The Texas Education Agency released its 2026 A-F accountability ratings on Thursday, and the headline is improvement. Across 1,202 districts and 9,105 schools, more earned top marks than a year ago, fewer earned failing ones, and some of the biggest gains came at the schools serving the most low-income students.
About 24% of districts and 24% of schools improved their letter grade from 2025. Statewide, 585 schools jumped from below an A straight to an A, and 85% of rated schools landed in acceptable territory, meaning a C or better. The ratings are posted at TXschools.gov, where families can search by address and compare schools.
What changed for districts and schools
In 2025, 86% of Texas districts were rated acceptable. In 2026 that reached 92%. A ratings rose from 14% of districts to 17%, B ratings from 41% to 47%, while D ratings fell from 11% to 7% and F ratings from 3% to 2%. Put another way, 89% of districts either held their rating or improved it, and only 11% slipped.
The share of schools earning an A has climbed from 19% in 2023 to 25% in 2026, and the share earning an F has been cut in half over the same stretch, from 8% to 4%. Schools swing more than districts year to year, because a single school's score is more sensitive than a district average, so 22% of schools did drop a rating even as 24% rose. Still, more than three quarters held steady or improved.
The ratings themselves come from a formula the state has used since 2017, when House Bill 22 established the A-F system. Every district and school is scored on three domains: Student Achievement, largely STAAR performance and college and career readiness; School Progress, which measures growth and compares similar schools; and Closing the Gaps, which looks at how different student groups perform. A district or school gets the better of its Achievement and Progress scores, then that is weighted against Closing the Gaps.
High-poverty schools led the gains
The number the agency highlighted is about poverty. Among schools where at least 80% of students are economically disadvantaged, 49% earned an A or B in 2026, up from 47% the year before, and the share earning an F declined. In raw terms, 396 high-poverty schools across the state earned an A.
The state's examples include Dovalina Elementary in Laredo ISD, where every student is economically disadvantaged and the school still posted a perfect scale score, along with Zavala Elementary in Crystal City ISD, Salvador Sanchez Middle in Socorro ISD, Lorenzo de Zavala Middle in Irving ISD, and Aikman Elementary in Hereford ISD. The pattern is the state's central argument for the system: that a school can earn a high rating no matter where its students start, because the formula rewards growth, not just raw scores.
A-F ratings still lean heavily on standardized test results, and test scores track household income closely, which is why high-poverty A schools stand out rather than blend in. The ratings are a useful signal, not a full verdict on a school. Our explainer on how school ratings actually work covers what these grades capture and miss, including the difference between measuring where students land and how much they grow.
Why the ratings were blocked for years
For three years, Texas A-F ratings were tangled in court. More than 120 districts sued over the 2023 ratings, arguing the agency raised its college and career readiness standards without enough notice and applied them to students who had already graduated. A separate group of districts sued over the 2024 ratings, challenging the STAAR test the scores rest on. Judges blocked both releases, and an appeals court did not clear the 2023 ratings until April 2025.
That backlog is why this year's charts can show a clean 2023-to-2026 trend at all: the earlier ratings only became public after the litigation cleared. So the 2026 release doing exactly what it is supposed to do, on time and with year-over-year comparisons, is itself a change from the recent norm.
Commissioner Mike Morath framed the results as evidence of momentum. "This year's A-F ratings illustrate the progress Texas public schools are making and acknowledge the hard work of our educators while illuminating areas of needed improvement to ensure that all students have access to a high-quality education," he said.
Families can look up their own district and schools, and compare them side by side, at TXschools.gov. For more on Texas schools, see our look at which Texas counties have the best schools and how to read your child's state test scores.
Sources
Texas Education Agency: TEA Releases 2026 A-F Accountability Ratings on TXschools.gov
Houston Public Media: TEA cleared to release 2023 school accountability ratings, appeals court rules
School enrollment and disadvantage figures from allk12's analysis of National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data, 2024-25.
