T.H. Rogers is both the best elementary and middle school in the Houston Independent School District (HISD) by Texas STAAR test scores. TH Rogers consistently ranks as the top HISD school; however, it’s not terribly surprising given that every student at Rogers must both be gifted and talented (GT) and apply to attend. Rogers is the only HISD elementary and middle school with such strict entry requirements.
Other top elementary schools with less onerous requirements include West University, Mandarin Immersion Magnet School (MIMS), River Oaks, and Horn. This is MIMS’s first year to break into the top five elementary schools list. While students don’t have to be GT to attend, they do have to learn to read and write Chinese Mandarin fluently. Impressively, this fluency does not come to the detriment of their English ability, which made strong gains this year.
Other top middle schools include Briarmeadow Charter, Mandarin Immersion, Lanier, and Pin Oak. These are the same top five HISD middle schools as last year.
Texas STAAR Test Grading Levels
The State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) tests are the primary, quantitative measure of academic performance for Texas public schools. All public school students in grades 3-12 take some number of STAAR tests, although the testing is most consistent in grades 3-8. The STAAR is administered every spring in core subjects including reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies. The rankings in this article reflect the most recent test results from spring of 2023. Students’ scores are placed into four performance categories:
- Did Not Meet Grade Level – Like an “F” on a regular report card
- Approaches Grade Level – C
- Meets Grade Level – B
- Masters Grade Level – A
“Masters Grade Level” is the highest performance score level that a Texas public school student can achieve and generally represents the top 20% of tested students. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) asserts that students who score in the top two levels, “Meets” or “Masters,” have a more than 60% chance of passing college courses. A Texas public school’s Report Card will always show the percentage of enrolled students who scored in each of the four performance categories.
This ranking looks specifically at the percentage of a school’s students who scored in the highest, “Masters Grade Level” performance category. Because “Masters Grade Level” represents about the top 1/5 of public school students in Texas, any school where more than 20% of students are scoring above this level is exceptional by definition.
Family Income Plays an Outsized Role
The biggest indicator of a school’s test scores is the family wealth of its student population. General Academic calculated the weighted R-squared (R²) values between percent of students mastering the STAAR and the percentage of students who qualify for federal free and reduced lunch. R-Squared is a standard statistical measure to determine how predictable a dependent variable (STAAR scores) is simply by looking at the independent variable (family income).
In Texas, a family of four typically qualifies for a reduced price lunch when their household income is below $57,720 (185% above poverty level) or a free lunch when their household income is below $40,560 (130% above poverty). Low family income explains as much as 77% of a school’s STAAR scores:
- Elementary School Reading Mastery – .748 R² correlation
- Elementary School Math Mastery – .625
- Middle School Reading Mastery – .766
- Middle School Math Mastery – .469
This seemingly inextricable link between family income and academic results does change over time. Students’ scores in math go up – the R-squared value falls from .625 at elementary school to .469 in middle school. However, student’s scores in reading remain strongly linked to family income – the R-squared value even increases slightly from .748 to .766.
The easiest way for a school to unlink their STAAR scores from family income is to enroll students from across the district by lottery. As such, families zoned to low performing or underperforming schools should strongly consider participating in the Houston School Choice Lottery.
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Top Houston ISD Elementary Schools by STAAR “Masters” Scores
The best Houston ISD elementary schools are TH Rogers, West University, Mandarin Immersion, River Oaks, and Horn. Rogers and Mandarin Immersion are both magnet-only schools, meaning that every student at that school must apply and be admitted. Mandarin Immersion stands out in particular because every student there must learn Chinese Mandarin, but apparently not to the detriment of their English reading and writing skills.
Since the STAAR is a peer-normed test in which only about 20% of students will earn the “Masters” designation, any school on this list with higher than 20% is performing better than average. As such, there are at least 43 (27%) Houston ISD elementary and middle schools that are outperforming the Texas state average.
