School Rating by State and What One Grade Cannot Tell You

If you have ever shopped for a home, you have probably checked a school rating. Maybe it was a letter grade. Perhaps it was a star count, a score out of 100, or a color-coded dashboard. That mix is no accident. Each state builds its own school rating system.

Under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), every state must report on school quality. States must also identify schools that need support. But federal law stops there. Each state decides what to measure, how to weight it, and how to share results. The result is a patchwork, so every school rating by state looks different. Imagine a family moving from Florida to California. They go from a clean A-F report card to a dashboard with no overall rating. Nothing about the student changed. However, the information the family receives did.

Five Types of School Rating Systems

To map the landscape, our team at Agora coded all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We used the headline rating on each state’s official school report card. This is the final, overall rating the public sees.

Code	Rating Type	What It Looks Like	Number of States
LG	Letter Grade	A single A-F grade, like a student report card. Common in the South and Sun Belt.	11
ST	Star Ratings	One to five stars, like restaurant and hotel reviews. Includes the District of Columbia.	6
NS	Numeric Score or Index	A 0 to 100 score or index value as the headline number.	7
DT	Descriptive Tiers	Word labels such as Exemplary, Commendable, On Track, or Needs Intensive Support.	12
DB	Dashboard or No Summative Rating	Several indicators side by side, with no overall rating. The largest single group.	15

Counts total 51 because the District of Columbia is included. See the accompanying infographic for the full state-by-state breakdown.

Thirty-six states give the public a single headline verdict. It may be a letter, stars, a number, or a word label. Fifteen states choose not to. So this split remains a live policy debate in state capitals today.

School Rating by State at a Glance

Here is how some states handle school ratings today. These examples show how much the systems differ.

State	Rating System	What Changed
Florida	Letter grades (A-F)	Uses a grade escalator that raises cutoffs over time
Texas	Letter grades (A-F)	Houston parents rely heavily on the A-F system
Tennessee	Letter grades (A-F)	Issued first A-F grades in late 2023
Arkansas	Letter grades (A-F)	Rebuilt its formula around achievement, growth, and readiness
Louisiana	Letter grades (A-F)	Rolled out a new letter grade model
Indiana	Letter grades (A-F)	Resuming redesigned grades, with consequences in 2026-27
Ohio	Five-star ratings	Replaced letter grades under House Bill 82 (2021)
District of Columbia	Star ratings	Uses a one to five star system
Virginia	Descriptive tiers	Four tiers, from Distinguished to Needs Intensive Support
New Mexico	No A-F grades	Repealed A-F grading in 2019
Utah	Dashboard	Moved to a dashboard under House Bill 308 (2023)
California	Dashboard	Shifted from a single index to a multi-measure dashboard

How School Rating Systems Keep Changing

Your state’s system may look different than it did five years ago. And the changes run in both directions. States also update other school rules often, such as technology and phone policies.

States Moving Away From Single Ratings

Some states have dropped single ratings. New Mexico repealed A-F grading in 2019 through the School Support and Accountability Act. The law followed the Yazzie/Martinez ruling. That ruling found the state failed to give at-risk students a sufficient education.

Ohio replaced letter grades under House Bill 82 in 2021. Its new five-star system adds descriptors and trend arrows for context. The state first issued these ratings on its 2022-23 report cards. Meanwhile, Utah moved to a dashboard under House Bill 308 in 2023.

States Doubling Down on Letter Grades

Other states are going the opposite way. Tennessee issued its first A-F school grades in late 2023. It did so under a law passed back in 2016. Arkansas rebuilt its A-F formula around achievement, growth, and readiness. Louisiana also rolled out a new letter grade model.

Indiana paused letter grades for years. Now it is bringing back a redesigned A-F system. These grades will carry consequences starting in the 2026-27 school year. Virginia, however, split the difference. Its new framework replaced the old accreditation system with four descriptive tiers. The tiers range from Distinguished to Needs Intensive Support.

This back and forth matters. If a single school rating were clearly good, states would not keep dropping it. And if it were clearly bad, states would not keep returning to it. A single rating communicates well, but it describes poorly. States keep rediscovering both sides of that truth.

The Danger of Relying on a Single School Rating

Every summative school rating compresses dozens of measures into one symbol. These include test proficiency, student growth, graduation rates, and chronic absenteeism. They also include English learner progress and college and career readiness. The state chooses the weights behind that symbol. However, those weights may not match your priorities as a parent or educator. And what the formula does not count, the rating cannot reflect.

Gail Sunderman reviewed state report cards for the National Education Policy Center. She found that states keep collapsing many performance indicators into one summative rating. Her review also details the validity problems that follow.

A School One Point From an A

Consider a school one point from an A. I do not have to imagine this one. My own kids attend Lyman High School in Longwood, Florida. It is a B school in the state’s grading system. This year, Lyman earned 64 percent of its possible points across ten components. Florida’s cutoff for an A at high schools is 65 percent. So Lyman missed by one point.

That cutoff moved this year, and Lyman did nothing to cause it. Florida law contains a rule called a grade escalator. It works like this. When three quarters of schools in a category earn an A or B, the cutoff rises. It slides up the following year to the next number ending in 5 or 0.

High schools tripped that rule in 2024-25. That year, 82 percent earned an A or a B. So the A line moved to 65 percent for 2025-26. Under the old cutoff, the same 64 percent would have earned an A. Same school, same points, different letter. (§ 1008.34(3)(c)1., F.S.; Rule 6A-1.09981(4)(e)4., F.A.C.)

High schools tripped the escalator again this year. Because 65 is a full step from 70, the A line jumps five points for 2026-27. That change would drop Florida’s A high schools from 251 to 123.

