Dallas ISD’s emergent bilingual students achieved major academic success in the 2025-2026 school year by outperforming their state peers at all three performance levels, across every subject.
Shared during a recent board meeting, this year’s State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness grades 3-8 and End-of-Course assessments show leading scores in reading, math, and social studies.
The success is due to Dallas ISD’s long-standing commitment to dual language education. For more than 20 years, the district has offered a free dual language program at every campus. The program helps maintain high academic standards in a student’s native language while developing English proficiency, strengthening academic fluency in both languages.
Eva Casas, deputy chief of school leadership and special populations, said the results represent a profound cultural and systemic evolution.
“Watching our emergent bilingual students outperform their peers across Texas, is more than a professional accomplishment, but a powerful reminder how far we’ve come as a district,” she said. “In Dallas, we celebrate multilingualism as a strength and our students are proving every day that they do not have to choose between their language, culture, or academic excellence.”
Over the last three years, the program has continued to strengthen by implementing high-quality instructional materials to increase classroom rigor and developing culturally relevant lessons for students from more than 90 countries who speak over 120 different languages.
Additionally, the district is in its second year of utilizing a dual language English as a Second Language partner system, a model that pairs a certified bilingual teacher teaching in Spanish with an ESL teacher teaching in English, guaranteeing that students receive a true 50-50 split in both languages without relying on direct translation.
“It’s about the systems as a whole that Dallas ISD has to support the success of dual language and English as a Second Language implementation,” Amanda Clymer, executive director dual language ESL, said. “We never take the curriculum directly out of the box, because it wouldn’t be beneficial for our students.”
STAAR data is below:
Across all subjects:
- Approaches: Scores climbed three percentage points, rising from 63% to 66% (outperforming the state average of 59%).
- Meets: Scores climbed three percentage points, rising from 37% to 40% (outperforming the state average of 31%).
- Masters: Scores climbed two percentage points, rising from 13% to 15% (outperforming the state average of 10%).
Reading, grade 3 to English 2:
- Approaches: 61% to 64%, state at 57%
- Meets: 40% to 41%, state at 32%
- Masters: 14% to 15%, state at 9%
Math, grade 3 to Algebra 1:
- Approaches: 65% to 67%, state at 60%
- Meets: 37% to 39%, state at 32%
- Masters: maintained 15%, state at 11%
Science, grade 5 to Biology:
- Approaches: 66% to 68%, state at 64%
- Meets: 31% to 37%, state at 32%
- Masters: 7% to 13%, state at 10%
Social Studies, grade 8 to US History:
- Approaches: maintained 63%, state at 57%
- Meets: 35% to 36%, state at 26%
- Masters: maintained 15%, state at 9%
