Wortham Independent School District (Isd)

The Wortham Independent School District (Isd) is a small, rural district in Texas serving approximately 535 students across three schools: Wortham Elementary, Wortham Middle, and Wortham High School. The district overall ranks in the 28th percentile among Texas school districts, with a high level of economic disadvantage—over 56% of students across all schools are eligible for free or reduced lunch.

Wortham High School stands out as the district's strongest school, ranking in the 47th percentile for the 2025-2026 school year and being the only campus to ever achieve a 3-star rating. It outperforms state averages in English II Reading (71.43% vs. 59.88%) and shows a positive upward trend in its ranking. The high school also benefits from the lowest student-to-teacher ratio (9.6:1) and the highest per-student spending ($13,358), suggesting strategic investment in smaller classes. In contrast, Wortham Middle is the most challenged campus, ranked in the 20th percentile with declining performance over three years. It shows severe academic gaps, such as only 14.29% proficiency in 6th Grade Mathematics compared to the state average of 38.57%, and has a higher student-to-teacher ratio of 16.9:1 with lower per-student spending ($8,393).

A key finding is a pronounced "middle school slump," where students at Wortham Elementary perform relatively close to state averages in early grades but then drop dramatically in middle school, especially in math. While the high school is a bright spot, a major red flag is Algebra I proficiency at only 21.05% versus the state's 54.03%, a foundational course for college readiness. The district also shows inconsistent performance across subjects and years, which may indicate a lack of a stable, vertically-aligned curriculum. The spending disparity—with the high school receiving far more resources per student than the struggling middle school—suggests that reallocating funds to support smaller class sizes at the middle school level could be a critical step for improving the district's overall educational pipeline.