Some EPISD School Ratings Drop Due To Early TAKS Results

State standards for schools can change from one year to the next, making it difficult to accurately track a district’s progress, according to the superintendent for the El Paso Independent School District.

The change in standards can make the numbers misleading.

“I’m so glad you’re investigating this because the community really needs to understand the system that we’re under,” said Dr. Lorenzo Garcia, the superintendent for the El Paso Independent School District.

ABC-7 looked at the preliminary results for EPISD’s TAKS-based school rankings and compared them to last year’s. In 2010, EPISD lists 38 “Exemplary” campuses – the highest ranking a campus could earn. This year, EPISD has just 15 “Exemplary” campuses.

“It creates confusion,” said Garcia. The superintendent said the differences are mostly due to the Texas Projection Measure or TPM. The TPM is a statistic based on current student progress used to determine their future performance on TAKS tests.

“In 2009 and 2010 we were required by the state to use (the TPM) for school ratings,” explained Garcia.

Basically, if a student doesn’t do very well on the TAKS test but shows overall improvement, that student’s school gets an added boost through the TPM.

“It makes artificial inflation of some of the scores,” said Garcia.

Now, said Garcia, the TPM is out.

“The education commissioner has changed his mind and now we’re not using the TPM for school ratings,” Garcia said.

This means that the school ranking numbers are affected. EPISD showed ABC-7 a set of numbers they say reflect a more fair campus ranking comparison. These numbers are based on data derived this time last year and do not take TPM into account.

In 2010, without the TPM taken into account, EPISD said they had 16 exemplary schools compared to 15 this year, 42 recognized schools compared to 44 last year, and 28 acceptable schools compared to 21 last year.

“We are also very happy that we have no school that is academically not successful,” said Garcia.

It’s important to note the 2011 results are preliminary. Garcia pointed out the district’s schools have showed major gains in raw test scores over the last 5 years. He said the borderland’s other school districts will definitely see a similar drop in campus rankings due to the TPM issue.