Liberty Hill ISD presents TAPR results: district reports higher STAAR rates, growth mixed; special education and CCMR flagged for attention

Liberty Hill ISD district staff on Feb. 18 presented the district's Texas Academic Performance Report (TAPR) and the state's Results Driven Accountability (RDA) review, telling trustees the district outperformed region and state averages on many STAAR measures but faces continuing challenges in special education, industry-based certification reporting and lagging reporting windows.

Todd Washburn, the staff presenter, said the TAPR data are often a year or more old but give a useful baseline: "When you look at all-star grades, that's 3 through English II ... the short story is that we are outperforming the region and the state in all these areas for approaches, meets to masters," he told the board. He highlighted approaches-level results published in the TAPR: reading at about 86% (regional 77%, state 76%), math at about 81% (regional/state ~72%), and science at about 86% (regional 76%, state 75%).

Washburn also emphasized student growth measures used in state accountability. "This basically states 72 percent of our students on reading are meeting or exceeding one academic year's worth of growth," he said, and noted combined reading-and-math annual growth around 68% on the measures the state reports. He described…