Arlington ISD says vendor error on AI scoring cost campuses higher grades; district to file appeals

Arlington ISD officials told the Board of Trustees on Aug. 21 that a technical failure by testing vendor Cambium prevented 4,370 student written responses from being rescored by human readers in time for the Texas Education Agency'published Aug. 15 accountability ratings.

The rescoring request, submitted by Arlington ISD in June, was processed and later confirmed by TEA after Cambium reported an internal processing error, Dr. Lopez said. The rescoring produced score increases that would raise letter grades at several campuses; the district plans to file appeals with TEA to update the published ratings.

Why it matters: The district said roughly 21 percent of rescored tests showed a raw- or scale-score increase and 14 percent gained a performance-level change. Those shifts would have altered several campus accountability letters published Aug. 15, and trustees warned that inaccurate public ratings can affect communities, families and…