The implementation by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) of an A-F school rating system has been a matter of heated debate since the idea was introduced in Texas, a debate that has been reignited by the release of the first round of district grades by  the TEA on August 15. Wherever one falls in the wisdom or usefulness of the much-debated system, the idea was to provide information for parents, the public, and policy makers. To this end, we created these Google maps below to make it easy to look up the ratings of Texas schools, along with contextual information for each one.  

To use the maps, you can zoom in to find the school you're looking for or to browse schools in a region. Click on the dot to see the school's grade, calculated based on the school's overall score (while "grades" have not been released for schools, converting the 0-100 overall score to a "grade" is as simple as giving schools with 90 or above an A, 80-90 a B, 70-80 a C, 60-70 a D, and those below 60 an F – we don't cotton to the plus/minus thing). You can navigate the map within the frame on this site, or click the brackets in the upper right had corner to open up the Google Maps application on your computer or mobile device.