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The expansion and increasing popularity of Advanced Placement (AP) programs have led to a new and significant trend: students are taking AP courses earlier in their high school journey, with a notable increase in enrollment among freshmen and sophomores. This study examines the effects of early engagement in AP courses for students deemed "academically underprepared", as indicated by their previous standardized test scores in reading and mathematics. By examining "academically underprepared" students transitioning from public middle schools to public high schools in Texas, this research challenges the prevailing assumption that early AP involvement is less advantageous for students with lower prior test scores. The goal is to understand whether early participation in AP courses might contribute to greater educational equity and enhancement, providing perspectives on how AP involvement can improve academic success and readiness for college among students often considered underprepared. This research not only reassesses conventional measures of academic readiness but also seeks to highlight the AP program's potential as a tool for educational advancement and equity.

Research for Action (RFA) in partnership with the University of Texas at Austin is engaged in a five-year mixed-methods study of the reforms associated with California AB 705. Over the course of the study, our team will assess the implementation, impact, and cost effectiveness of reforms associated with the law. This second interim report, presented at the conclusion of year three of the study, focuses on gaining a deeper understanding of on-campus implementation through a faculty survey administered to math and English departments across our study sample, an Interrupted Time Series analysis with nine cohorts of FTIC student data, and preliminary data collection for our cost effectiveness study. Collectively, these data highlight significant changes that colleges have made on campus regarding shifting enrollments from developmental education into transfer-level coursework in both English and math, and providing additional supports to students to promote retention and completion. We find that AB 705 has demonstrated notable successes in improving enrollment and completion rates in transfer-level courses, particularly in math, among FTIC students in California's community colleges. While our survey results suggest that faculty believe additional resources and supports would be helpful, most faculty report that implementation supports have been adequate.

Across the U.S., the number of youths who experience homelessness is increasing. The increase of youth homelessness is growing most rapidly for Black and Hispanic students and is occurring in both small and large states. In Texas, one of the states with the largest population of students experiencing homelessness, its youth homeless population is more than six times the national average. This research has examined the longitudinal and disaggregated impacts of homelessness on youth by race and ethnicity, specifically during the critical transition from high school to college. The purpose of this study is to examine the transition of graduating seniors who experience homelessness and their enrollment in college. To achieve this purpose, this brief addresses the following research questions in this study: (1) How do high school graduation rates vary across students based on their homeless status, race/ethnicity, and their interaction in Texas?; (2) Among high school graduates, to what extent does homelessness by race impact students' college enrollment for Black and Hispanic students in Texas?; and (3) Among students experiencing homelessness, how does the likelihood of high school graduation and college enrollment for Black and Hispanic students compare to that of White students in Texas?

Research for Action (RFA) in partnership with the University of Texas at Austin is engaged in a five-year mixed-methods study of the reforms associated with California AB 705. Over the course of the study, our team will assess the implementation, impact, and cost effectiveness of reforms associated with the law. This report first offers a descriptive quantitative analysis of short-term outcome (enrollment and completion) trends in math and English at the state level. This descriptive analysis examines the relationship between AB 705 and course enrollment and completion, which will serve as the basis for the quasi-experimental study in subsequent project years. The second part of the report presents findings from institutional site visits aimed at understanding how institutions have implemented the reforms, who is involved in implementation, and how implementation is experienced by students.

Each year as tuition costs increase, more students rely on financial aid to attend institutions of higher education. Financial aid packages, which are created to encourage individual investments in education, consist of a variety of types of funding assistance and aid packages, and are highly tailored to individual students. In general, financial aid includes need- based grants, merit-based awards, and subsidized loans. A mix of federal, state and local governments, as well as private organizations, finance these programs and many are contingent on student actions or characteristics. The ramifications of the diversity of funding programs within aid packages has received little attention from policy makers. This is unfortunate because certain programs may have behavioral consequences for students beyond decreasing the cost of attendance. For example, federal work- study funding provides funds to students conditional on their commitment to working while in school. This job and time requirement may affect student performance in positive or negative ways. Analyzing the efficacy of the federal work-study program is important because it may have adverse effects on student outcomes if working involves a substantial time trade-off with time spent learning. At the same time, working while in school may provide a means for students to gain knowledge and skills that reinforce their academic experience and prepare them for success in academics and the labor market.

Little is known about differences between traditional, university-based certification programs and alternative certification programs in terms of outcomes for students and teachers. Across all preparation pathways, however, too many early career teachers leave the field (over 40% within first five years). This attrition problem is likely to grow in the next few years with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors. Historically, one response to the growing teacher shortage in Texas has been the development of many different pathways into the profession for those wishing to enter PreK-12 classrooms--more teachers certified through alternative pathways than any other state by a considerable margin. This report provides a summary of findings from the educator preparation pathways study. The study includes two sets of analyses--one focused on student outcomes and one focused on teacher outcomes. Overall, the findings indicate that university-certified teachers had higher student learning and stayed longer in the field than alternatively certified teachers.

This study examined the effect of attending Pre-K 4 SA on students' educational achievement in third and fourth grades. Pre-K 4 SA is a high-quality pre-kindergarten (pre-K) program in San Antonio that meets all quality standards defined by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER). The results showed that distance to Pre-K 4 SA centers was negatively associated with child enrollment in Pre-K 4 SA over the assigned neighborhood pre-K program. This result indicated that parents who lived farther away from the centers might face higher opportunity costs, information costs, and transportation costs, making the Pre-K4SA option less appealing over other local options. The authors also found that students by attending Pre-K 4 SA increased 0.3 (first cohort) and 0.6 (second cohort) standard deviations of STAAR reading test scores for the first and second cohorts, respectively, and 0.5 standard deviations of math test scores in third grade for both cohorts. Additionally, Pre-K 4 SA students were predicted to have larger impacts on their reading and math test scores in fourth grade than those in third grade, showing that the impacts on test scores were sustained and even growing for an additional year. On the other hand, the authors found none or some negative impacts on student behavioral outcomes.

