By Jennifer Bendery, GalleryWatch.com
Austin, TX –
Texas Education Agency Commissioner Shirley Neeley today released the 2005 Comprehensive Annual Report on Texas Public Schools. The report, which assesses the status of Texas public education, is required by Section 39.182 of the Texas Education Code.
This year's report contains an executive summary and 14 chapters on the following topics:
- state performance on the academic excellence indicators;
- student performance on the state performance assessments and a study of the correlation between course grades and state assessments;
- students in alternative education settings;
- performance of students at risk of dropping out of school;
- student dropouts;
- grade-level retention of students;
- district and campus performance in meeting state accountability standards;
- status of the curriculum;
- deregulation and waivers;
- school district expenditures and staff hours used for direct instructional activities;
- district reporting requirements;
- TEA funds and expenditures;
- performance of open-enrollment charters on the academic excellence indicators, accountability measures, and student performance, in comparison to the performance of school districts; and
- character education programs.
Highlights of the report include:
- The percentage of students passing each of the five TAKS subject-area tests separately was higher than in 2004, despite higher passing standards for most grade levels in 2005. In 2003-04, the number of dropouts in grades 7-12 (16,434) declined from the number in 2002-03 (17,151), and the annual dropout rate remained unchanged (0.9%). The longitudinal dropout rate for the class of 2004 Grade 9 cohort (3.9%) was 0.6 percentage points lower than that for the previous class (4.5%).
- The state graduation rate for the class of 2004 was 84.6 percent, a slight increase over the 2003 rate (84.2%). Graduation rates for African-American and Hispanic students continued to rise. African-American students in the class of 2004 achieved a graduation rate of 82.8 percent, an increase of 1.7 percentage points over the 2003 rate of 81.1 percent. Hispanic students graduated at a rate of 78.4 percent, 1.1 percentage points higher than the 2003 rate (77.3%). The graduation rate for White students declined slightly, from 89.8 percent to 89.4 percent.
- Of the 1,229 public school districts and open enrollment charters in Texas, 11 (0.9%) were rated Exemplary in 2005, and 172 (14.0%) were rated Recognized. A total of 989 districts and charters (80.5%) achieved the Academically Acceptable rating, and 52 (4.2%) were rated Academically Unacceptable. Nearly three-fourths (73.1%) of the Academically Unacceptable district ratings were assigned to charter operators under either standard procedures or alternative education accountability (AEA) procedures. Only 4 districts, all charters, were Not Rated: Other in 2005, and 1 district was Not Rated: Data Integrity Issues. Of the 7,908 public school campuses and charter campuses, 304 (3.8%) were rated Exemplary in 2005, and 1,909 (24.1%) were rated Recognized. A total of 4,748 campuses (60.0%) achieved the Academically Acceptable rating, and 264 (3.3%) were rated Academically Unacceptable under either standard or AEA procedures. An additional 683 (8.6%) were Not Rated: Other.
- In the 2004-05 school year, 2,005,807 (46%) of the 4,383,871 public school students in Texas were identified as at risk of dropping out of school, an increase of two percentage points from the 2003-04 school year. On the 2005 TAKS assessments, students not at risk outperformed at-risk students at all grade levels and on all subjects tested.