HOUSTON – Houston ISD’s latest STAAR results show students making academic gains across much of the district, but a closer look at the numbers reveals another significant trend: some of the longstanding achievement gaps between Black, Hispanic and White students are narrowing substantially.
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The change is particularly pronounced in middle-school mathematics.
Since 2023, the gap between Hispanic and White HISD students earning Meets Grade Level or above in grades 6–8 mathematics has been cut in half, falling from 30 percentage points to 15 points. During the same period, the gap between Black and White students narrowed from 38 percentage points to 22 points.
The results come after the third full school year of HISD’s New Education System, or NES, which Superintendent Mike Miles introduced after the state takeover of the district in 2023. HISD says the model has expanded centralized instructional practices across campuses with an emphasis on students mastering daily learning objectives.
KPRC 2’s Re’Chelle Turner will sit down one-on-one with HISD Superintendent Mike Miles Thursday afternoon to discuss the latest STAAR results, what is driving the gains, why some student groups appear to be improving faster than others and what work remains to close achievement gaps across the district.
A closer look at HISD’s racial achievement gaps
The middle-school math numbers provide one of the clearest examples of the changes underway.
In 2023, 25% of Hispanic students in grades 6–8 earned Meets Grade Level or above in math, compared with 55% of White students, creating a 30-percentage-point gap.
By 2026, Hispanic performance had climbed to 38%, while White performance stood at 53%.
That means Hispanic students gained 13 percentage points in three years, while the Hispanic-White gap fell from 30 points to just 15 points.
The improvement among Black students was also significant.
In 2023, 17% of Black students in grades 6–8 met grade-level expectations or above in math, compared with 55% of White students — a 38-point gap.
By 2026, the percentage of Black students meeting grade level had increased to 31%, a 14-point improvement. White students were at 53%, leaving a 22-point gap.
That’s a 16-point reduction in the Black-White achievement gap, or roughly a 42% decrease in the size of the gap since 2023.
The numbers also provide important context about how those gaps narrowed. In this particular middle-school math comparison, White student performance declined slightly, from 55% to 53%, while Hispanic and Black students posted double-digit gains.
In other words, the gaps did not shrink because all three groups improved at the same rate. Much of the narrowing came from substantial improvement among the two historically lower-performing groups.
At the same time, significant disparities remain. In 2026, 31% of Black middle-school students met grade-level expectations in math compared with 53% of White students. The 22-point difference is considerably smaller than it was three years ago, but it remains substantial.
Some of HISD’s largest gains are in middle school
The racial achievement-gap numbers are part of a broader improvement HISD has reported since 2023.
According to the district, the percentage of students in grades 3–8 meeting grade-level standards has increased since 2023 on every released assessment except the traditional seventh-grade math test.
Across those grades, HISD says Meets Grade Level performance has increased by an average of 10.3 percentage points in reading, 7.7 points in math and six points in social studies since 2023.
Some of the largest gains have occurred in middle school:
- 8th-grade math: +19 percentage points
- 6th-grade reading: +13 points
- Combined 7th-grade math performance: +13 points
- 6th-grade math: +12 points
- 8th-grade reading: +12 points
- 4th-grade reading: +14 points
HISD says that before NES was implemented in fall 2023, the district trailed the Texas average on all STAAR assessments. In 2026, 10 of the 12 third-through-eighth-grade math and reading assessments met or exceeded the statewide average.
HISD reported a decline on the traditional seventh-grade math STAAR assessment. But both HISD and the Texas Education Agency caution against interpreting that decline as evidence that seventh graders overall are performing worse in math.
That’s because increasing numbers of high-performing seventh graders are taking more advanced assessments instead.
Some seventh graders now take the eighth-grade math STAAR or Algebra I end-of-course exam rather than the seventh-grade assessment. As more advanced students move into those tests, the population remaining in the traditional seventh-grade testing group changes.
When HISD combines the performance of seventh graders taking seventh-grade math, eighth-grade math and Algebra I, the district says the percentage reaching grade level has actually increased 13 percentage points since 2023.
The same phenomenon is happening statewide.
TEA reports that in 2026, 32% of all Texas seventh graders took the eighth-grade mathematics STAAR, compared with just 16% in 2023. In three years, Texas has effectively doubled the share of seventh graders accessing that advanced math pathway.
Statewide math results analyzed by students’ enrolled grade — rather than simply which assessment they took — show Meets Grade Level performance increasing in grades 6, 7, 8 and 9 in 2026.
HISD’s gains come as Texas math performance improves
The statewide numbers provide additional context for HISD’s results.
TEA reported gains in math and social studies in 2026, while reading performance was largely stable. Fourth-grade math had the state’s largest year-over-year increase, rising four percentage points.
Across grades 3–8 math, 43% of Texas students met grade level in 2026, compared with 42% in 2025, 40% in 2024 and 42% in 2023.
That statewide trajectory is important when examining HISD’s double-digit gains in some grades. Texas students are improving in math overall, but HISD’s increases in areas such as eighth-grade math are substantially larger than the statewide movement.
Reading presents a similar comparison. Statewide, grades 3–8 reading performance was largely stable or improved modestly in 2026. Grade 8 increased three points from 2025, grade 7 increased two points, grades 4 through 6 were unchanged and grade 3 declined one point.
HISD, meanwhile, reports increases of 13 points in sixth-grade reading and 12 points in eighth-grade reading since 2023.
Achievement gaps remain a statewide challenge
The HISD results also come against a statewide backdrop in which significant performance differences persist for economically disadvantaged students, emergent bilingual students and students receiving special-education services.
In grades 3–8 math statewide, 43% of all students met grade level in 2026 compared with 33% of economically disadvantaged students and 17% of emergent bilingual students.
The statewide reading data also show a gap. About 54% of Texas students overall in grades 3–8 met grade level in RLA in 2026, compared with 43% of economically disadvantaged students and 19% of emergent bilingual students.
Texas also reported a significant increase in science performance in 2026.
Across grades 5 and 8 science and Biology, the percentage of students meeting grade level reached 53% in 2026, up from 46% in 2025.
However, TEA cautions that the science assessments changed this year. The grade 5 and grade 8 science tests were updated to fully assess revised Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards. TEA says the difficulty level was not changed, but some of the content was different.
That makes direct comparisons with prior science scores more complicated than comparisons in math and reading.