Course withdrawals may lead to financial burdens for students, institutions, states, and the federal government. Understanding consequences of course withdrawal is key to understanding its implications and developing interventions to improve student success. Since no research has examined course withdrawal behaviors and their relations to student degree outcomes within a statewide or nationally representative sample, the author addresses this gap by using statewide administrative data from the Texas Education Research Center (ERC). The study sample comprises four fall cohorts of first-time degree-seeking college students attending any public two-year college or public university in the state of Texas. This study estimates the relationship between course withdrawal and student outcomes in the Texas public higher education institutions.

Texas, like many states, considers students to be "college, career, or military ready" if they earn an industry-based certification (IBC) in high school. While the expansion of opportunities for students to earn IBCs has been stimulated through state policy, limited research has systematically examined what factors influence students' receipt of IBCs and the relationship between IBCs and students' postsecondary educational and employment outcomes. The results of this study show that the greatest source of variation in students' receipt of IBCs is across schools, suggesting that school-level approaches to expanding IBCs are particularly critical. IBCs are found to have a positive but modest relationship with students' college enrollment and persistence, nearly no relationship with the likelihood of employment, and large and positive relationships with earnings for many IBC subjects. Importantly, these results are largely consistent across demographic groups, suggesting few inequities in the relationship between IBC receipt and subsequent outcomes. Overall, the results suggest IBCs provide concrete earnings benefits and do not deter students from higher education, but access to IBC opportunities remains highly uneven across the state.

We continue to witness disparities in exclusionary disciplinary outcomes within K-12 public schools, leading to persistent concerns for educational equity. In-school suspensions represent one of the most frequently employed components of school exclusionary discipline systems, and they are also largely left up to the discretion of principals and assistant principals. We investigate in-school suspension patterns for multiple student racial/ethnic groups with a focus on how such patterns vary across school geographic locales. We also examine the extent to which student to leader racial/ethnic matching is associated with the attenuation of in school suspension outcomes for historically marginalized groups. Drawing on data from the entire state of Texas and representing over 24 million unique student-year observations, we leverage the demographic and geographic diversity of our sample to present new evidence of persistent exclusionary discipline outcomes, specifically for Black students in non-urban school contexts. Our results help to better understand the geographic complexity related to student-leader racial/ethnic matching and in school suspension patterns. Our findings offer key implications for school, district, and state level leaders in the areas of school leader hiring practices, supporting culturally relevant school leadership, and the structuring of school disciplinary policies towards more equitable student outcomes.

Low levels of teacher diversity in U.S. elementary and secondary schools represent a wasted opportunity to narrow achievement gaps. Evidence from other states suggests that students of color have better outcomes in the classrooms of teachers of color, but the teaching workforce remains predominantly white. Teachers of color are underrepresented at all stages of the human capital pipeline into teaching, and demographic projections suggest that the problem is likely to worsen. Given the existing literature on teacher-student demographic match which mostly focuses on the positive effects of teacher-student race match for Black students, there are additional questions that have yet to be explored. These include the role of gender and matching effects for Latino and Hispanic students. In this report, the researchers study the effects of exposure to Hispanic and Latino teachers on Hispanic and Latino students' scholastic and economic outcomes in Texas public schools, where the Hispanic share of teachers has increased from 15 percent to 27 percent from 1995 to 2018. The research design relies on within-school comparisons over time that control flexibly for variation in outcome dynamics across school districts. The researchers study short- and medium-term outcomes (e.g., standardized exam scores, discipline rates, and high school dropout rates) and long-term outcomes (e.g., high school graduation rates, college enrollment, college persistence, and college graduation) and find that exposure to teachers of color significantly improves short- and medium-term outcomes among elementary school students. The effects of teacher diversity are smaller and less precisely estimated for later grades and for long-term outcomes. These findings highlight the importance of policies aimed at increasing the representation of teachers of color in public schools.

This study examines the effect of dual enrollment (DE) on college enrollment and degree completion for less academically prepared students who attended public high schools in Texas. The authors employ a propensity score matching method to reduce selection bias from DE participation and supplement the analysis with a bounds test. The results show that DE students were predicted to have a higher likelihood of entering college immediately after high school and completing a degree within four and eight years of high school graduation, compared to similar students who did not take DE courses. This evidence suggests that that DE programs contributed to a reduction in educational inequities in college access and degree attainment for students at risk of academic failure. On the other hand, students who were racial or ethnic minorities and students from low-income families were not only less likely to participate in DE programs but were also predicted to have smaller participation effects on college degree attainment than their counterparts, stressing the need for higher education institutions and partnering school districts to provide more robust support to these underserved students for participating in DE programs and making a successful transition into college.

