Texas Independent School Districts and The State of Texas Education Agency
Home Buying Parents relocating to Texas often ask our GMAC real estate agents how the Texas Education Agency and Texas Independent School District system works. This unofficial personal commentary on ISD's and public schools was created to provide a simple educational overview to parents relocating into Texas who asked for a quick overview to understand how things work. Use the highlighted links to gain further information.
Each City, Town or Village webpage contains information on the area schools and independent school district. This is a supplementary overview.
Texas Public School Systems
Area Independent School Districts
Public Elementary, Middle and High Schools are located in Independent School Districts (ISDs). The Texas Education Agency groups ISD's by Region. Looking at the Map in the top right corner, you see that all of our ISD's are in Regions 10 and 11. In the northern suburbs of Dallas, the ISD's range in size (number of schools) and each is tied to a city or town although multiple communities may be included in a single ISD like Lewisville Independent School District LISD which has all or part of 13 communities.
The size of an Independent School District ISD has no correlation to the quality of education found in the schools. Larger sized ISD's do however have a direct correlation to the difficulty in obtaining a TEA Rating of Exemplary or Recognized as explained below.
How Public Schools Are Rated
Our Unofficial Overview Of The State of Texas Education Agency (TEA)
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) uses a standardized Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) and in the fall of each year publishes an AEIS Report that assigns Accountability Ratings to each Public school and district, based on their performance. A significant part of the rating relies on TAKS Testing results but the Accountability Rating from the Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) pulls together a wide range of information on the performance of students in each school and district in Texas every year.
TEA Accountability Ratings are:
Very Important
If any school rates Exemplary in every single criteria except ONE criteria is rated Academically Acceptable then the School's Accountability Rating is "Academically Acceptable".
The Big Problem I personally have with the TEA Accountability Ratings of ISD's is this:
It's Very Difficult for a Larger Independent School District to obtain a RECOGNIZED Rating and Impossible to be rated Exemplary. For example, an ISD has 50 schools. In order for the ISD to be rated as Recognized, every single school must be rated as Exemplary or Recognized. If only one of the 50 schools gets rated as Academically Acceptable, the ISD get that rating too.
An ISD or school must meet the criteria for every applicable measure to be rated Exemplary, Recognized, or Academically Acceptable. Each subgroup (african american, hispanic, white, economically disadvantaged, special education and limited-English speakers) must also meet the criteria. If the criteria for a rating are not met by any subgroup for every measure, then the next lower rating is assigned.
- Results of Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS); by grade, by subject, and by all grades tested;
- Results of State-Developed Alternative Assessment II (SDAA II);
- Progress of Prior Year TAKS Failers;
- Results of Student Success Initiative;
- Results of Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills-Inclusive (TAKS-I); by subject;
- Progress of English Language Learners (ELL);
- Performance-Based Monitoring (PBM) Special Education Monitoring Results Status;
- Attendance Rates;
- Annual Dropout Rates (grades 7-8 and grades 7-12);
- Completion Rates (4-year longitudinal);
- Completion of Advanced / Dual Enrollment Courses;
- Completion of the Recommended High School Program or Distinguished Achievement Program;
- Participation and Performance on Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) Examinations;
- Texas Success Initiative (TSI) – Higher Education Readiness Component; and
- Participation and Performance on the College Admissions Tests (SAT I and ACT).
The AEIS performance indicators are:
The Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) reports are online and provide a great deal (sometimes overwhelming) of performance information about every public school and district in the state. These reports also provide extensive profile information about staff, finances, and programs. Please read About AEIS for a more detailed description of the reports.
Easiest Way To Get Current Accountability Ratings and AEIS Reports.
Each Independent School District and most individual schools have websites which provide parents with the current ratings and usually a Compare | Contrast to previous years. If you want to pull the TEA reports, they are online but we recommend that you narrow your search to a community or neighborhoods you like, then print AEIS reports for the schools there. Again, a great deal of information is located on the ISD and individual school websites. To keep from being lost in the data, acronyms and abbreviations, we strongly suggest that you visit the school website and contact the principal and/or counselor of each school to get a more complete picture of the school.
About Private Schools In Texas
The Texas Education Agency TEA is only for public schools. The Texas Private School Accreditation Commission, TEPSAC, helps ensure quality in private schools by monitoring and approving organizations that accredit the various non-public elementary and secondary educational institutions in the state of Texas.
The Texas Private School Accreditation Commission TEPSAC provides private school information including school contact information, school websites and enrollment by Texas County. The communities surrounding Lewisville Lake are in Denton County and Collin County.
If you are considering a specific private school for your children, visit their website or call the school and they will provide you with the specific information concerning their accreditation, programs and culture.
The Hitz Realtor Team, Keller Williams Realty, GMAC Real Estate created this educational page to assist relocating parents and answer the questions most of you ask. This is an advisory service to our clients and we want to emphasize that we are Realtors, not school experts. Our intent was to provide educational information but parents should always use the TEA, local ISD's and Schools to get the information they need to make informed decisions.