the state in San Antonio.
While Judson ISD went from a D to a C rating, two of its schools earned their fourth F rating in a row: Park Village Blended Learning Academy and Metzger Middle School. However, Kirby Middle School went from an F to a B.
At Harlandale ISD, which saw an overall 5-point increase across the district, its priority campus Vestal Elementary did not do better this year, earning a third F in a row and its fourth consecutive failing rating.
While most turnaround schools saw improvements, none of the five school districts are safe from threats of state intervention unless they perform significantly better during the current 2026-27 school year.
Charter results mixed
The scores for local charter school networks were more mixed.
While most charter networks either kept the same rating or improved, several took significant hits.
Inspire Academies dropped nine points from an 80 or B last year, to a 71 or C. The network has two campuses in San Antonio.
Operating one campus with fewer than 300 students, Promesa Academy is now a D-rated district after dropping 17 points from the 2024-25 school year. Last year, the charter actually went from an F rating to a C rating.
Charter networks with significant gains include Triumph Public High Schools, with one campus in San Antonio that went from a 63 to a 75.
Legacy Traditional Schools, which operates three schools in the area, saw an overall increase of nine points that pushed the network from a C to a B.
Changes to accountability
State law requires TEA to update the accountability system every five years — and the next update is slated to take effect in 2028.
Past refreshes haven’t gone smoothly.
The last refresh went into place in the middle of the 2023-24 school year, and some districts even sued TEA to try to stop the state from releasing ratings for that year. Despite the opposition, a judge later ruled that TEA had not overstepped and was free to publish scores.
School districts have also been gearing up for changes to the way college, career and military readiness is weighed in high school. The state has gradually been narrowing the scope on how students can earn CCMR points, which count for 20% of a school’s A-F rating, making the process more rigorous for students and school staff alike.
The state is also working on a new testing system to replace STAAR, which won’t go into effect until the 2027-28 school year.
Starting in fall 2027, the newly created “Student Success Tool,” or SST, will be three shorter tests that students take throughout the school year instead of the single STAAR exam that’s been in place for more than a decade.
Created to reduce testing anxiety and give families quicker results, TEA officials say the SST shouldn’t affect how accountability is measured, since they plan to use results from the last of the three tests for A-F.
Families can learn more about how their schools scored at txschools.gov.
This story first appeared in the San Antonio Report.