The policy brief describes a study done by the Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest. Round Rock Independent School District (ISD) wanted to enhance its high school career and technical education (CTE) programming to prepare CTE graduates to either enter high-wage, in-demand careers in Central Texas or continue their education after high school. However, district leaders lacked key information about the district's CTE programming and their CTE graduates' postsecondary performance. In response to a request from the Round Rock ISD, this study investigated the percentage of Round Rock ISD graduates from 2012/13 through 2017/18 who completed one or more career and technical education (CTE) programs of study. The study also examined the percentage of CTE programs of study in Round Rock ISD that were aligned with high wage, in demand career pathways in Central Texas, plus the postsecondary outcomes of these graduates who completed a program of study. Key study findings include: (1) The percentage of students who graduated with one or more CTE programs of study increased more than 10 fold across the six graduating cohorts, from 4 percent for the 2012/13 cohort to 47 percent for the 2017/18 cohort; (2) Seventy-six percent of the CTE graduates completed course requirements in the 13 programs of study aligned with regional high wage, in demand career pathways in the Central Texas labor market; and (3) More than 80 percent of the CTE graduates from each cohort enrolled in two or four year colleges or were employed within one year of high school graduation. [For the full report, "Examining High School Career and Technical Education Programs and the Postsecondary Outcomes of Career and Technical Education Students in the Round Rock Independent School District," see ED608126.]

Forty percent of all Texas public college students start at a community college and 75 percent earn at least some community college credits. Yet there is very little evidence about how students make transfer decisions and whether the policies meant to avoid credit loss, like the core curriculum, actually improve transfer success and degree attainment. In this study, the authors examine how community college students select which institutions to transfer to and whether state transfer policies, like the core curriculum, impact student outcomes. Using Education Research Center (ERC) data on community college entrants, the authors examine track student transfer and progress. First, they examine proximal outcomes in the transfer process--investigating how students select their destination university. Second, they examine the relationship between credits accumulated under the core curriculum--a set of courses that, as mandated in state policy, are universally accepted at public colleges statewide, totaling up to 42 credits--and degree attainment among students who transferred from community colleges to public universities. By examining both student transfer behavior and the impact of policies meant to illuminate transfer pathways, this project stands to inform ongoing debates about how to best improve transfer policies in the state.

The Inclusion of Children with Disabilities Act (IDEA) act requires that to the maximum extent possible, children with disabilities should be taught alongside the regular students. In line with the IDEA, advocates of inclusion argue that disabled students incorporated in a normal academic environment display improved academic achievement among the disability students (Cole, Waldron, & Majd, 2004; Cole & Meyer, 1991; Fisher & Meyer, 2002). Inclusion of students with disabilities into regular classrooms can also help in changing the attitudes of the regular students towards disabled children (Siperstein, Norins, & Mohler, 2007). This can be a crucial factor in the performance of disabled students as there is a significant role of social acceptance and participation in their development, aspirations as well as confidence (Ouellette-Kuntz, Burge, Brown, & Arsenault, 2010; Scior, 2011). However, proponents of the separate instructional setting for special education students believe that students with disabilities are more successful if taught in separate, individualized settings with requirement-based instructions at a conducive pace. One of the main reasons for the lack of good causal evidence on this topic is that the movement of students into or out of a special education setting is not random. Students who are eligible for special education are in many unobserved ways inherently different from the students who are not. Hence, one cannot directly compare students in special education to students who are not in special education. It will be equally misleading to compare the students before and after they move into/out of special education as changes in their status is endogenous to changes in the ability/need of the individual. This project overcomes these challenges and estimates the role of special education in affecting a student's outcomes. To establish causality and eliminate the stated endogeneity issue, the analysis uses a plausibly exogenous policy change that induced variation across the school districts in Texas in their incentives to categorize or enroll a marginal student (those with less severe disability conditions) under special education.

Texas House Bill 3 established a college, career, and military readiness (CCMR) outcomes bonus, which provides extra funding to districts for each annual graduate demonstrating CCMR under the state accountability system. Some small district and rural district leaders expressed concern about the ability of their graduates to meet the career readiness component of the CCMR accountability standards due to a lack of career and technical education (CTE) program or course resources. Texas Education Agency (TEA) partnered with Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Southwest to conduct a study focused on attainment of alternative career readiness options among high school graduates, and specifically graduates in small districts and rural districts. The study provides information on the implications of the CCMR accountability standards for high school graduates by examining the extent to which the cohort of 2017-18 Texas public school graduates did not meet CCMR accountability standards, particularly for graduates in small districts and rural districts. The study also provides information on the extent to which graduates demonstrated career readiness via alternative career readiness options identified by TEA. Finally, the study explores whether graduates who met the alternative career readiness options attained similar postsecondary college and career outcomes to graduates who met CCMR accountability standards to inform the Commissioner of Education as he considers alternative career readiness options. [For the full report, "Alternative Career Readiness Measures for Small and Rural Districts in Texas. REL 2021-066," see ED610681.]

Rural students in the United States have a lower likelihood of entering and completing college compared with their non-rural peers, despite strong high school graduation rates. Postsecondary attendance and degree attainment gaps observed across geographic regions present equity and access concerns in the high school-to-higher education pipeline. This study uses recent Texas state administrative data to explore descriptive statistics and logistic regression models examining the college matriculation, flagship attendance, and bachelor's degree completion outcomes of students who attend rural and non-rural public high schools in Texas. The estimation strategy involves a stepwise regression model approach to understand which covariates explain rural and non-rural differences. Results indicate that, after controlling for demographic background, pre-college measures, and college-related factors, rural students experience lower rates of college matriculation, flagship attendance, and bachelor's degree attainment in comparison with their non-rural peers. Findings suggest high school experience predictors (e.g. test scores, school enrollment size) explain away the rural advantage associated with college matriculation. High school experience factors similarly narrow the gap between rurality and flagship attendance. College-related ability measures (e.g. top ten percent, SAT scores) and additional background measures (e.g. parents' highest education, household income) significantly diminish the relationship between attending a rural or non-rural public high school and bachelor's degree completion. The analyses offer insights into this understudied population of rural students in Texas to provide useful policy recommendations to state lawmakers, higher education administrators, and high school educators.

