Texas’ A-F ratings are an important checkpoint. The bigger test is whether the milestones beneath them put students on a path to support themselves, their families and Houston’s future.
What to know
- A-F ratings help families understand how schools are doing today, but a living wage is the clearest long-term test of whether students’ paths are working.
- Four out of five Houston public school graduates do not earn a living wage six years after graduation.
- Texas is strengthening what it rewards in the A-F system so schools can focus more resources on the degrees, valuable credentials and skills that lead to good-paying jobs.
How students earn CCMR credit
Texas recognizes several different pathways toward College, Career, and Military Readiness, including:
- Meeting a college-readiness benchmark on the SAT, ACT, or TSIA
- Earning college credit through AP, IB, or dual-credit coursework
- Completing an associate degree while in high school
- Earning an industry-based certification aligned to a career pathway
- Completing a coherent CTE (career and technical education) sequence
- Qualifying through military enlistment or JROTC completion
- Completing state-recognized college-prep coursework
Not all of these pathways carry the same evidence of connection to long-term success, which is part of why Texas is revisiting how they’re weighted.
Texas’ annual A-F accountability ratings give families and communities an important pulse check. They show whether students are meeting academic standards, demonstrating academic growth from year to year, whether achievement gaps are closing and whether graduates are reaching the state’s measures of college, career and military readiness.
But the letter grade is only a checkpoint on the way to the real destination.
The bigger question is whether the milestones beneath that grade add up to long-term success. Today, four out of five Houston public school graduates do not earn a living wage six years after graduation. That means too many young people are leaving school without a clear path to support themselves and their families, and Houston is missing out on talent our region needs.
If economic opportunity is our goal, a living wage must be part of how we judge whether the path is working.
Today’s rating should point toward tomorrow’s opportunity
Texas expanded its definition of high school success beyond earning a diploma. Through the College, Career and Military Readiness framework, commonly known as CCMR, we are able to better understand whether graduates reached at least one CCMR milestone intended to prepare them for what comes next.
That shift matters. A diploma should open the door to further education, a valuable credential and a good-paying job. And because accountability shapes what schools prioritize, the milestones the state recognizes can help expand opportunity for students across Texas.
As the state gathers more evidence about what happens after graduation, however, it must keep asking whether each milestone is delivering on that promise. Rising readiness rates are worth celebrating when more students are also moving toward degrees, credentials and careers that allow them to thrive.
College prep coursework is one example of why that closer look matters.
Not every readiness point carries the same promise
College-prep courses were created for students who had not yet demonstrated college readiness through another measure, such as the SAT or Texas Success Initiative Assessment (TSIA). Developed through partnerships between districts and colleges or universities, the courses are intended to strengthen students’ English and math skills and as a way to avoid remedial coursework in college. A student must pass both course subjects to earn CCMR credit through this pathway.
Under the current framework and scoring system, completing college prep courses count the same as earning an associate degree. Yet the two experiences, and the opportunities connected to them, are not the same.
Research following Texas high school graduates found that students who only met CCMR through college-prep coursework were much less likely to earn a postsecondary credential than students who completed dual-credit pathways. Among those who enrolled in college, they were more than twice as likely to need to enroll in remediation coursework.
Helping a student catch up is not the same as demonstrating that the student is ready to succeed after high school. When two pathways earn the same postsecondary readiness point but one is more closely connected to a degree, valuable credential and living wage, the accountability system should recognize the difference.
Zooming out means putting this concern in the right context: college-prep coursework is one example of a broader need to make sure every milestone Texas rewards is connected to the future it promises.
Districts respond to what the state rewards
The growth in college-prep coursework is not isolated to one district or set of schools. Good Reason Houston’s analysis found that the share of Houston-region graduates completing both English and math college-prep courses grew from 2% in the Class of 2021 to 26% in the Class of 2024.
That pattern shows policy incentives directly influence behavior on the ground.
College-prep coursework is a state-approved pathway, and district leaders used it for its intended purpose: helping students strengthen their skills and avoid remediation. The ratings schools earned reflected the rules in place at the time.
The goal is to improve the rules as the evidence improves, and to work alongside districts so more students can access pathways with stronger connections to long-term success.
Better incentives can build stronger paths
Texas has taken this kind of step before. After seeing that schools were relying on industry certifications with limited workforce value, the state began sorting certifications into tiers based on their value, capping how much lower-tier certifications can count, and requiring them to align with a completed career and technical education pathway. That change is still being phased in, the cap on lower-tier certifications is 20% for 2027 ratings and drops to 5% starting in 2028, with full weighted scoring taking effect in 2031.
The state is now applying that same principle to college-prep coursework and the broader readiness framework:
- College-prep coursework eligible for CCMR credit is being limited to courses completed in 12th grade.
- Beginning with 2028 accountability ratings, only courses on the Texas Education Agency’s approved list will count. This closes a gap in the system: TEA has moved to a standardized approval and course-coding process specifically so it can verify which college-prep courses actually meet its criteria. Districts can still partner with providers that aren’t on the approved list, but those courses won’t count toward CCMR credit going forward, which is what gives this change real teeth.
- Beginning with 2031 ratings, Texas plans to give different weight to readiness measures based on their connection to positive postsecondary outcomes.
These changes reflect what a strong accountability system should do: set an ambitious goal, learn from research and implementation, and improve as the evidence grows. When Texas more strongly rewards the milestones connected to degrees, valuable credentials and good-paying jobs, schools have a clearer signal about where to focus time, partnerships and resources.
“A school rating tells us whether students met today’s bar. A living wage tells us whether that bar helped prepare them for the future,” said Courtney Isaak Pichon, CEO of Good Reason Houston. “Texas is right to strengthen what it rewards so every district is supported in putting more students on a path to a degree, a valuable credential and, ultimately, a living wage.”
Turning stronger measures into greater opportunity
Better accountability incentives are essential, but changing Houston’s living-wage trajectory will take all of us. Districts and higher education partners can expand access to dual credit, associate degrees and other rigorous postsecondary pathways. Employers can help identify skills and credentials with real value and create meaningful work-based learning opportunities. Policymakers and community partners can align resources around the approaches shown to improve students’ long-term outcomes.
Good Reason Houston works where research, policy and action meet. We bring together data, original research, evaluation and community input to understand what is working, where gaps remain and how policy can improve. Then we work alongside school systems, higher education, employers and state leaders to turn those lessons into stronger opportunities for students.
Accountability is ultimately about whether the opportunities students receive from their earliest years through high school and beyond prepare them to thrive.
The letter grade is a checkpoint. A living wage is the destination. Houston students deserve both a clear measure of their progress today and a real path to economic opportunity tomorrow.
