Texas Senator Paul Bettencourt says it's a bad look that so many school districts have joined in on a lawsuit to prevent the release of their A-F System Ratings.
34 school districts are in the middle of a lawsuit that tries to prevent the release of A-F rankings on public education from the state. Also, Travis County Judge Daniella Deseta Lyttle issued a temporary injunction prohibiting the release of the Texas Education Agency’s A-F School Accountability system ratings. Sen. Bettencourt called the ruling "egregious."
"The judge didn't allow for interveners to stay in the case to offer testimony for the state," he said. "She just wiped them out on a motion of her own making and put a preposterous ruling out."
Sen. Bettencourt called Judge Lyttle a "leftist, progressive judge" who is opposed to the state's A-F ranking system. Meanwhile, the ruling has been appealed by the state to the new 15th Court of Appeals.
As a member of the Senate Education Committee, Sen. Bettencourt met with Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath in a recent committee meeting to talk about the lawsuit and also provided more comment to KTRH News.
"We have to have an A-F ranking system in public education otherwise we're flying blind to what's working and what's not working," said Sen. Bettencourt. "It's a tragedy that we continue to have lawsuits directed at not allowing the A-F ratings to be published."
One of the senator's favorite lines to drop is 'what gets measured gets fixed’ and he again alluded to that this week over this situation. He said he's wanting there to be some transparency between the state, the schools and the parents.