This paper analyzed the role of students having a same-race teacher on a high school student's short- and long-term outcomes. How is a student's academic achievement affected in the classroom with a same-race teacher and how is their likelihood of attending college changed by having a same-race teacher? Race-matching improves Black and Asian students' standardized test scores for that class and their likelihood of passing that class as well. Black and Hispanic students also became significantly more likely to enroll in a two- or four- year college with a same-race 9th grade teacher. Black and Hispanic students with a same-race 9th grade STEM teacher were also significantly more likely to major in STEM in college. This paper highlights the need to have a more diverse and representative teacher population and gives a concrete policy recommendation of increasing the ethnic and racial diversity of the Texas teaching population to better match the students that they serve.

Federal policy recognizes the importance of effective educators, particularly in high-needs schools. Research has shown that the most critical school-related factor that influences student learning and achievement is teacher quality (Hanushek, 2011). The Texas Center for Educator Excellence (TxCEE) aims to address the research-based and policy-based need to improve educator quality in Texas. TxCEE's mission is to equip educators to improve student achievement through the alignment of district resources, campus leadership training, and strategies to increase educator effectiveness. This report addresses the Teacher and School Leader Incentive Fund (TSL) program which impacts 4 districts including 62 high-need schools, over 2,500 professional staff, and over 39,000 students in Texas. Descriptive statistics will be the primary method for this project. The data available through the Texas Education Research Center provides comprehensive access to information across the educational pipeline, data from non-TSL districts for comparison, and the ability to determine the root causes for human capital and student achievement challenges in the participating high-need districts. This report discuses three important important findings from the evaluation: (1) The percent of new hires prepared through a traditional program has decreased over time in most of the sample districts; (2) Of the newly hired teachers, the proportion who are new to teaching increases with higher percentages of economic disadvantage determined by Free or Reduced-Price Lunch (FRPL) among the students; and (3) Teachers in large suburban districts on average earn higher salaries than teachers in other geographic district categories. There is also less variation in average salary between the group of large suburban districts.

Despite advances made in broadening access to higher education, some evidence suggests that college completion rates have actually declined over time, and attainment gaps stemming from race/ethnicity and socioeconomic background have remained stubbornly persistent (Bound, Lovenheim, & Turner, 2010; National Center for Education Statistics, 2019). Colleges and universities are searching for ways to better identify students with lower odds of postsecondary success and develop programs to support their persistence and completion. This paper presents collaborative research from four different states -- Texas, New York, Virginia and Illinois -- examining the feasibility and accuracy of models that predict students' likelihood of degree completion using only administrative data on students' pre-college characteristics and early college experiences. The authors employed fairly simple statistical methods on statewide longitudinal data systems (also known as student unit records systems or "SURDS") to predict degree completion for undergraduate students. Their focus was on the overall predictive validity of these models, which is often neglected in educational research that focuses on relationships between student characteristics and degree completion (American Diploma Project, 2004; Adelman, 1997, 1999, 2006; Attewell, Heil & Reisel, 2011; Braxton, 2000; Chen & Carroll, 2005; Complete College America, 2011; Horn, Kojaku & Carroll, 2001; Tinto, 1994, 2012). [The paper was written with Christopher Maggio, Frederick Tucker, Jay Brooks, Xiaodan Hu, Tod Massa, Feng Raoking, and Nathan Wilson.]

Steady school leadership can support student achievement and equity-related outcomes, but the principalship is becoming more stressful with increasing demands, duties, and expectations. Burnout is one of several factors that contribute to principal turnover which often destabilizes a school community. Individual and organizational factors contribute to principal burnout, but remain relatively unexamined. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to analyze the factors that contribute to burnout among novice principals in one large urban school district in the Southwestern U.S. Findings highlight the impact of secondary trauma, working conditions, and coping strategies on principal burnout.

This study examined one strategy for dev-ed math reform, the Dana Center Math Pathways (DCMP) model. The DCMP model encouraged students to enroll in a college-level math course best suited to their field of interest and, at the time of inquiry, used a compression approach, condensing sequences of two or more developmental courses into a shorter, accelerated prerequisite course that covers the same content in a single semester. Among two cohorts of students who enrolled in developmental math courses in fall 2015 and fall 2016, the study compared key early outcomes of those enrolled in DCMP developmental courses with peers enrolled primarily in traditional developmental math courses. Findings show evidence of greater enrollment and pass rates in introductory college-level math courses among the DCMP enrollees as early as one semester after developmental enrollment.

This paper examines the effects of the Top Ten Percent policy, which guaranteed students in the top ten percent of their high school graduating class admission to Texas Public Universities. As a result of the policy, the composition of the student body changed, particularly at the University of Texas at Austin (UTA). This paper asks, what were the educational and labor market effects of this policy change for both the students who gained access (referred to as "Pulled In" students), and students who lost access to UTA (referred to as "Pushed Out" students). Pulled In students were more likely to attend public universities in Texas and more likely to attend UTA. Pulled in students also were more likely to graduate with a bachelor's degree, and there is some evidence that they had higher earnings. Pushed out students were less likely to attend UTA but were no less likely to attend public colleges and universities in Texas; they also saw no declines in college graduation or earnings.

