Houston ISD’s STAAR scores for high school students, while improved, remain below state grades – Houston Public Media

As Houston ISD high school students saw their standardized test scores improve year over year during the district’s first year under state-appointed leadership — and in some cases outperformed other urban districts in Texas – their results remained well below statewide scores.

The percentages of Texas students who met grade level standards in Algebra I, Biology, English I, English II and U.S. History were largely stable between spring 2023 and spring 2024, according to results from the STAAR end-of-course assessment released Friday by the Texas Education Agency (TEA). A greater percentage of students statewide met standards in English II — 60% this year compared to 56% last year — while that number dropped from 71% to 69% in U.S. history.

The percentage of HISD students meeting grade level increased this year in four of five subjects, with the score of 63 percent for U.S. history holding steady from last year. But HISD also had lower percentages of students meeting standards in each of the other subjects — 38% in Algebra I versus 45% statewide, 54% in biology versus 57% statewide, 44% in English I compared to 54% statewide and 49% in English II compared to 60% statewide.

Still, HISD’s results have been praised by state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles, who made changes to how programs are created and taught at dozens of HISD schools last year. Miles is expected to release HISD’s STAAR scores for grades 3-8 late Tuesday afternoon, while the TEA plans to release statewide scores for those grades this Friday.

“The overwhelming majority of our children had a good academic experience, and the overwhelming majority of our teachers, principals and students stepped up and engaged and achieved some of the highest scores the district has ever seen , despite (these) changes,” Miles said last week when addressing HISD’s high school STAAR results.

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Student performance in individual schools, within districts, and across the state is classified by the TEA as not at grade level, near grade level, at grade level, and proficient at grade level. Scores near grade level and above are considered passed by the state agency.

Miles was appointed to lead HISD by Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath, who also replaced HISD’s nine elected trustees with a board of trustees because Wheatley High School had a string of academic failures on the part of the State. Wheatley increased its percentages of students performing on grade level, compared to last year, in every subject except U.S. history.

Districtwide, the percentages of HISD students achieving grade level in English I and English II exceeded district figures as of 2019, reflecting a statewide trend, in more other urban districts in Texas and also among other large districts in the Houston area. In most cases, scores in the other three subjects lagged behind pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels.

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HISD’s STAAR scores among high school students this year were comparable to those of Dallas ISD. The latter district had higher percentages of students reaching grade level in Algebra I and English II, HISD had higher percentages in Biology and English I, and both had 63% of students reaching grade level in history of the United States.

HISD’s scores also compared similarly to those of El Paso ISD, as the latter had higher percentages of students reaching grade level in Algebra I and English I, while HISD had higher percentages in the other three subjects. HISD outperformed Fort Worth ISD and San Antonio ISD in all areas, while Austin ISD performed better than HISD in each of the five subjects.

Among all of these urban districts, only HISD and Dallas ISD saw their year-over-year percentages increase or remain stable in each of the five subjects.

Most other large Houston-area districts – Conroe ISD, Cy-Fair ISD, Fort Bend ISD, Humble ISD and Katy ISD – far outperformed HISD in terms of percentages of students reaching grade level in all five subjects. Aldine ISD in northeast Houston, meanwhile, fell below HISD in each of those topics.