Judge Temporarily Blocks Release of Next Round of A-F Accountability Ratings

A Travis County judge late Thursday afternoon granted a temporary injunction that prevents, for now, the TEA from releasing the next round of A-F accountability ratings for ISDs, charters and their campuses.

In her order, State District Judge Catherine Mauzy wrote the school districts involved in the case demonstrated that issuing the ratings would cause “irreparable harm” to all Texas school districts.

More than a hundred school districts joined in the lawsuit as plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Education Commissioner Mike Morath.

The lawsuit sought the court order to temporarily prevent the education commissioner from going ahead with adopting final 2023 A-F accountability rule changes that the districts say would negatively affect their ratings — to be based on their School Year 2022-23 performance — by using criteria that was not in place when the 2022-23 school year began.

• Note: The TEA had announced last month that the scheduled Sept. 28 ratings release date would be delayed until at least late October or early November due to the TEA needing to recalculate the student growth targets portion of the ratings. The judge’s order notes that the commissioner had set an unspecified date of Nov. 1 or thereafter to release the ratings.

The temporary injunction prohibits Morath and anyone affiliated with him from assigning the new ratings system for the 2022-23 school year until further orders by the court or an appeals court. The judge scheduled trial for the lawsuit for Feb. 12.

The TEA, as reported in various media, issued a statement reflecting that the state will appeal the ruling, and the ISD plaintiffs issued a statement praising the ruling.