High-poverty schools struggle to earn Texas’ highest rating. Some in the Rio Grande Valley break that trend.

Students learn about suffixes in an English language arts class on Dec. 3, 2020, at Perez Elementary School in Brownsville. (Credit: Courtesy of Denise Cathey/The Brownsville Herald)

For years, critics of the state’s school rankings have complained that the system is rigged — that it favors schools in richer Texas neighborhoods where students may not suffer from the effects of housing and income instability.

The Texas Education Agency has dismissed this notion, pointing out that 18% of school districts with a high percentage of “economically disadvantaged” students earned an A rating when they released their first post-pandemic scores last month. Overall, 33.1% of school districts received an A, an 8% increase from 2019, the last time the TEA released these ratings.