Texas posts preliminary 2026 A-F school ratings as districts face next steps

Texas educators started the school year with fresh public grades on Friday, Aug. 14, after the Texas Education Agency posted its 2026 A-F accountability ratings for 1,202 school systems and 9,105 campuses. The release gives superintendents and principals new numbers to explain immediately to families and staff, and it does so at a moment when districts are also trying to set the tone for the year ahead. (tea.texas.gov)

The headline statewide trend was modest improvement, not upheaval. TEA said 24% of both districts and campuses improved their rating from 2025, and 85% of campuses that received an A-F rating landed at C or above, which the state treats as acceptable performance. In the more detailed statewide breakdown, 1,186 school systems received an A-F grade while 16 were marked Not Rated; among those evaluated systems, 196 earned an A, 552 a B, 340 a C, 78 a D, and 20 an F. At the campus level, 8,545 campuses received an A-F grade and 560 were Not Rated. (tea.texas.gov)

What changes for educators is not only the letter on the website. These are the public, preliminary ratings for the 2025-26 school year, and they kick off a chain of compliance, communications, and school-improvement work. TEA released preliminary reports to districts in its secure system on Aug. 12, opened the appeals window the same day, and says final ratings will be posted Dec. 11. In the meantime, districts are expected to post ratings-related information publicly, and campuses with weak results can face new planning requirements before Thanksgiving. (tea.texas.gov)

Preliminary grades, immediate consequences

Texas' accountability formula helps explain why the ratings matter so much and why they are also easy to overread. Overall grades are built from the better of Student Achievement or School Progress, weighted at 70%, plus Closing the Gaps at 30%. In practice, that means the system is still driven heavily by STAAR performance, academic growth, college-career-military-readiness measures, and graduation rates. It is a consequential snapshot of academic outcomes, but not a full audit of school quality, staffing stability, school climate, enrichment, or day-to-day student experience. (tea.texas.gov)

That distinction matters this week because district leaders now have to do two jobs at once: message the overall grade and diagnose the domain scores underneath it. TEA's own public materials point leaders to the underlying reports and data downloads for exactly that reason. A district that stayed at a B can still have a weak Student Achievement score, or a campus that slipped overall may still show growth strong enough to shape this year's intervention strategy. For schools, the useful question is less “What letter did we get?” than “Which part of the formula moved, and is it likely to move again?” (tea.texas.gov)

The operational stakes are immediate for low-performing campuses. TEA told school systems this week that campuses receiving a first unacceptable count under state accountability must submit a board-approved Targeted Improvement Plan by Nov. 20, while campuses with a second consecutive unacceptable count must submit a board-approved turnaround plan by the same date. Campuses with a first or second overall D after an acceptable rating must also prepare a Local Improvement Plan. Those deadlines turn an August release into a fall governance issue, not just a public-relations exercise. (tea.texas.gov)

Houston's B, and the politics of proof

Houston ISD is the clearest example of how quickly these ratings become a wider argument about reform. On TXschools.gov, the state-run district posted a B overall with a score of 84. But the domain breakdown is more revealing: Houston ISD showed a C in Student Achievement, a B in School Progress, and a B in Closing the Gaps. That is a reminder that a single district letter can compress several different stories about performance into one public grade. (txschools.gov)

The symbolism is even sharper at Wheatley High School. TEA has said Houston's state intervention was triggered in part because Wheatley accumulated seven consecutive unacceptable ratings before the state installed a board of managers and named Mike Miles superintendent in 2023. This week, Houston Public Media and KHOU reported that Wheatley earned its first A rating, a result that makes the campus more than a turnaround anecdote: it is now a proof point in the state's case for takeover and in Houston ISD's case that its model is working. (tea.texas.gov)

But Houston also shows the limits of the victory lap. Houston Public Media reported that four HISD elementary schools received F ratings after the district had gone a year without any failing campuses. So even if Wheatley's improvement becomes the headline, district leaders still have to explain why some campuses remain fragile and what happens when a districtwide B masks very different school-level realities. That is the accountability story educators actually live with: not the statewide average, but the uneven map inside one system. (houstonpublicmedia.org)

The ratings also spill directly into how schools are run. Beginning July 1, Houston ISD shifted to an Earned Autonomy Framework that ties campus autonomy to sustained, multi-year TEA performance and achievement-gap thresholds. In other words, accountability ratings in Houston are not just a public label; they help determine how much freedom campuses can claim over instruction and operations. Expect other districts to study that closely, because Texas' A-F system increasingly functions as both a consumer-facing report card and an internal management tool. (houstonisd.org)

What school leaders still have to sort out

For superintendents and principals across Texas, the hardest part now is interpretation. TEA's statewide summary shows that 78% of campuses either held steady or improved, which means many communities will see little movement in the letter grade even when the underlying numbers shifted meaningfully. That creates a familiar problem: families see one character, while school leaders see a composite of test performance, growth, graduation, and subgroup outcomes that may point in different directions. The best district responses in the next few weeks will probably be the ones that translate those details clearly, instead of treating the rating as either a full vindication or a full verdict. (tea.texas.gov)

The next date to watch is not next summer; it is Sept. 11, when appeals are due, followed by Dec. 11, when TEA says final 2026 ratings will be released. Between now and then, districts must decide which schools need aggressive intervention, which need clearer public explanation, and which apparent wins are sturdy enough to last. In Houston, that means watching whether Wheatley's gain becomes durable evidence in the takeover debate. Across Texas, it means remembering that accountability season is no longer a postmortem. It now lands right at the opening bell. (tea.texas.gov)