Judge temporarily blocks Texas Education Agency from publishing AF grades

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For the second year in a row, Texas school districts have asked courts to intervene in the state’s methods for grading their academic performance.

And, also for second consecutive yeara judge blocked Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath from releasing those grades, known as AF accountability grades.

As of Monday, the order banning the release of AF grades is temporary, preventing the Texas Education Agency (TEA) from releasing grades this week as planned. TEA had planned to release official grades to districts on Tuesday and to the public on Thursday.

On Monday, five Texas school districts filed suit in Travis County district court, requesting that the publication of AF grades be halted. Judge Karin Crump granted their request and issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting publication until a hearing scheduled for Aug. 26.

Attorneys Nick Maddox and David Campbell of the law firm O’Hanlon, Demerath & Castillo represent school districts that sued TEA over accountability grades both last year and this year.

Last year, the lawsuit centered around changes made to how TEA measured accountability after the students on whom the measures were based had already graduated. This year, Maddox said the focus of the lawsuit is that so much of the accountability grades are based on standardized tests.

“We believe there are some significant and critical errors in the STAAR test that was taken by all students, and we would like to see the entire STAAR test rejected for all students in all school districts in the State of Texas,” Maddox said.

Maddox said the use of artificial intelligence to grade written responses on the STAAR test invalidates its results. She added that new rules limiting access to alternative STAAR tests for special education students were also problematic.

“The state has used a computer AI grading system for the first time in the state’s history,” Maddox said. “The provenance of this program, who programmed it, and [y] “These tests, the validity of which are under complete scrutiny because there is no information about them. We know that it was a multi-million dollar purchase of taxpayer money, and we also know that it yielded many erroneous results and gave students many zeros where the human grader would have given partial credit or full credit.”

Maddox said his team is also arguing that the STAAR test has not been analyzed by professionals called psychometricians.

A statement provided by a Texas Education Agency spokesperson said the agency is reviewing the new lawsuit and “will evaluate appropriate next steps.”

“The AF accountability system is good for kids,” agency officials said in the statement. “That’s why the legislature adopted a strong AF framework to help improve the quality of student learning across the state, give parents a clear understanding of how well their schools are performing, and set clear expectations for school leaders so they can better serve students. It’s disappointing that a small group of school boards and superintendents who oppose fair accountability and transparency have once again filed a lawsuit aimed at preventing AF grades from being issued and keeping families in the dark about how their schools are performing.”

Last year’s lawsuit blocking the 2022-2023 accountability grades is currently under appeal. More than 100 districts have joined the suit.

Maddox said he expected more school districts to join the lawsuit this year as well.

“We have several school districts whose superintendents have told us they are going to their board to join a lawsuit like this,” he said. “That process takes time.”

The five initial plaintiffs in the 2024 lawsuit are Forney ISD, Crandall ISD in North Texas, Fort Stockton and Pecos-Barstow-Toyah ISD in West Texas, and Kingsville ISD in the Coastal Bend area near Corpus Christi. Forney ISD, with about 17,000 students, is the largest school district in the initial group.

During the hearing scheduled for Aug. 26, the judge could lift the restraining order or continue to block the commissioner from releasing the ratings until the case is decided.