STAAR results released Wednesday show statewide Texas students made improvements across all five subjects – but some areas still lag behind pre-COVID 19 levels.
The spring 2026 end-of-course scores show a higher percentage of students in all five subjects this year met grade level expectations compared to results from last year.
In Dallas ISD, 59% of students met or exceeded expectations in algebra, compared to 47% last year, when nearly a quarter of students didn’t meet grade level expectations.
Across 14 Dallas County school districts, students showed similar gains across algebra, English, biology and U.S. history, the education advocacy group Commit Partnership said.
“These results reflect years of sustained, intentional work across our school systems,” Commit President Miguel Solis said in a news release.
The organization's data specialist, Chelsea Jeffery, said Dallas County district students improved 7 percentage points, surpassing the 5-point improvement of the average Texas student.
"We are seeing our Dallas County district growing at a rate faster than the state," Jeffery said.
She attributed improvements in Dallas ISD to higher teacher salaries for top instructors, and a focus on quality classroom materials.
"We can make a reasonable assumption," Jeffery said, "that those shifts and changes sustained over time are now resulting in these incredible increases that we're seeing across our district."
Improvements in some Dallas County district scores showed double digit gains in some subjects.
Jeffery said there's still work to be done to get more students up to grade level: In several individual districts, the percentage of students performing at grade level fell. In Cedar Hill ISD, for example, fewer students met grade level in U.S. History in 2026 compared to the year before.
STAAR end-of-course results are available by district and campus here.
Bill Zeeble is KERA’s education reporter. Got a tip? Email Bill at bzeeble@kera.org. You can follow him on X @bzeeble.
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