Texas Districts That Actually Lost Ground, 2023–2026

The 8 large Texas school districts whose accountability score is lower in 2026 than in 2023 and which cannot explain it with a ceiling effect. Labels carry the four-year trajectory and enrolment. Two filters produce this list. Only 2023 onward is used, because TEA revised its cut scores that year and 89% of districts fell with a median drop of 7 points — a comparison spanning that refresh measures the scoring system, not the schools. And only districts of 5,000 or more students are considered: 295 of the 325 districts that fell have fewer than that, where a handful of test-takers moves the whole score. Thirty large districts are down since 2023, but most started high — the decliners' median 2023 score was 82 against the risers' 78, and 20% of districts starting in the 84–95 band slipped versus 2% of those starting at 59–72. Carroll ISD going from 95 to 93 is not a district in trouble. These eight started below the median of 79 and fell anyway. For scale, the largest decline here is 5 points while the largest gain in the same period was 16: nothing large in Texas is collapsing. Sources: TEA enhanced statewide summary (2023–2025) and txschools.gov (2026); boundaries are Census TIGER unified school districts.

• texas
• education
• schools
• tea
• accountability
• decline
• boundaries
• open data