The Texas A&M University System will join several other university systems from Republican-led states to launch a new accreditation agency.  According to U.S. News and World Report, the Texas A&M University System will join the university systems of Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina to launch the Commission for Public Higher Education.  Accreditation is a process where an outside entity evaluates a college or university to determine if it meets certain standards. Typically, these standards relate to programs, faculty, and resources. view article

Facing a $110 million budget deficit, Austin ISD’s trustees are receiving input from the public on a plan to consolidate some schools for the 2026–27 school year.  Austin Independent School District trustees are considering merging several schools to reduce costs in the wake of budget shortfalls.  During a board of trustees meeting Thursday, district leaders weighed community concerns and the economic benefits of consolidating schools as the district faces a massive $110 million budget deficit for the 2025-26 fiscal year.  Trustees focused on a survey taken by roughly 14,000 parents and members of the public who named a range of potential concerns and benefits associated with consolidation. view article

Austin Independent School District is grappling with its future as the Texas Education Agency votes on the district's turnaround plan for Dobie, Webb, and Burnet middle schools. The TEA is set to decide on AISD's turnaround plan, which could lead to a district-managed restart for the schools. Elizabeth Davis, co-president of Region 13 for the Association of Texas Public Educators and a Dobie Middle School educator, expressed her concerns about the potential for a TEA takeover. view article

The Austin Independent School District’s Board of Trustees approved plans for how it hopes to turn around three middle schools on track to receive a third failing state accountability rating soon. The district risks its school board being temporarily replaced by a state-appointed board of managers if any single campus racks up five consecutive failing scores. The ratings for each individual campus are calculated by looking at performance in several areas: view article

With the passage of education savings accounts and enrollment decreases in San Antonio’s biggest school districts, it’s no surprise that “school choice” has become more competitive for public and private schools alike.   Northside Independent School District, the largest district in San Antonio, recently started “Excellence Without Boundaries,” an open enrollment program allowing any student in the San Antonio area to apply to attend any one of its schools.   While the district has long housed magnet schools and in-district charters that enroll students regardless of their address, Superintendent John Craft said it was the “right time” to go ahead with a more competitive strategy.  view article

Located on the far South Side, right outside San Antonio city limits and Loop 1604, Somerset Independent School District is one of a handful of school districts in the country to academically recover from the 2020 pandemic.   Modestly sized with an enrollment of 4,145 students, Somerset ISD has eight schools, including Somerset Junior High, one of the highest-performing schools in Bexar County.   More than 86% of students across the district are considered economically disadvantaged, meaning they qualify for free or reduced lunch. At the junior high, the number is only slightly lower, at nearly 85%.  To Roni Gonzales, who’s served as Somerset Junior High principal for five years and has been with the district since 2005, it’s all about looking at the data and building a student’s confidence. view article

Elementary and middle school students across San Antonio are slowly inching back to pre-pandemic performance levels on state assessments, with some school districts even surpassing their 2019 scores in some subjects.   But for the most part, San Antonio scores remain largely flat, seeing a roughly 2% bump across reading and math grade level performance.   While math scores across Texas are still not what they were before the pandemic, reading scores have overall exceeded 2019 performance, according to spring STAAR data released by the Texas Education Agency on Tuesday.  view article

Elementary and middle school students across San Antonio are slowly inching back to pre-pandemic performance levels on state assessments, with some school districts even surpassing their 2019 scores in some subjects.   But for the most part, San Antonio scores remain largely flat, seeing a roughly 2% bump across reading and math grade level performance.   While math scores across Texas are still not what they were before the pandemic, reading scores have overall exceeded 2019 performance, according to spring STAAR data released by the Texas Education Agency on Tuesday.  view article

Liberty Hill ISD outperformed the state in every subject and grade level on the 2025 State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness test, according to results released June 17.   The district saw both improvements and declines in reading and math scores compared to 2024.  The overview: LHISD student performance was highest in U.S. History, Biology and fourth grade reading, with 97%, 95% and 91% of students approaching grade level, respectively. The district saw the lowest performance in seventh grade math and eighth grade social studies, with 56% and 66% of students passing those exams. view article