To address under-preparation of students for college-level course-work, Texas House Bill 5 (HB5) introduced a number of substantive changes to the state high school curriculum and graduation requirements. Among its provisions, HB5 created a requirement that school districts offer a college preparatory mathematics course for students not meeting college readiness standards in mathematics by the end of their third year of high school. It further required that the course be offered through a partnership with an institution of higher education--typically a community college--and that successful completion of the course must satisfy the partner institution's requirements for enrollment in college-level coursework. One curriculum designed with the goals and requirements of HB5 is the Transition to College Mathematics Course (TCMC), developed by the Charles A. Dana Center. TCMC was offered at high schools in eight districts across central Texas during the 2016-17 school year and in thirty districts during the 2017-18 school year. To estimate the effects of participating in the course, the study compared twelfth-grade students who participated in TCMC to observationally similar twelfth-grade students from the same cohort, but who did not enroll in the course. This brief focuses on outcomes for the Fall semester one and two years after enrolling in the course. Across both cohorts, students who participated in TCMC graduated from high school at higher rates than students in the comparison groups. Findings from this study suggest that participating in TCMC could have shifted some students who might otherwise have enrolled in four-year institutions towards enrolling in community college instead. This impact would be consistent with the incentive structure of the college preparatory course requirements created by HB5, in that the successful completion of the course provided exemption from proficiency exams only at the partner institution.

Each time children change schools, they leave behind friends, and must adapt to a new environment. This new environment may include not only a new school, but also a new home, a new neighborhood, a new part of town, and, potentially, a new family arrangement. This larger array of possible changes will determine if the move causes overall benefit or harm to a student's educational achievement. Consequently, when analyzing the causes and effects of school mobility, one must consider multiple factors that occur before and after a student relocates to a new school. To examine equity in education, addressing the root causes of school mobility must be also be considered. In Bexar County, the evidence suggests that when students change schools unrelated to structural school factors outside of their control (i.e. grade promotion, changes in school feeder patterns) educational achievement declines. The research problem in this study was to close gaps in knowledge about the prevalence of nonstructural school mobility within Bexar County and its effects on teaching and learning. To do so, the authors conducted a mixed-methods investigation of the following research questions: (1) How likely do public school students experience nonstructural school mobility?; (2) Which students are most likely to experience nonstructural school mobility?; and (3) What causes nonstructural school mobility for those with the highest rates?

College affordability has been an urgent concern in the context of Texas higher education. In September 2003, the Texas Legislature passed HB 3015 (2003) to allow governing boards of public universities to set different designated tuition rates, with no upper limit. As a result, tuition at four-year colleges and universities in Texas has remarkably increased since 2003. College affordability is vital to college access and success. The college affordability issue is very salient in the context of Texas higher education, particularly at four-year public institutions because of tuition increases caused by tuition deregulation since 2003. Although students primarily use federal aid to reduce the cost of college education, state-level financial aid also plays a critical role in shaping college affordability for all students, but especially low-income students. However, extant research does not offer clear evidence of how state-supported financial aid affects student outcomes in Texas, particularly for offsetting college costs. Using longitudinal administrative data from the Texas Education Research Center and event history modeling, this study sought to answer two research questions: (1) How does state-supported financial aid, broken down by programs of financial aid, impact baccalaureate degree completion? (2) How do the effects of state-supported financial aid on baccalaureate degree completion vary across income status and race? The findings suggest that it is necessary to explore effective strategies to increase student outcomes and reduce the inequality in educational opportunity across students by utilizing financial aid where in theory the chances of graduation heavily depend on financial resources to pay for college. Ultimately, the role of state-supported financial aid, coupled with other financial resources, is vital to ensure college affordability and student success in an era of rising costs of higher education in Texas.

Data from the National Student Clearinghouse shows that an estimated 36 million students in the United States previously attended a college or university but never earned a degree. Research shows that many students transfer from a community college to a university before earning an associate's degree, and that many transfer students never make it across the bachelor's degree finish line. To address these issues, a growing number of states and institutions have implemented reverse credit transfer (RCT) policies, designed to award associate's degrees to students who transfer from 2-year to 4-year colleges after transfer. The partnership between the University of Texas -- El Paso and El Paso Community College is one of first examples of RCT in the country, and the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 3025 in 2011 mandating that public colleges engage in RCT. The purpose of this study is to examine how the receipt of associate's degrees after transferring to a university relates to students' university and employment outcomes in Texas. The authors examine the long-term university persistence, baccalaureate attainment, employment, and earnings of students who transferred from community colleges to universities and estimate the relationship between RCT degree receipt and these outcomes. The following research questions are addressed in this study: (1) What is the impact of receiving the associate's degree through RCT on university persistence and baccalaureate attainment?; (2) To what extent does the relationship between associate's degree receipt through RCT and university outcomes vary by students' demographic backgrounds (Pell eligibility, race/ethnicity, and age)?; (3) What is the impact of receiving the associate's degree through RCT on students' labor market outcomes?; and (4) To what extent does the relationship between associate's degree receipt through RCT and labor market outcomes vary by students' demographic backgrounds (Pell eligibility, race/ethnicity, and age)?

