Texas Campuses With the Biggest Gains, 2023–2026

The 43 Texas school campuses of 1,000 students or more whose accountability score rose 20 points or more between 2023 and 2026. Labels carry the four-year trajectory and enrolment; circles are sized by enrolment and shaded by the size of the gain. The window starts at 2023 because TEA revised its cut scores that year — 89% of districts fell, median 7 points — so any comparison spanning the refresh measures the scoring system rather than the schools. The 1,000-student floor removes the small-campus noise that dominates raw rankings. Two things are visible here that are not visible in a statewide map. These campuses cluster in a handful of districts — Houston and Dallas six each, Aldine five, Fort Worth three, Grand Prairie two — so improvement at this scale is a district phenomenon rather than scattered individual schools. And they are overwhelmingly high schools: statewide, high schools gained a median of 4 points over this period against 1 for elementaries and middle schools, which is worth remembering because high-school ratings lean on graduation and college-readiness measures that a district can move through policy. 31 of the 43 rose in every single year rather than jumping once. Sources: TEA enhanced statewide summary (2023–2025) and txschools.gov (2026).

• texas
• education
• schools
• tea
• accountability
• improvement
• open data