Austin ISD TEA 2025 → 2026 Accountability Ratings Change
Austin ISD: Where the district gained, and what the gains are worth
**Written by Anthropic Claude AI, Opus 5Across 110 rated campuses, Austin ISD added +289 scaled points, a mean of +2.6 per campus. Seventy campuses gained, 14 held flat, 26 declined. The district itself moved from a C (77) to a B (81).
The more important finding is where the movement happened. Three-quarters of the district's net gain — +218 of +289 — came from campuses that started below 70. This was not a rising tide. It was concentrated improvement at the bottom of the distribution.
THE GAINS
Improvement scaled inversely with starting position. The lower a campus began, the more it moved:
Started F, below 60 — 23 campuses, mean +5.9, net +136
Started D, 60–69 — 18 campuses, mean +4.6, net +82
Started C, 70–79 — 24 campuses, mean +2.1, net +51
Started B, 80–89 — 23 campuses, mean +0.5, net +12
Started A, 90+ — 22 campuses, mean +0.4, net +8
Fourteen campuses crossed out of D/F territory into 70 or above — the most consequential category of movement, because it changes a campus's standing rather than just its score. Among them: Wooldridge (59→87), Ortega (65→85), Sadler Means (69→85), Oak Hill (69→83), Rodriguez (69→82), McBee (69→80), Andrews (64→79), Winn Montessori (57→75), Eastside ECHS (63→75), T.A. Brown (59→72), and Bedichek (59→71).
The district's D-or-F count fell from 41 to 31, while A-or-B campuses rose from 45 to 57.
By level, elementary carried the district: mean +3.1 across 77 campuses, and +5.7 among the 32 that started below 70. Middle schools averaged +1.6, high schools +1.7.
On Title I, the raw comparison (+2.9 versus +2.1) overstates the story. Controlling for starting position reverses it. Among campuses starting below 70, Title I averaged +5.1. Among those starting 70–79, Title I averaged +1.3 against +6.2 for non–Title I. Among those starting 80 or above, Title I averaged −1.6 against +1.2. Title I campuses gained because most of them started low, not because Title I status predicted improvement. The honest framing is that the district improved its lowest-performing campuses, and those campuses are overwhelmingly Title I — not that Title I campuses outperformed.
GAINS THAT DON'T COUNT YET
Thirteen campuses gained points but remain D or F. Several represent real progress that simply hasn't arrived: Houston +19 (48→67), Sánchez +17 (52→69), and Hart +11 (57→68) are each within a few points of crossing.
Others are gains in name only. Oak Springs 58→59, Widen 57→58, Barrington 56→59, Overton 55→59, and Burnet 54→59 all moved up while staying in the F band. A one-point gain from 58 is not improvement; it is a campus holding still. Twenty campuses remain below 60 — down only three from 23 — and every one is Title I. Six of those twenty gained a point or less, and three were exactly flat.
THE LOSSES
Most declines don't matter. Five campuses lost ground while staying at 85 or above: Mathews (96→91), Summitt (92→89), Gorzycki (93→91), Lamar (90→89), and Brentwood (91→90). These are noise against a high baseline and warrant no attention.
Five losses are serious, either because they erased a strong position or pushed an already-fragile campus further down:
Mendez MS, 89→65, −24. Largest swing in the district. A B-rated middle school fell to D in one year.
Allison EL, 62→47, −15. Lowest score in AISD. Already below standard, and lost a third of its remaining margin.
Pillow EL, 70→59, −11. Dropped out of passing into the F band.
Zavala EL, 76→65, −11. Lost a solid C and fell below 70.
Travis Heights EL, 85→76, −9. Held its B, but gave up nine points from a healthy position.
Four campuses fell below 70: Mendez, Pillow, Zavala, and Travis ECHS (70→66). Against 14 that rose above it, that's a net improvement of ten — but these four are new problems that did not exist last year.
One pattern worth flagging: all 15 campuses with meaningful declines are Title I. Combined with the concentration of large gains in the same group, this describes volatility rather than direction. Title I campuses in AISD occupy both tails.
CAVEATS
Scaled scores are not strictly comparable year over year. TEA's 2026 system revised the CCMR military-readiness indicator and the Progress-to-ELP targets within Closing the Gaps, so some portion of any campus's movement reflects methodology rather than performance. Treat swings under roughly ±3 points as inside that margin. Blazier is plotted as the elementary campus; Uphaus ECC, International HS, and the PreK Partnership are excluded for lack of a comparable 2025 rating.
Sources: TEA 2026 campus accountability file (CDALLS scaled scores); Austin ISD published 2025 accountability results.
Austin ISD vs. Houston ISD
Austin ISD comparison to Houston ISD TEA Accountability Ratings
The one-line version. Austin gained more, and gained it in a pattern that holds together. Houston's headline gain is real but fragile — it comes almost entirely from 66 campuses, while its large middle and upper tiers went backwards.
