Most students in Greater Houston reached the state’s benchmark for showing year-over-year growth in reading and math in 2024, though the percentage of students hitting the mark varied widely across school districts.
Roughly 55 to 75 percent of elementary and middle school students in large Houston-area districts scored at a level demonstrating at least one years’ worth of learning growth on STAAR, the state’s primary standardized test. Katy ISD students topped the area in reading and math, while three districts serving mostly lower-income students struggled the most.
All Texas students in grades 3 through 8 take the high-stakes exams, which drive school ratings issued by the state and give parents information about their student’s academic performance.
The growth measure, which compares students’ test scores from 2023 to 2024, shows whether a student has grown academically “by at least one school year.” Schools can use the data to see if their teaching is effective, though some critics of standardized tests argue the exams don’t accurately measure what students know.
The reading results
Katy ISD led the area’s largest districts with 76 percent of its students hitting the growth benchmark on the reading exam, while five other districts hit 70 percent growth.
Most large districts in the Houston area had higher reading growth scores than the state average, with only Alief, Spring and Aldine ISDs falling slightly short.
The math results
For the math STAAR exams, Katy also remained the top district for student growth at 71 percent, just ahead of Conroe and Klein ISDs and Lamar CISD at 66 percent.
Alief and Spring once again fell just below the state average of 55 percent.
How growth has changed
Math growth scores in 2024 showed significant drops compared to 2023, even in higher-performing and higher-income districts like Katy.
Reading growth, meanwhile, improved across the area, with several districts topping the state average for growth.
In both subjects, one of the most noteworthy performances came from Houston ISD, which saw an additional 12 percent of its student body reach the growth benchmark in reading and another 4 percent hitting the mark in math. While the state’s takeover of HISD in mid-2023 and Superintendent Mike Miles’ overhaul of the district have stirred intense controversy, the district’s test scores improved more than other Houston-area districts in the first year under Miles.
What it means
The growth measure is meant to provide a more equitable way to analyze school performance because it measures improvement, not raw test scores.
Still, Houston-area districts in wealthier areas more consistently scored higher on the growth measure than those in lower-income parts of the region.
What comes next
The next big release of data on math and reading test scores comes Jan. 29, when the National Center for Education Statistics released the Nation’s Report Card. The exam, given to students across the country and dozens of targeted school districts, including HISD, ranks among the most-watched tests for student academic performance.
In Texas, STAAR results for the 2024-25 school year will be released in the summer of 2025.
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