TEA Ratings

  • Context on TEA Ratings for 2023-24 School Year Performance

    • Over the past few years, TEA has made changes to both the actual STAAR assessment our scholars take AND the calculations for how scholar scores translate to a district-wide letter grade
    • TEA shared that with the new grading calculations, it expected most districts and schools’ letter grades to fall 1-2 levels from letter grades received before the changes
    • This can be confusing to our stakeholders as Uplift’s overall achievement stayed relatively the same from the previous year and Uplift experienced more growth than the State, but our overall letter grade decreased from a B to a C.  Several of our schools also had their letter grades move down by 1-2 levels.
    • A small group of traditional public- school districts are in the middle of a lawsuit with TEA related to the public release of the new accountability ratings for schools and districts. 
    • Uplift Education fully supports the public disclosure of our network and school ratings.  We also fully support the State putting a higher bar in place for what excellence means for our public schools.  Below, we share what we predict our ratings to be under the new system given TEA is not able to publicly release the official ratings at this time.

    Uplift’s Predicted 2023-24 TEA Accountability Ratings By School: Ratings Link

    Uplift’s Plan for the 2024-25 School Year to Help Every Scholar Achieve at High Levels

    • For students at Uplift, around the State, and around the country, performance in math has not rebounded to pre-COVID pandemic levels.  We have increased teacher training on our math curriculum and created additional blocks of time to help scholars catch up on fundamental math skills while still having access to grade-level content.
    • We are providing extra supports to our lowest performing schools so that they can make meaningful improvements this school year.
    • We are making sure our scholars and families understand the importance of being at school every day unless a scholar is sick.  We saw a direct correlation between our scholars who had higher attendance and their Meets/ Masters levels on STAAR.
    • We are continuing to expand our extracurricular and athletic offerings to help increase our scholars’ sense of community and belonging at school.  We are committed to nurturing a range of interests in our scholars both academically and outside the classroom.

    Our Scholars Shined Beyond Just STAAR Scores in 2023-24:

    • We had ~160 8th graders select attending our new Uplift Heights Healthcare Institute in collaboration with Baylor, Scott & White Health where they will be prepared for a range of “good wage” careers
    • We had over 70% of our Seniors earn college credit through the IB Diploma Program
    • Our Senior Class of 2024 earned over $125M in free scholarships and grant dollars to support their post-secondary choices.
    • We continue to lead Dallas County on the percent of our scholars who go to college and who graduate from college.  Our alumni make ~$20K more than other young adults in Dallas County 6 years post-graduation.