On the same day that Texas' top education department released its latest test scores, one North Texas school district called on Gov. Greg Abbott to push to abolish the state-mandated exams altogether.  The State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exams, taken each year by students in grades three through eight and in certain high school courses, is designed to measure how well a "student has learned and is able to apply the defined knowledge and skills in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills," according to the Texas Education Agency. State lawmakers in both chambers authored bills to scrap the exam for the first time since 2012 this legislative session but ultimately failed to reach a compromise before a key deadline. view article

The mixed-bag results showed early literacy improvements, a key indicator of future academic success, but underline the challenges of preparing children for STEM-related jobs.  Texas’ students saw some wins in reading but continued to struggle to bounce back from pandemic-related learning losses in math, state testing results released Tuesday showed.  Elementary students who took the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exam this year made the biggest gains in reading across grade levels. Third graders saw a three percentage point increase in reading, a milestone because early literacy is a strong indicator of future academic success. Progress among middle students in the subject, meanwhile, slowed. view article

Texas elementary and middle school students are passing STAAR exams at higher rates across many subjects in 2025 compared to 2024, according to new scores data released Tuesday by the Texas Education Agency.  The State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, measures elementary and middle school student performance and academic readiness across Texas schools. Students “pass” if they approach, meet or master expectations on the exams. view article

Students made gains in most State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness tests from the prior year, with steady improvements within Houston ISD that prompted leaders to tout a "Houston Comeback. " STAAR results released for third- through eighth-graders Tuesday show that students lost ground on math and social studies exam. End-of-course high school exam results were released last week, showing steady gains in Houston that outpaced more mixed results statewide. view article

Austin ISD students in third through eighth grade exceeded their pre-pandemic scores for reading across the board, results from the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR test, show. The scores, released Tuesday, show nearly all grades saw at least a small increase in the percentage of students meeting grade level. The only exception was seventh graders, who saw no change year over year, with 53% of students meeting grade level in 2024 and 2025. view article

Charter schools across Tarrant County are outpacing public school districts — except for one — in third-grade test scores, according to statewide assessment data released on Tuesday morning. The Texas Education Agency released the spring 2025 test scores for grades 3-8 on Tuesday, June 17, for the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, exam. The district-level and campus-level data shows education leaders, community members and parents how well students performed in reading, math, science and social studies at the end of the 2024-25 school year. view article

The Dallas ISD superintendent said newly-released preliminary data from the STAAR state test showed the district's strategies are largely working to improve student results, even as she continued to raise concerns about some aspects of the assessment. Dallas posted higher reading scores across grades three through eight and saw improvements in math scores for most grades. view article

Katy, Cy-Fair, Fort Bend and Conroe ISDs, which educate a combined 365,000 students — consistently scored above state averages on the elementary and middle school STAAR scores released Tuesday. However Houston, Fort Bend and Cy-Fair ISDs saw the most growth from last year. view article

The 2025 results show that a quarter to a third of elementary and middle school students fail to even approach grade level in reading and math. view article

AUSTIN, Texas – June 17, 2025 – The Texas Education Agency (TEA) today released the 3-8 Spring 2025 State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR®) results. The results include assessments in reading language arts (RLA) and mathematics in grades 3-8, as well as 5th and 8th grade science and 8th grade social studies.  This year’s results bring promising news in reading language arts, as the statewide performance of students meeting grade level surpasses pre-pandemic levels. This is a clear indication that the targeted instructional supports and recovery strategies are yielding meaningful outcomes for Texas students.  view article

To help three struggling North Austin middle schools improve their academic scores, the Austin school board is scheduled to vote by the end of this month on improvementplans that are largely based on a decade-old model born out of Dallas. Though the program has proven expensive, much of the data for this turnaround model – called Accelerating Campus Excellence, or ACE – have yielded strong results for student outcomes in districts that have mimicked it. view article

