Two Cass County schools named to honor roll

McLeod ISD and Atlanta Texas were two of a select number of campuses around the state to make the 2023 Educational Results Honor Roll.

In their current press release, the Educational Results Partnership’s (ERP) 2023 Honor Roll list recognizes schools that prepare students to be successful in life and the workplace. According to their social media page, “ERP is a non-profit organization that applies data science to help improve student outcomes and career readiness throughout the educational system. Our goal is to ensure that more students enter the workforce with the skills today’s economy demands.”

On their website, they explain that “The Honor Roll, presented by Educational Results Partnership (ERP), is part of the national Campaign for Business and Education Excellence (CBEE). The Campaign engages business leaders in recognizing successful schools and educational systems that are preparing students with the fundamental skills needed to be successful in the workforce and in life.

The Honor Roll is the only school recognition program presented in partnership with state business leaders and using solely objective student achievement data as the criteria.

The goal of the Honor Roll is to find and highlight successful schools and districts and encourage collaboration among educators on best practices for raising student achievement. Approximately 12% of eligible schools and 10% of eligible districts made the Texas Honor Roll list.

“Honor Roll schools and districts represent those that were comprehensively higher performing on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) Reading Language Arts and Math Assessments, for all cohorts of student populations served, and that are improving outcomes for historically underserved student populations. To make the Honor Roll, a school or district must have comprehensively performed above the mean (trendline) at least 80 percent of the time for all cohorts of students served and for all grade levels served.

“Data made publicly available by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for STAAR was used to conduct the analysis. Raw data was pulled from STAAR research files containing both school and district-level results and provided by TEA through the STAAR results website.

The methodology applies to peer groups of schools and districts so that similar schools and districts are compared to each other. Schools and districts were split into two categories: • STAR Schools and Districts: Schools and districts with greater than, or equal to, 33 percent of students designated as socioeconomically disadvantaged (high poverty).

• Scholar Schools and Districts: Schools and districts with fewer than 33 percent of students designated as socioeconomically disadvantaged (low poverty).

The Cass County schools are in the STAR category. “To be eligible for the Honor Roll, a minimum population of 100 students for schools and 500 students for districts was required. Alternative Instructional Schools, Disciplinary Alternative Education Program Schools, and Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program Schools were not eligible.

“The number of Honor Roll schools and districts in each category was not predetermined; the results of the model determined the number. The methodology assessed eligible schools and districts can be found on their website: www.edresults.org “The Texas Honor Roll is produced by Educational Results Partnership (ERP) and presented by the Campaign for Business and Education Excellence in collaboration with the Texas Business Leadership Council. For more information visit the ERP website at edresults.org or the Campaign website at edcampaign.org. For more information on Texas Business Leadership Council visit: https://txblc.org .

The full list of Honor Roll schools and districts can be viewed at: edresults.org/honor- roll.

In a post on social media, Atlanta ISD announced it was proud of the honor, “Atlanta Elementary School is proud to be named an Educational Results Partnership Honor Roll school, which recognizes high-performing, achievement gap-closing schools nationwide.”

McLeod also announced, “WAY TO GO MCLEOD STAFF & STUDENTS!”

“McLeod Schools and McLeod Elementary School have been named with only one other school in Cass County on the Educational Results Partnership Honor Roll, which recognizes high-performing, achievement gap-closing schools nationwide.

“The Honor Roll is a valuable resource for all schools, allowing them to identify successful peers and learn about best practices that are improving student achievement.”