The Texas record
Four in ten fail it the first time.
TEA publishes two pass rates for the TExES 268. One counts the first attempt. The other counts every retake. Programs advertise the second one. Here is the first.
61%
passed on the first attempt in 2024-25
69%
passed counting every retake, the number usually advertised
11 pts
the first-attempt rate has fallen since 2020-21
Five program years
The whole record, in one place.
| Program year | Candidates | First attempt | Best attempt | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | 2,866 | 72% | 84% | 12 pts |
| 2021-22 | 2,215 | 65% | 81% | 16 pts |
| 2022-23 | 2,312 | 64% | 80% | 16 pts |
| 2023-24 | 2,053 | 60% | 77% | 17 pts |
| 2024-25 | 2,233 | 61% | 69% | 8 pts |
Source: Texas Education Agency, Texas Educator Certification Examination Program pass rate report, broken out by subtest and educator preparation program, first and best attempt, covering September 2020 through August 2025. Pull the report from TEA.
What the gap is made of
A retake is rarely a content problem.
The distance between those two columns is people who sat the exam again and passed. Ask what changed between attempts. Almost none of them went back and learned school finance. They knew the same material on both days.
What changed was how they read the questions. If a retake works without new content, the first failure was not really about content.
The 268 produces a sharp version of this because of who takes it. Assistant principals, deans, instructional coaches. People who walk in with a decade of judgment, then meet a question where all four options are things a competent principal would do, and the exam wants to know which one comes first.
Experience answers that question from memory. The exam scores it from a framework. When those two disagree, experience loses.
Your first attempt
Make the first one count.
Principal Ready teaches the 268 the way it is actually written, so you are not learning that lesson from a score report. Christie Ray, a Principal of the Year, leads the lessons. I teach the strategy.