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Leander ISD trustees debate whether to prioritize TSI test scores or broader CCMR measure in long-term goals
Summary
Trustees reviewed goal benchmarks and argued over whether the district should emphasize TSI (test-based college readiness) or a broader CCMR metric that includes industry certifications, AP/dual credit and military measures; some members urged treating goals as floors and strengthening guardrails for equity.
School board members spent an extended session reviewing proposed district goals and the data behind them, focusing especially on which measure should serve as the college-and-career readiness anchor.
Administrators explained that numbers in the goal document were recalculated to align benchmarks with the dataset used for monitoring. "We went back through and adjusted numbers, used the same formula... so that everything that's in here ... is aligned," Dr. Clark said while explaining dataset choices.
Trustees disagreed about the best readiness metric. One group argued that TSI (the Texas Success Initiative test standard tied to SAT/ACT/TSI) gives a clear academic signal and can identify special-education students who have academic gaps. Another group favored CCMR — the state’s college, career and military readiness measure — because it captures multiple postsecondary pathways such as industry-based certifications, AP/dual credit, successful enlistment and more.
"TSI is only one of 10 criteria to meet CCMR," one trustee noted, arguing CCMR is more comprehensive. Opponents countered that CCMR’s multiple pathways can hide low TSI performance for some student groups, particularly students with disabilities, and that TSI better signals academic readiness.
The board also wrestled with whether to incorporate a new gifted-and-talented (GT) academic metric. Members raised concerns about limited historical GT data (the state only began reporting GT as a student group in 2025), disparities in GT identification models across districts, and whether a GT goal should focus on higher-achievement ('masters') rather than 'meets.'
Trustees asked administration to produce KPIs that will allow the board to monitor progress without micromanaging instruction; suggestions included frequent, focused reports on PLC implementation, disaggregated outcomes by subgroup, and implementation benchmarks for curriculum and extension services.
What’s next: Administration will return with draft constraints/guardrails, KPIs and a timeline for adopting final goals; trustees signaled interest in treating board targets as minimum expectations and in seeing data that shows whether interventions are closing gaps.