A complex web of factors can influence whether students participate in computer science (CS) during high school. In order to increase participation in CS for all students, there is a need to better understand who is currently participating and what factors might be hindering participation. This study utilized a large-scale, student-level dataset from the Texas Education Research Center to investigate factors that predict high school student participation in CS and advanced CS courses. The dataset contained information on over 1.1 million Texas high school students from the 2017-2018 school year, allowing visibility into CS course availability in schools, student course taking, and detailed demographic information. The researchers used multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression models to explore predictive factors of student participation in CS and advanced CS courses, limiting our analysis to students whose schools offered CS. In both models, the results showed that students who took Algebra I before high school had more than double the odds of being enrolled in a CS course. This work supports and extends previous understanding of factors that are predictive of CS participation in high school, contributing to the existing literature by uncovering the importance of Algebra I before high school as a potential gatekeeper to participation in CS.

Students living in rural areas are less likely to attend schools that offer computer science (CS) courses largely because educational institutions in these remote areas lack the resources to staff teaching positions for these courses. This study investigated the impact of WeTeach_CS, a program designed to train teachers to become certified to teach high school CS in Texas. This research project examines the effectiveness of the WeTeach_CS collective impact model for increasing the number of certified CS teachers in rural schools. Interrupted times series (ITS) analysis was used to investigate the impact of the WeTeach_CS program on the number of certified computer science teachers in rural schools. The authors hypothesized that the WeTeach_CS program would positively impact the number of certified CS teachers in rural schools but that this effect would happen gradually over time. The results of this study demonstrate that large-scale collective impact interventions can be effective in increasing the number of certified CS teachers. Moreover, given the statistically significant change in slope between the pre-intervention and intervention phases, this study shows that program effects can be sustained over time.

Increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of the teacher workforce is vital to the success of all students nationally. Calls to prepare, recruit, and retain more teachers of color come from a variety of stakeholders, including policymakers, state and district leaders, as well as school community members. Yet, a growing body of evidence demonstrates the persistent lack of racial and ethnic diversity across teacher labor markets nationally. There is a well-identified gap in the research when it comes to studies investigating systematic patterns of retention and mobility for teachers of color. There is also a distinct need for research that can separate out results for Black and Latinx teachers. In this study, Wesley Edwards investigated the extent to which key school work environment and personal background characteristics were associated with retention and mobility outcomes for teachers of color in Texas. Edwards analyzed longitudinal administrative data from Texas's 20 largest districts, representing information from over one million unique teacher-year observations. Drawing on over a decade of employment records, school-level student information, and teacher certification data, the following three research questions were posed: (1) What are the characteristics of teacher work environments and how do these characteristics vary depending on the racial/ethnic composition of teachers at the school-level?; (2) What are the characteristics of career trajectories (e.g., retention and mobility) for teachers of color compared to White teachers within the twenty largest school districts in Texas?; and (3) To what extent do teacher background and campus-level characteristics predict teacher retention and mobility for teachers of color across their career trajectories?

E3 Alliance is a regional, data-driven education collaborative based in Austin, Texas. They are helping to build the strongest educational pipeline in the country to drive regional economic prosperity. They are focused on educational systems change, and use data to inform those efforts. Given that their approach to supporting educational improvement is fundamentally 'data driven', data from the University of Texas Education Research Center (ERC) plays a key role in their ability to provide objective, actionable data to practitioners in the region. E3 Alliance has developed a comprehensive set of education and related workforce statistics over the past decade that provide the region with critical information necessary to understand the education and related workforce issues facing the region, to develop well-grounded strategies in response, to change instructional policies and practices, and to allow the assessment of progress over time. Each year, E3 Alliance produces the Annual Central Texas Education Profile, the most comprehensive regional view of educational trends and outcomes in Texas. A key priority of their work has always focused on early learners. E3 Alliance's early childhood research includes (1) creation of "Ready, Set, K!," a Kindergarten Readiness Assessment designed to measure children's Kindergarten Readiness across the Social-Emotional Development, Emerging Literacy, Language and Communication, and Early Numeracy domains; (2) the Kindergarten Readiness Study, launched in 2010 to determine what portion of Central Texas children enter kindergarten ready for school using the "Ready, Set, K!" Assessment as well as factors associated with readiness (e.g. full-day, low-ratio Pre-K); (3) Longitudinal correlation of readiness with later outcomes including 3rd grade reading and math proficiency, and (4) annual updates to the Central Texas Profile, which tracks various early childhood education metrics. [The policy brief is written by the E3 Alliance.]

E3 Alliance is a regional, data-driven education collaborative based in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2006, E3 Alliance acts as a catalyst for change, working to break down barriers and build better alignment across the education continuum. In pursuit of systemic change, E3 Alliance is guided by "The Blueprint for Educational Change," Central Texas' strategic plan for improving the educational pipeline from 'cradle to career'. This brief describes how E3 Alliance has worked with partners from across the region to enhance progress toward being a truly data driven community. A key component of that work is the Central Texas Education Profile, which allows partners access to data about the progress of all Central Texas students from cradle to career. Using Education Resource Center (ERC) data in the work with E3 Alliance's education partners is showing tremendous return in enhancing the region's access, capability, and culture of data use to improve student outcomes. [This report was written by E3 Alliance.]

