Published: August 02, 2008 02:18 am            

TEA ratings improve for Palestine High School

PALESTINE — Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of stories about the Texas Education Association’s 2008 Accountability Ratings. Reports on other district ratings will be published over the next week.



While they may not be quite out of the woods, Palestine Independent School District administrators can certainly see daylight ahead in Texas Education Agency Accountability ratings released to the district Thursday.

The district and all three of its TEA-measured campuses received ratings of “Academically Acceptable,” the TEA’s third highest rating, with the high school seeing a much-desired boost in its rating from “Academically Unacceptable” in 2007.

That poor 2007 rating put the high school campus under a TEA monitoring system for 2007-08 and will again in 2008-09, according to PISD Superintendent Dr. Tommy Wallis.

“The high school must improve its ratings for two years in a row after the unacceptable rating is given to avoid a ‘reconstruction’ of the campus,” Wallis said in a Friday telephone interview.

A reconstruction would require every teacher and administrator to reapply for their jobs, with only new hires being exempt from the process, the superintendent explained.

“But the district and the high school have taken a great first step toward improving ratings,” Wallis said. “It is a fantastic credit to our teachers and department heads.

“They are to be praised for their efforts.”

Wallis said he was able to share the good news about the district’s TEA ratings with trustees during a called meeting and workshop Thursday.

“It was great to present the positive news to the board last night,” he said. “They all seemed pleased.

“We are all breathing a little easier about the ratings, and they are going to be even better next year.”

About Accountability Ratings

The TEA determines accountability ratings — from highest to lowest, Exemplary, Recognized, Academically Acceptable and Academically Unacceptable — based on a district’s TAKS results as well as completion and dropout rates.

For example, to achieve Palestine ISD’s district “Academically Acceptable” ratings, at least 70 percent of the tested students passed the Reading/ELA portion of the TAKS, at least 65 percent passed Writing and Social Studies portions, at least 50 percent passed the Math portion and at least 45 percent passed the Science portion.

To be designated as Recognized, at least 75 percent of the tested students must pass every portion of the TAKS test. An Exemplary rating is achieved when at least 90 percent of the tested students pass all portions of the TAKS.

Completion rate measures the percent of students who first attended ninth grade in the 2003-04 school year and have completed or are continuing their education four years later.

These students were tracked over the four years using data provided to TEA by districts and data available in the statewide General Educational Development (GED) database.

To receive an academically acceptable rating, a district must have a completion rate of 75 percent or higher, with a 85 percent rate or more for a recognized rating and 95 percent or more for an exemplary rating.

The dropout rate is used to evaluate campuses and districts with students in seventh and eighth grades. This is a one-year measure, calculated by summing the number of dropouts across the two grades.

The standard for the Annual Dropout Rate is 2 percent or less for all rating categories.

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Mary Rainwater may be reached via e-mail at mrainwater@palestineherald.com

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On the Net:

Texas Education Agency 2008 Accountability Ratings, http://www.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/account/2008/index.html

        

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