Best School Districts in Greater Dallas Area

Methodology

Texas Education Agency (TEA) campus accountability ratings for the 2009-2010 school year were used in this evaluation and ranking of Dallas area school districts. While using a single factor to rank the school districts might be considered a somewhat simplistic approach, the criteria used by the TEA to award these accountability ratings are comprehensive and applied in a consistently manner to measure the performance of all public schools in the state of Texas. These ratings have the added virtue of being readily available.

To develop the average campus accountability rating points used to rank the school districts, each campus with an exemplary rating was awarded three points, a recognized rating merited two points, an academically acceptable rating was given one point and an academically unacceptable rating received zero points, provided the school earned its rating based solely on its performance as measured against the TEA's accountability ratings standards. If the accountability rating was increased from what it otherwise would have been as a result of applying Texas Projection Measure, Required Improvement or the Exceptions Provisions rating improvement standard, the points awarded were reduced by 0.5 point. If a school was awarded a higher rating based on application of two of these improvement standards, the points awarded were reduced by 0.8 point. If all three rating improvement standards were required for a school to receive a higher rating, the point reduction was 0.9 point.

All rated campuses within each school district were then grouped by school type and an adjusted average campus accountability rating point total for all campus types calculated. Next, the average adjusted rating points for each campus type was weighted by first multiplying the number of grades being taught by that campus type and then dividing by the number of grades taught in that district. The weighted average rating points of all campus types were then added together to derive the district's average campus accountability rating index.


Source: Texas Education Agency