In 2017, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) awarded SRI International and its subcontractor, Gibson Consulting Group, (the SRI/Gibson team) a contract to conduct a study to inform the state's efforts to improve career and technical education (CTE) programs. The SRI/Gibson team designed the study to help TEA learn more about the CTE programs offered across the state, the demographics of students enrolled in those programs, and the academic attainment and postsecondary outcomes of CTE participants. Given TEA's goals to improve the quality of CTE programs, the study also included development of a set of program quality metrics (PQM) that identify both the inputs and outputs of CTE programs and that are based on available evidence-based practices. The study addressed four research questions: (1) What CTE career clusters are offered in Texas?; (2) What are the demographic characteristics of students participating in CTE?; (3) What are the characteristics of students enrolled in Texas CTE career clusters?; and (4) To what extent are Texas CTE graduates meeting Texas college and career readiness standards and successfully transitioning into the workforce or postsecondary institutions?

Over the last forty years, schools' use of exclusionary discipline tactics, such as suspension and expulsion, increased by nearly 50% (Office for Civil Rights 2014). Research suggests that the suspension and expulsion of students may negatively affect future educational attainment, interaction with the criminal justice system, and other indicators of economic and social wellbeing (Andrew and Blake 2017; Fabelo et al. 2011; Mittleman 2017; Wolf and Kupchik 2017). Previous research also shows that not all children are equally likely to be suspended or expelled (Ramey 2015; Skiba and Williams 2014). Students' discipline experiences vary substantially by gender, socio-economic status, and race/ethnicity. Many questions still remain about the causes of schools' increasing use of suspension and expulsion, especially among already disadvantaged populations. To identify the predictors of suspension and expulsion, education researchers and other social scientists have focused primarily on differences in the composition and characteristics of children's schools, differences in children's school behaviors and, to a lesser extent, differences in children's family backgrounds. In this study, the authors proposed to help distill and extend what they know about the effects of family context factors on children's risk of suspension and expulsion. Drawing on one of the largest and most complete State Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) in the nation, this study accessed Texas Education Research Center (ERC) data to analyze current school discipline outcomes of a sample of 757 children matched to their mothers in the Texas subsample of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. Using common identifiers in both sets of longitudinal data, this study was able to leverage a unique dataset incorporating detailed survey data including family backgrounds and characteristics of 757 children born between 1998 and 2000 with their administrative school-level records from preschool through entry into higher education or the workforce. The expected benefit of these combined data was superior analytic capabilities than either source of data by itself. As far as the authors know, theirs was the first project to combine necessary school discipline and academic records with longitudinal survey data on children to be able to jointly examine the relative associations between child, family, and school/neighborhood factors -- measured from birth through adolescence -- on suspension and expulsion. Given sufficient findings, the hope was that by investigating this broad range of factors and family characteristics that predict future suspension and expulsion, schools would have information needed to intervene earlier in children's school careers, implementing policies designed to ameliorate children's behaviors.

How should Texas prepare teachers so that their students benefit the most? This question is hard to answer, but important to address, particularly in the critical areas of high school mathematics and science. The goal of this project was to assess the quality of science and mathematics teachers prepared by UTeach and other university-based teacher preparation programs. The primary way this was done was examining the test scores in Algebra I and Biology of high school students who had UTeach or standard university-prepared teachers, and comparing the scores with those of students taking the same class from other teachers in the same school. Findings indicate that Texas students in Algebra I and Biology learn more when their teachers come from standard university programs than when their teachers come from alternative certification programs. This is true both for UTeach, a model program at eight universities across Texas, as well as all standard university educator preparation programs in Texas.

This paper focuses on the role of non-native peers in classrooms. What is the impact of classroom composition on short- and long-term academic outcomes of native students? This study takes multiple approaches to estimate the causal impact of non-native students in Grade 9 on students' test scores and college attainment. The author finds that while the number of non-native or English Language Learner (ELL) students in 9th grade has a small negative short-term impact on reading and math scores, the effect on high school completion or college enrollment is minimal. The long-term effects of the presence of a non-native student are a very interesting question but still understudied. There are two questions relevant to this long-term effect: (1) First, if a native-born student was exposed to non-native students in her early life (in primary school), does it affect her later academic careers such as high school or college completion?; and (2) Second, if non-native students acquire sufficient language skills and knowledge of the American system, do they still have a positive or negative effect on native students?

This program evaluation study sought to discern if a preparation pathway offered by Texas Tech University (TTU), one that leverages community college graduates, was yielding desirable outcomes. The Teacher Education Department at Texas Tech University is committed to producing quality teachers that can immediately impact children upon entering the profession. The Department hosts two unique teacher preparation pathways. The TechTeach (TT) pathway prepares students at the university in a face-to-face format on the main Texas Tech University campus in Lubbock, Texas. The TechTeach Across Texas (TTAT) pathway is an accelerated, online format that recruits graduates from Associate of Arts in Teaching programs at community colleges from across the state. The purpose of this study was to examine teaching effectiveness of TTAT graduates and compare their effectiveness to the core of graduates from standard--including graduates from the TT campus-based program--and alternative certification programs in the state of Texas. The findings from this study should help inform future policy and programmatic decisions, including the support and propagation of similar programs across the state.

This study examined the impact of a multi-year, large-scale professional development program on student achievement in mathematics and science. Math and science teachers at the elementary and secondary levels who participated in the professional development program were matched to a control group. Results revealed no differences in State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) test scores between treatment and control groups for all grades and subjects except elementary students in rural areas. In rural areas, fifth grade students of teachers in the treatment group outperformed students of teachers in the control group on the STAAR Math and STAAR Science assessments. These results suggest that the large-scale professional development program is particularly beneficial for rural elementary school teachers, perhaps due to rural teachers having a greater need for the connections and resources gained by participating in the program and to elementary teachers having more flexibility in the amount of time they spend teaching math and science in their classrooms.

