Commissioner of Education Mike Morath announced last week that 20 school systems, including Austin ISD, will participate in a pilot to develop their own local academic accountability system. The Texas Education Agency will oversee a small-scale pilot program in the 2017–18 academic year.

Established by House Bill 22 and passed during the 85th Texas Legislature earlier this year, the local accountability system program allows an independent school district or public school charter to develop plans locally that evaluate its campuses.

The 20 systems participating in the 2017–18 pilot are Alief, Austin, Bullard, Canadian, Clear Creek, Dallas, El Paso, Humble, Jonesboro, Lyford, Midland, Point Isabel, San Saba, Sharyland, Snyder, Spring Branch, Sunnyvale and Waco ISDs, and Premier and Richland Collegiate high schools.

Participating districts will be required to attend four monthly meetings hosted by TEA in the spring as part of the local plan development. Once a plan receives TEA approval, districts and charter schools may use locally developed domains and indicators in conjunction with the three state-mandated domains to assign overall A–F ratings for each of their campuses.

Approved local accountability systems will be available for use beginning with the 2018–19 school year.

For more information, visit the TEA website at https://tea.texas.gov/las.aspx.