The headline numbers
Austin ISDHouston ISDRated campuses1102632025 mean score75.284.52026 mean score77.885.3Net point change+289+190Mean per campus+2.63+0.72Median change+20Gained / flat / declined70 / 14 / 26126 / 31 / 106Share that declined24%40%
Austin added 52% more net points than Houston across 42% as many campuses. On a per-campus basis Austin moved 3.6× further.
But the two districts did not start from the same place. Houston entered 2025 nine points higher on average (84.5 vs 75.2) with zero campuses below 60; Austin had 23. Houston had less room to gain and more to lose. That difference drives most of what follows, and it means the raw comparison flatters Austin.
The decisive difference: shape, not size
Austin improved monotonically by starting position. Every band gained, and the lower the band, the bigger the gain:
2025 bandAustin nAustin meanHouston nHouston meanF (below 60)23+5.90—D (60–69)18+4.617+10.1C (70–79)24+2.149+6.3B (80–89)23+0.5124−1.3A (90+)22+0.473−1.8
Houston's low performers moved far harder than Austin's — +10.1 in the D band against Austin's +4.6. Where Houston struggled was everywhere else. Its 197 campuses starting at 80 or above lost a combined −290 points, cancelling most of the +480 its bottom two bands generated.
Austin's high performers essentially held (+0.5 and +0.4). Houston's slid.
This is the finding that matters for interpretation. Austin's pattern is consistent with broad improvement weighted toward the bottom. Houston's — low scores up sharply, high scores down modestly, median change of exactly zero — is the classic signature of regression to the mean, which is what you'd expect from year-to-year noise even with no real change. Houston's pattern doesn't prove regression, but it's a live alternative explanation that Austin's monotonic gradient largely rules out.
Where students actually ended up
Threshold crossings matter more than averages, because they change a campus's standing.
Austin: 14 campuses crossed above 70, 4 fell below. Net +10. Campuses below 70 fell from 41 to 31. Campuses at 90+ rose from 22 to 28.
Houston: 14 crossed above 70, 10 fell below. Net +4 — from a base 2.4× larger. Campuses at 90+ rose from 73 to 92.
The most concerning single fact in the Houston data: it began the year with no campus below 60 and ended with four. Foster (75→59), Highland Heights (89→57), Mading (89→59), and Benavidez (69→58). Austin reduced its sub-60 count from 23 to 20.
By letter grade, Austin moved 34 campuses up and 11 down — a 3:1 ratio. Houston moved 78 up and 55 down — 1.4:1.
Level and Title I
By level the districts are near-opposites.
AustinHoustonElementary+3.05 (n=77)−0.42 (n=190)Middle+1.58 (n=19)+2.83 (n=36)High+1.71 (n=14)+4.51 (n=37)
Austin's gains were carried by elementary schools. Houston's elementaries — 72% of its campuses — actually went backwards, and its improvement came from secondary. Any theory about what drove either district's results has to account for that reversal.
Title I tells you almost nothing in either district, for the same structural reason. Austin: Title I +2.93 vs non–Title I +2.05, but that gap disappears once you control for starting position, and among campuses at 80+ Title I campuses declined. Houston: +0.82 vs −0.81, but all 16 non–Title I campuses started at 80 or above, so there is no overlapping range to compare. In both districts the apparent Title I advantage is composition, not performance.
Biggest movers
Austin — up: Wooldridge +28 (F→B), Ortega +20, Houston EL +19, Winn Montessori +18. Down: Mendez MS −24 (B→D), Allison −15, Pillow −11, Zavala −11.
Houston — up: Williams MS +25, Love +20, Pleasantville +19, HS Ahead +19. Down: Highland Heights −32, Mading −30, Osborne −17, Foster −16.
Houston's largest swing in either direction is a decline. Austin's is a gain.
What this comparison cannot settle
Houston ISD has been under TEA state takeover since 2023, with an appointed board and superintendent. Austin has not. This is the single largest uncontrolled difference between the two systems, and it sits underneath every number above. Nothing here supports a causal claim in either direction — the districts differ in governance, starting distribution, size, campus mix, and student demographics simultaneously.
Two further limits. Scaled scores are not strictly comparable year over year: TEA's 2026 system revised the CCMR military-readiness indicator and the Progress-to-ELP targets, so treat movements under roughly ±3 points as inside the methodological margin — which covers a large share of Houston's campuses. And both districts had campuses close or consolidate between the two years; those are excluded here rather than counted as change.
The defensible claim is that Austin's improvement is broader and better distributed, and Houston's is concentrated and partly offset. The claim that is not supported is that either governance model caused it.
Sources: TEA 2026 campus accountability file (C_RATING, CDALLS); Austin ISD and Houston ISD published 2025 campus results; HISD 2026-27 Title I, Part A campus list. Austin n=110; Houston n=263 (Burrus EL excluded — closed since the rating period).