| wdt_ID | Rank | School | Average % Mastery | Math % Mastery | Reading % Mastery | % Disadvantaged |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 222 | 1 | T H Rogers School | 83 | 80 | 85 | 15 |
| 223 | 2 | West University El | 71 | 64 | 77 | 6 |
| 224 | 3 | Mandarin Immersion Magnet School | 63 | 66 | 59 | 28 |
| 225 | 4 | River Oaks El | 60 | 50 | 68 | 15 |
| 226 | 5 | Horn El | 57 | 55 | 58 | 17 |
| 227 | 6 | Kolter El | 54 | 54 | 52 | 29 |
| 228 | 7 | Roberts El | 54 | 53 | 54 | 16 |
| 229 | 8 | Condit El | 49 | 37 | 60 | 37 |
| 230 | 9 | Bush El | 48 | 45 | 51 | 22 |
| 231 | 10 | Oak Forest El | 48 | 43 | 52 | 13 |
| 232 | 11 | Twain El | 48 | 44 | 50 | 20 |
| 233 | 12 | Sinclair El | 45 | 39 | 49 | 38 |
| 234 | 13 | Arabic Immersion Magnet School | 44 | 45 | 42 | 54 |
| 235 | 14 | Field El | 43 | 37 | 48 | 56 |
| 236 | 15 | Travis El | 43 | 42 | 42 | 16 |
| 237 | 16 | Wharton K-8 Dual Language Academy | 43 | 30 | 55 | 45 |
| 238 | 17 | Lovett El | 39 | 35 | 43 | 40 |
| 239 | 18 | Harvard El | 37 | 31 | 41 | 16 |
| 240 | 19 | Parker El | 35 | 33 | 37 | 46 |
| 241 | 20 | Memorial El | 32 | 24 | 38 | 45 |
| 242 | 21 | Poe El | 32 | 23 | 41 | 34 |
| 243 | 22 | Deanda El | 30 | 29 | 30 | 93 |
| 244 | 23 | Gallegos El | 30 | 28 | 32 | 99 |
| 245 | 24 | Helms El | 29 | 24 | 34 | 55 |
| 246 | 25 | Davila El | 28 | 29 | 26 | 96 |
Top Houston ISD Middle Schools by STAAR “Masters” Scores
The best Houston ISD middle schools are TH Rogers, Briarmeadow Charter, Mandarin Immersion, Lanier, Pin Oak, and Project Chrysalis. Of particular note this year is the last school just mentioned, Project Chrysalis Middle School, which jumped from being the 11th top middle school in 2023 at 25% average mastery, up to being the 6th top middle school in 2024 at 42% average mastery.
Fifteen middle schools (25%) are performing better than the Texas state average since more than 20% of their students are earning the “Masters” designation.
| wdt_ID | Rank | School | Average % Mastery | Math % Mastery | Reading % Mastery | % Disadvantaged |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 221 | 1 | T H Rogers School | 79 | 71 | 85 | 15 |
| 222 | 2 | Briarmeadow Charter | 64 | 60 | 67 | 47 |
| 223 | 3 | Mandarin Immersion Magnet School | 57 | 43 | 71 | 28 |
| 224 | 4 | Lanier Middle | 54 | 41 | 65 | 29 |
| 225 | 5 | Pin Oak Middle | 43 | 27 | 58 | 36 |
| 226 | 6 | Project Chrysalis Middle | 42 | 35 | 49 | 75 |
| 227 | 7 | Arabic Immersion Magnet School | 31 | 20 | 42 | 54 |
| 228 | 8 | Wharton K-8 Dual Language Academy | 31 | 23 | 39 | 45 |
| 229 | 9 | Hogg Middle | 29 | 21 | 36 | 52 |
| 230 | 10 | Baylor College Of Medicine Academy At Ryan | 26 | 15 | 37 | 73 |
| 231 | 11 | Black Middle | 25 | 14 | 35 | 58 |
| 232 | 12 | Ella J Baker Montessori School | 25 | 10 | 40 | 37 |
| 233 | 13 | Meyerland Middle | 22 | 8 | 34 | 63 |
| 234 | 14 | Pershing Middle | 21 | 9 | 32 | 60 |
| 235 | 15 | Young Women's College Prep Academy | 21 | 16 | 26 | 70 |
| 236 | 16 | Burbank Middle | 20 | 13 | 27 | 96 |
| 237 | 17 | West Briar Middle | 18 | 9 | 27 | 62 |
| 238 | 18 | Gregory-Lincoln Ed Ctr | 15 | 3 | 27 | 93 |
| 239 | 19 | Rice Sch /La Escuela Rice | 15 | 5 | 24 | 66 |
| 240 | 20 | Stevenson Middle | 15 | 8 | 20 | 92 |
| 241 | 21 | Texas Connections Academy At Houston | 15 | 5 | 25 | 49 |
| 242 | 22 | Energized For Excellence Academy Inc Middle | 14 | 6 | 21 | 98 |
| 243 | 23 | Pilgrim Academy | 14 | 11 | 16 | 96 |
| 244 | 24 | Garden Oaks Montessori | 13 | 5 | 20 | 43 |
| 245 | 25 | Hamilton Middle | 13 | 7 | 19 | 86 |
About the Data
This dataset—which you can download here—was compiled from data pulled from TEA Assessment Research Portal, from the 2023-2024 school year, specifically the Spring 2024 STAAR data. The two data tables represent Grades 3-5 performance for elementary schools, and Grades 6-8 performance for middle schools. “Percent Mastery” scores for both Math and Reading represent the total number of students at a school who earned a performance level of “Mastery” in the respective STAAR 3-8 subject, divided by the total number of students at the same school who took the STAAR 3-8 exam for that subject. The “average mastery” column in the tables above is simply the average of the math and reading scores. The data regarding percentage of economically disadvantaged students comes from Children at Risk, and you can download their full spreadsheet here. For an interactive map of Houston-area school districts with schools, visit the TEA’s website.
