Elementary and middle school students across San Antonio are slowly inching back to pre-pandemic performance levels on state assessments, with some school districts even surpassing their 2019 scores in some subjects.
But for the most part, San Antonio scores remain largely flat, seeing a roughly 2% bump across reading and math grade level performance.
While math scores across Texas are still not what they were before the pandemic, reading scores have overall exceeded 2019 performance, according to spring STAAR data released by the Texas Education Agency on Tuesday.
Math STAAR scores increased overall by two percentage points across third through eighth grades, with fifth and seventh graders seeing a decline in students who scored on grade level or higher.
Reading and language arts scores have outpaced 2019 scores in most school districts, though no one is exactly sure why.
Education experts also say it may not be appropriate to compare current state assessment scores to 2019 scores because the STAAR went through a redesign for the 2022-23 school year, so it’s not exactly “apples to apples.”
Similar to STAAR end of course results released last week, social studies scores for elementary and middle school students saw a slight decrease and science performance increased by 3% and 4% from fifth and eighth graders respectively.
San Antonio students make small gains in math
Almost all eighth-graders in San Antonio school districts saw improvements in math testing. The region’s grade level or “passing” scores, which includes students in San Antonio and parts of Southwest Texas, improved by seven percentage points from 2024 to this year.
San Antonio Independent School District saw big gains in 8th-grade math, with grade level scores jumping from 14% last year to 21% this year. Similarly, Alamo Heights ISD saw an increase of 11 percentage points, Edgewood ISD increased their passing scores from 5% to 12% and East Central ISD saw equal improvement.
Average scores for seventh-grade math dipped overall across Texas, a trend followed closely by San Antonio.
Notably, scores at Southwest ISD dropped from 18% of test takers meeting grade level last year, to only 9% of students meeting grade level in seventh-grade math. Northside ISD and San Antonio ISD scores also worsened.
Outperforming everyone else in San Antonio, Somerset ISD saw half of their seventh graders meet grade level this year, a slight dip from last year that still surpassed 2019 scores.
While math scores in sixth grade dipped across the state, only three school districts in San Antonio saw performance worsen, including South San Antonio ISD, Southside ISD, Harlandale ISD, Northside ISD and Somerset ISD.
At the elementary levels, math scores improved overall with a few outliers. At Alamo Heights ISD, fifth grade students saw an 11% drop in passing scores but a 9% improvement in fourth grade math.
Over at East Central ISD, fourth grade math students, grade level performance improved by 10%.
Almost all San Antonio school districts saw improvements in third grade math, some even surpassing prepandemic levels, like Southside ISD, Somerset ISD, Alamo Heights ISD and East Central ISD.
Reading scores surpass pre-pandemic levels
In eighth grade reading, all school districts in San Antonio saw small increases or no change. The highest-performing districts were Alamo Heights ISD with nearly three-fourths of students meeting grade level and Somerset ISD, where more than 60% of students had passing scores this year.
Southside ISD saw a huge jump in seventh-grade reading scores, going from 35% of students scoring on level last year to 45% this year. While most school districts saw small improvements, South San ISD, Northside ISD and North East ISD saw small dips between two and three percentage points.
At the elementary level, reading scores continued to improve, many times surpassing pre-pandemic performance across third through fifth grade.
‘Every school has its own story’
While state and local scores may not seem very encouraging in the schools’ quest to get back to pre-pandemic levels, education experts warn that big state and school district averages don’t tell the whole picture.
“District averages hide what’s happening in schools, school averages hide what’s happening in classes,” said Jillian Duran, chief of investments and operations at City Education Partners, a San Antonio education nonprofit. “Every school has its own story.”
While East Central ISD’s overall performance falls short of state and regional averages, Highland Forest Elementary saw improvements in all STAAR subjects and grade levels. More than 60% of the school’s students scored on grade level this year, compared to 28% last year. Reading scores improved for third through fifth grade by 15%, 16% and 28% respectively.
The Gathering Place, a charter school that closed this year after the TEA decided not to renew the school’s license, saw huge gains in several areas as well.
Fourth grade reading scores saw a 22% improvement from last year to this year at the charter school and a 13% increase in math. Meanwhile, no third-graders passed the math test this year, compared to 15% last year.
Recent legislative changes could have significant effects on future STAAR scores.
House Bill 2, a huge public school funding bill passed last month, offers additional funding per student to school districts with a 175-day calendar for grades preK-8. Before HB 2, schools had to have a 180-day calendar for the Additional Days School Year allotment, and funding was only available for grades preK-5.
Additional days in the classroom could improve academic performance.
HB 2 also expands access for “resource campuses,” or schools that have been rated a D or an F in the last 10 years. Under the bill, more schools would be eligible to access funding meant to turn around the school’s performance and requirements are less stringent.
Resource campus funding can be used to incentivize the state’s most “effective” teachers to work at high-need campuses, implement a new academic curriculum and extend learning time.
Before HB 2, only 31 campuses were eligible to be resource campuses and now more than 1,500 schools in Texas would be eligible.
