Student Achievement - Represents a snapshot of performance across all subjects, on both general and alternative assessments, at an established performance standard. 

Student Progress - Provides an opportunity for diverse campuses to show improvements made independent of overall achievement levels. Growth is evaluated by subject and student group.

Closing Performance Gaps - Emphasizes improving academic achievement of the economically disadvantaged student group and the lowest performing race/ethnicity student groups at each campus or district. 

Postsecondary Readiness - Includes measures of high school completion, and beginning in 2014, State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR®) performance at the postsecondary readiness standard.

Districts and campuses with students in Grade 9 or above must meet targets on all four indexes. Districts and campuses with students in Grade 8 or lower must meet targets on the first three indexes (excluding Postsecondary Readiness).

Greenville ISD announced enthusiastically that through the hard work of students and staff, accountability standards were met on all GISD campuses and for the district as a whole for the 2012-2013 year under the TEA system." A transition to a new accountability system comes with a great deal of uncertainty," said Commissioner of Education Michael Williams. "The 2013 ratings confirm that the vast majority of districts and campuses are meeting the state's standards and providing a quality education for our students."

Based upon official results, public school districts performed significantly better than their charter counterparts. A press release issued by the Texas Federation of Teachers stated, “By our calculation, some 15.7 percent of charters that received a rating were rated substandard (i.e., “improvement required”). The comparable figure for regular school districts: 4.9percent. Charters thus were more than three times as likely as regular school districts to be rated substandard. In fact, this comparison probably understates the lower results for charters, because more than one out of six had the benefit of an alternative, more lenient rating method unavailable to regular school districts.”

In addition to all GISD campuses and the district as a whole meeting all state standards for the 2012-2013 year under the TEA accountability system, multiple campuses were also awarded distinction ratings.

Distinction ratings are based upon comparisons with forty demographically-similar campuses. GISD was rated against
campuses from Denton, Royse City, Mesquite, Austin and New Braunfels among others.

Five of GISD’s campuses received prestigious distinction ratings. Bowie Elementary, Carver Elementary and Travis
Elementary all earned the “Top 25 Percent Student Progress” distinction. Greenville Middle School earned the “Academic Achievement in Reading/ELA” distinction. Greenville High School earned the “Academic Achievement in Reading/ELA” and “Academic Achievement in Mathematics” distinctions. Houston Education Center, L.P. Waters Early Childhood Center and the district as a whole were not eligible to receive distinctions under the new accountability system. 

"Under the new accountability system, these designations recognize outstanding work at the campus level that would not be acknowledged in previous years," stated Commissioner of Education Michael Williams. Only 42% of campuses statewide received distinction ratings.

Superintendent Don Jefferies stated, “I am very pleased with the less punitive structure of the new accountability system. The past model undermined any chance that our educators had to reform the traditional learning experience into one that better equips our students living in a world that is fast paced, embedded in technology and requires a profound mastery of digital tools.”

He continued by saying, “We must provide our students with learner center opportunities that increase their engagement and provide product oriented education. We must design work that students complete that result in students learning at a deep and meaningful level as opposed to learning for these high stakes tests that are over emphasized. Students must be the creators of knowledge, not just consumers of what teachers present to them.”