Thursday was an emotional evening at the Houston Independent School District’s board meeting. Parents expressed emotional frustration over what many said was a beloved librarian fired at Harvard Elementary in The Heights. The district and its superintendent took the opportunity to celebrate STAAR Testing results that it recently received for high school students. view article

Houston ISD's state-appointed board unanimously approved a $2.1 billion budget for the 2025-26 school year that will continue funding Superintendent Mike Miles' highly debated reforms.  Four new board members — Edgar Colón, Marty Goossen, Lauren Gore and Marcos Rosales — greenlit the budget just two weeks after their appointment to the board by the state's education commissioner.  Commissioner Mike Morath removed board Vice President Audrey Momanaee, Cassandra Auzenne Bandy, Rolando Martinez and Adam Rivon, who served on the district’s nine-member appointed school board since June 2023. Of those removed, three had voted against the 2024-25 budget last year: Martinez, Rivon, and Auzenne Bandy, alongside Michelle Cruz Arnold. It had been the board's largest public rebuke of any proposal by Miles, who largely sees unanimous approval from the board. view article

The Texas Education Agency released high school End-of-Course assessments for Spring 2025.  Newly released results of Texas high school students’ End-of-Course assessments for 2025 show “too many students are still not where they need to be academically,” according to the state agency that oversees public education.  The Texas Education Agency released Spring 2025 STAAR End-of-Course assessment results on Tuesday. Newly released results of Texas high school students’ End-of-Course assessments for 2025 show “too many students are still not where they need to be academically,” according to the state agency that oversees public education.  The Texas Education Agency released Spring 2025 STAAR End-of-Course assessment results on Tuesday.  STAAR is short for State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, standardized testing “designed to measure the extent to which a student has learned and is able to apply the defined knowledge and skills in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills at each tested grade, subject, and course.”  STAAR is short for State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, standardized testing “designed to measure the extent to which a student has learned and is able to applye defined knowledge and skills in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills at each tested grade, subject, and course.” view article

Karen Molinar didn’t wait. Just hours after the Texas Education Agency released early state testing data, the Fort Worth ISD superintendent brought results straight to the school board — including results not yet public. Third-, fourth- and fifth-grade reading scores are rising, Molinar told trustees at a June 10 board meeting. Middle school results improved slightly, too. But for a district under state pressure to improve, Molinar and trustees are hopeful recent instructional changes will pay off. view article

Officials with the Fort Worth Independent School District are celebrating preliminary results from a statewide standardized test that they said shows gains in reading performance for grades 3 through 8. Superintendent Karen Molinar presented the early test results for spring 2025 during a school board meeting on Tuesday, June 10, a week before the Texas Education Agency publicly releases statewide testing data from the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, for elementary and middle school grades. TEA released End-of-Course assessment results for high school subjects on Tuesday morning, which showed the district had seen gains in student performance in Biology and Algebra I, but losses in English I, English II and U.S. History. view article

Among the Houston area's most populated school districts, many outperformed the state's average STAAR test scores — but students in Aldine, Pasadena and Spring trailed behind. The three school districts had smaller percentages of students "meet grade level" standards compared to Texas' average for high school students in almost all subjects tested: Algebra I, Biology, English I, English II and U.S. History. Pasadena ISD performed better than the state average in Algebra I. view article

Austin Independent School District parents rallied outside the Texas Education Agency on Tuesday, demanding more time to improve outcomes at schools with repeated failing accountability ratings. Three of the district’s middle schools, Dobie, Burnet and Webb, are set to receive their third consecutive failing accountability score when the 2024 state ratings are released, according to Austin ISD officials. A lawsuit filed by several school districts is currently preventing the TEA from releasing any state ratings from that year to the public. view article

Most large Houston-area districts saw slight declines over the past two years on STAAR test data released Tuesday, but most still outperformed state averages. Katy ISD, a west Houston district with 96,000 students, took the lead over other large Houston area districts in all subjects. Despite the district having seen its own slight declines over the past two years, students performed better on average than in all other large districts, with Cy-Fair ISD and Conroe ISDs in tow. view article

