I don’t know about you, but being graded as an individual brings anxiety and stress into my life. I get nervous when report cards come in the mail and when I see that vicious email from txConnect exposing my failures.

Recently, the Texas Education Agency gave a preview to their new grading system to over 1,000 school districts in Texas. Leander ISD was graded along with Hays, Georgetown, Bastrop, Manor, Elgin, San Marcos, Hutto, Dripping Springs, Elgin, and Austin. Alarmingly, all of the districts have poor ratings. The districts were graded based on State of Texas Academic Assessment Readiness (STAAR) scores, how the scores improved over the years, college readiness, closing the gaps between low and high income students, and community involvement among the students. Our district was scored B A D C.

Yikes.

I had higher standards for ourselves. I take pride in the high school that I go to. This an amazing opportunity to have an education that doesn’t come out of my personal pocket and is not subjective to a certain group of people.

We are so fortunate to have the diverse cultural environment that we have here at school. We take pride in everything from our competitions in UIL to playoffs. It’s awesome that we are improving our test scores every year, but do we really need to be classified by a letter grade to prove our worth?

I understand that the Texas Education Agency wants to keep schools priming students to achieve their best, but giving us that grief stricken letter grade is too much.