When an A Hides More Than It Shows

The reverse is also true. An A-rated school in a wealthy suburb may owe its grade to its students’ backgrounds. Proficiency-heavy ratings track closely with family income. Growth measures, however, show how much progress students make. So they reveal far more about learning inside the building.

Picture a school where students arrive two grade levels behind. Each year, they gain a year and a half. That school may do more impressive work than the A school nearby. Still, it may wear a C.

What One Letter Hides: Lyman vs Winter Springs

Compare Lyman to Winter Springs High School, an A school in the same district. Here is how the two schools stack up.

Measure	Winter Springs (A)	Lyman (B)
Math achievement	43%	45%
College and career acceleration	68	73
Graduation rate	95%	95%

College and career acceleration covers industry certifications, career dual enrollment, and other work pathways. On three measures a career-minded family would value most, Lyman matches or beats the A school. But Lyman falls behind in science and social studies. It also trails on reading gains among its lowest-performing quarter. Those gaps are enough to move the letter.

The Deeper Problem With a Single Score

Weighting is not even the deepest problem. A school grade adds together things that sit on different scales. Math proficiency, absenteeism, graduation rates, and certifications use different units. They also answer different questions. So combining them assumes they share one dimension of quality. You cannot average a car’s gas mileage with its crash-test score. The result would mean nothing. In measurement terms, this is a construct validity problem.

How Families Use School Ratings

I have watched families in my community steer their kids toward a nearby A school. They did it just to avoid Lyman. Most never looked behind either letter. That is the danger in miniature. The grade did not inform their decision. Instead, it made the decision for them.

This behavior reaches well beyond my zip code. In 2023, Good Reason Houston polled 1,500 Houston parents. Of those, 58 percent called the state’s A-F system a valuable resource. More telling, 49 percent said only an A or B was acceptable. Another 11 percent would accept nothing less than an A. So 60 percent of parents ruled out every C school before a single tour. The letter works as a filter.

Report cards may also reach fewer families than designers assume. McShane (2024) surveyed 1,500 parents nationally in November 2023. Only 23 percent consulted state report cards. School visits, third-party rating sites, friends, neighbors, and social media all ranked higher.

How a Strong Rating Can Mask Gaps

A strong overall school rating averages every student group together. As a result, a school can post a healthy composite score. Meanwhile, English learners, students with disabilities, and low-income students may struggle. That is why ESSA requires subgroup reporting. It is also why several states cited educational equity when they dropped single grades.

EdTrust reviewed state ESSA plans and report card websites in 2024. Many states still fall short in reporting this data. So the students most likely to be overlooked often stay hidden.

When a School Rating Tells You Too Little

The other extreme has problems too. A rating that no one can understand helps no one. California moved from a single index to a multi-measure dashboard. Critics said families lost a quick answer to one key question. Is this school any good?

Descriptive tiers have a related problem. Labels like “Commendable” or “On Track” sound reassuring. Yet they say little about what the state measured. They also do not show how a school compares to one across town.

Dashboards bring another challenge. A school page may show a dozen color-coded indicators. The parents most likely to dig through them have extra time and background. Other families may skip the details entirely.

Ben Dalton reviewed school rating systems for RTI Press. He noted that presentation choices can either downplay or highlight the rating. Third-party raters like GreatSchools fill the space states leave open. Their ratings even appear on real estate sites like Zillow. So families in dashboard states often turn to these sites. That shifts the summative judgment to a private formula the state does not control. Both extremes carry costs, but different ones.

Why School Ratings Still Matter

None of this makes ratings useless. They serve a real federal purpose. Their main job is to flag schools that need support and resources. Strong federal education data also helps states build fair systems. Research on school choice shows that families rely on simple signals. That is not going to change. What matters is what a family does after reading one.

What to Check Beyond a School Rating

If you are choosing a school for your child, start with these five checks.

• Growth, not just proficiency. How much progress do students make in a year? Every state reports this, but it often sits a click or two below the headline rating.
• Subgroup performance. Check how the student groups that matter to you perform. Do not stop at the schoolwide average.
• Program fit. Look at CTE pathways, dual enrollment, AP and IB access, arts, world languages, and special education services. No letter grade shows these, yet any one may matter more to your child.
• The underlying indicators. Every state publishes the components behind its rating. Read the ingredients, not just the label.
• The school itself. Visit and talk to teachers, counselors, and current families. Ask where graduates go, because no dashboard replaces that.

Questions to Ask If You Build or Study These Systems

If you design, evaluate, or report on accountability systems, look beyond presentation. These questions matter most.

• Construct. What does the index claim to measure? Do its components belong on one dimension?
• Weights. Who chose them, and what do they assume about priorities? How much do results shift if weights change?
• Composition. How closely does the overall score track student demographics? Does the formula include growth or other measures less tied to enrollment?
• Cut points. Where do they sit, and what moves them? How many schools change letters when they move?
• What gets published underneath. Look for component scores, subgroup detail, and growth measures. Also check for any scale change that moved schools across a line.

Need help reviewing an accountability system? Our research design and data analytics teams can help. Contact us to start the conversation.

The Bottom Line on School Ratings

Think of a school rating as a starting point, not a verdict. A single grade or star count shows what your state values. However, it does not show what your child needs. Know which of the five systems your state uses. Learn what goes into its formula, and then look past it. The school that fits your child may wear a B. And the rating alone will not tell you that.

For more on how schools get and spend money, read How Public Education Is Funded and Where the Money Goes. You can also explore the history of US school data in Counting What We Never Promised: US Education at 250. Subscribe for new insights on school ratings, education data, and policy.

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