State-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles offered "nothing but praise" for Houston ISD's four recently ousted board members on a Hello Houston radio episode with Houston Public Media Tuesday morning.  iles offered his first comments on Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath's unexpected decision to remove and replace four appointed board members as well as the two-year extension of the takeover to June 1, 2027. Two years into the state takeover, Miles commended the district's recently-released test scores, new teaching strategies, and programs introduced during the district's overhaul, defended a rise in teacher turnover and community distrust and acknowledged the district's failed $4.4 billion bond. view article

As part of our ongoing commitment to providing equitable, rigorous and sustainable academic programming across Leander ISD, we are moving forward with a consolidation of the district’s International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme to a single high school campus: Leander High School. This decision follows an extensive review of enrollment trends, student access, staffing capacity and the program’s long-term financial sustainability and viability. view article

Adam Rivon, one of the four recently ousted members of the Houston ISD Board of Managers, won’t speculate on why he was suddenly removed from his role this week, though he said “people are intelligent and they can make their own assumptions.”  Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath unexpectedly removed Rivon, along with three other appointees, from their roles on the Board of Managers this week, and replaced them with four new board members. Morath also announced the extension of the state intervention of the district through June 1, 2027.   In an interview with the Chronicle, Rivon said the TEA told him they “wanted to bring in a new team,” but he wasn’t given any specific reasons why they decided to remove him from the appointed board after serving in the role since the state takeover of Texas’ largest school district in June 2023. view article

The Texas Education Agency has announced an extension of its takeover of Houston ISD. A letter sent out by TEA head Mike Morath on Monday morning states that the state's takeover of the district will now be extended until June 2027. view article

A legislative effort to scrap the STAAR test to respond to concerns that the test puts unnecessary pressure on students died in the last days of the legislative session.  House Bill 4, authored by state Rep. Brad Buckley, would have swapped the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness test for three shorter tests given throughout the school year.  The Senate and House failed to come out of closed-door negotiations with a compromise in time, missing a key legislative deadline this weekend.  Legislators in the House and Senate agreed that Texas schools needed to do away with the STAAR test. But in the end, the two chambers could not close the gulf over what they wanted to see out of the new test and from the A- ratings system, which uses standardized test results to grade schools’ performance.  Tensions had come to a head in recent years when a dispute over how ratings should be calculated led to two years of scores to be held up in court.  The Senate wanted to solidify the Texas Education Agency commissioner’s authority to set stricter standards for the ratings system. And to discourage schools from taking legal action again, the upper chamber’s version of the bill gave the TEA commissioner authority to appoint a conservator to districts that initiate lawsuits.  The House version, meanwhile, required the TEA to get approval from the Legislature before making major changes to the ratings system. And it left an avenue for districts to sue to challenge the TEA in the future, while setting up a fast-track court process so those lawsuits would not halt the release of the ratings.  The two chambers also differed over whether to keep or do away with a mandatory social studies test, with the House in favor of less testing.  Keep tabs on Texas politics and policy with our morning newsletter  Keep tabs on Texas politics and policy with our morning newsletter view article

The state takeover of Houston ISD will continue for two more years before the Texas Education Agency announces the timeline for the transition back to elected board members overseeing the district. TEA Commissioner Mike Morath said in a letter that HISD has made "tremendous" improvements in student academic performance during the first year of state intervention, as well as gains in finance, operations, special education compliance and school board governance. view article

Faizan Zaki, 13, stood as the final contestant Thursday night in the Scripps National Spelling Bee and contemplated the word that could make him champion: éclaircissement.  The Plano ISD student went through the word, the excitement in his voice growing letter by letter and his breath catching slightly as he finished it perfectly and the judges declared him the winner.  Faizan dropped to the floor exhausted and triumphant as the confetti rained down on him. view article