Brownsville, Texas—Good news for Brownsville schools came with the release of accountability ratings by the Texas Education Agency Wednesday.
“This is the best year we have had since the state introduced the new TAKS,” said Raul Vasquez, administrator for assessment, research and evaluation for the district.
Four elementary schools were given “exemplary” status, the highest rating possible, and 23 other schools retained “recognized” status from last year’s ratings.
The district also had the first high school to reach “recognized” status since the new test was unveiled.
“We worked to improve all objectives we did poorly on last year,” said Resaca Elementary Principal Carlos Paredes. Resaca, Egly, Paredes and Putegnat elementary schools were the only four named “exemplary.”
No schools were deemed academically unacceptable — an improvement from last year, which had Lopez High School as one of two unacceptable schools in Cameron County.
Lopez Principal Dawn Hall said before- and after-school tutorials and extra benchmark testing boosted the school’s performance this year.
The TEA ratings are based on TAKS and state developed alternative assessment scores and annual dropout and completion rates.
Schools must score 90 percent or higher on the TAKS for “exemplary,” above 75 percent for “recognized” and above 50 percent for “academically acceptable.” Scoring below 50 percent deems a school “academically unacceptable.”
Although overall ratings have improved, most district schools still lack in the areas of math and science on the test.
Statewide, 27 school districts received “exemplary” status, up from 19 in 2006.
But more than 100 of the 1,222 school districts slipped from “recognized” to “academically acceptable,” most because they couldn’t handle tougher tests in math and science.
Math and science haunted the academically unacceptable campuses as well. Most of the 301 campuses and 59 districts that got the lowest ranking possible can point to failure in those two subjects as the reason, according to TEA.
“It is most likely that it was math or science scores that caused a district rating to change,” said Robert Scott, acting Commissioner of Education.
All four “exemplary” Brownsville Independent School District schools fell short of that status last year because of the science portion of the test.
“Science has been a challenge for all of us,” admitted Putegnant Principal Esmentina Treviño.
“The kids are good, they just need more practice,” said Lopez Principal Dawn Hall, referring to the renewed focus on math and science at the school. Lopez missed the “acceptable” mark by five points on the science portion of the TAKS last year.
Even Hanna High School, the only high school to be “recognized” this year, showed math and science scores in the 70th percentiles, as opposed to social studies and English language arts, where scores ranked in the 90 th and 80 th percentiles, respectively.
The Brownsville Herald
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