Inclusive science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) high schools, such as T-STEM Academies, are intended to broaden STEM opportunities by enrolling interested students from diverse backgrounds without imposing aptitude or prior achievement requirements and giving all their students STEM courses and real-world experiences to inspire and prepare them for entry into a STEM college major. The goal of this large-scale, longitudinal study of the effectiveness of inclusive STEM high schools was to ascertain whether inclusive STEM high schools (ISHSs) fulfill this purpose. The research found that ISHS attendance increased the odds of completing key STEM courses (including calculus or pre-calculus) in high school and of students' being very interested in one or more STEM careers at the end of high school. These positive impacts were found for low-income, underrepresented minority, and female students as well as for students overall. ISHS attendance appeared to have a significant but small positive impact on Grade 11 math and science Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) scores. Analysis of Texas postsecondary records found that T-STEM graduates were significantly more likely than similar students who attended other types of high schools in the matched comparison sample to be in a STEM bachelor's degree program two years after high school graduation.

HB5 of 2013 eliminated many end of course exams and lowered the course-taking requirements for many high school students. What were the main consequences? College readiness as measured by high school exams dropped precipitously. However high-school course-taking patterns were largely unchanged. The goal of the research project presented in this brief was to explore consequences of high school graduation requirement changes because of HB5 of 2013 for Texas students. It was found that college readiness as measured by Texas in high school fell dramatically after passage of HB5.

The Young Women's Preparatory Network (YWPN) is a private foundation that supports single-sex, college preparatory schools throughout Texas. Over the past fifteen years, the organization has worked through public-private partnerships to establish and support public, all-girls secondary schools in districts across Texas. This study evaluated the effects of attending the seven established all-girls schools in the YWPN, relative to attending a co-educational school in the same district, on attendees' educational trajectories. This evaluation took a high level view of understanding the effects of attending YWPN schools, focusing on average effects for students who attended one of seven schools in the YWPN network between 2007-08 and 2014-15. These schools were established and are supported through a partnership between the public independent school districts and the YWPN foundation. The primary policy implication of this study is that sustained support for these partnerships is warranted in light of the schools' beneficial impacts on academic performance and behavior during middle school and their marked positive impacts on college enrollment.

Substantial disparities in college enrollment rates exist across racial and socioeconomic groups in the United States. A key goal of education policy is to help remediate this inequity by providing equal opportunity and access to all students. However, to develop better policy, one needs to understand the underlying causes of these disparities. There are many possible explanations for gaps in college access. Selective admissions processes can limit college access among minorities if high school quality and high school outcomes are unequally distributed by race and ethnicity. Even before a student can enter an admissions process, she must apply -- a process that may be particularly daunting for a potential first-generation college student. This study first investigates racial and ethnic differences in the initial step in college enrollment -- the application decision -- using two full cohorts of recent Texas high school graduates. This is done in order to assess the differential roles of student demographics, high school quality, and student preparedness in the college application decision. The authors also allow for effects of race to differ based on student and high school characteristics. Second, they examine the decision of where to apply conditional on applying. When deciding where to apply, students can incorporate a number of different elements into this decision, including their level of preparedness, the probability of acceptance, and campus characteristics. The authors focus on understanding the importance of student-campus fit by estimating the influence of academic match, campus demographics, and high school feeder patterns on behavior regarding where students apply to college. Results suggest that universities cannot rely on students to diversify campuses without intentional policy efforts to attract and retain minority students. These can include admissions policies that guarantee acceptance for high-performing students regardless of high school quality, such as Texas' Top 10% Rule

In 2015, the United States Congress replaced the "No Child Left Behind Elementary and Secondary Act" with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) (P.L. 114-95), which identifies health and physical education as key components of a well-rounded education (Cooper, Greenberg, Castelli, Barton, Martin & Morrow, 2016). This followed a national trend of state legislators adopting legislation to target childhood obesity through statewide physical education and physical activity initiatives (Boehmer, Brownson, Haire-Joshu, & Dreisinger, 2007). As part of this initiative, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) uses FitnessGram® to assess student health. This assessment and reporting software program allows school districts to gather and report students' physical fitness data to the TEA. All Texas students in grades 3-12 enrolled in a physical education course or substitute activity must be assessed once annually using the FitnessGram® assessment instrument. This instrument consists of six Health Fitness Zones (HFZs), which are different aspects of health where students are assessed as being in the HFZ or not. This provides a rich data source to explore questions about the relationship between physical fitness and academic and non-academic outcomes. The relationships between fitness and non-academic student outcomes (e.g., absenteeism and disciplinary action) have not been extensively explored or published, and the results are generally mixed. In this study, the authors build upon existing research by using multi-level regression models to explore the relationship between being in a HFZ and academic and non-academic outcomes.

Texas enacted legislation allowing for the establishment of charter schools in 1995. The Texas charter sector has subsequently grown into one of the largest in the nation. Today, there are more than 600 charter schools in Texas educating approximately 3.5 percent of public school students. In this study, the authors estimate the impact of charter schools on early-life labor market outcomes using administrative data from the state of Texas. The combination of high-stakes accountability and large and varied charter school sector makes Texas an archetypal laboratory to measure the effect of charter schools on labor market outcomes. The authors of this report estimate the impact of charter schools on early-life labor market outcomes using administrative data from Texas. They find that, at the mean, charter schools have no impact on test scores and a negative impact on earnings.

According to the Department of Education, there are more than 2,000 teacher preparation programs (TPPs) in the United States, but despite these numbers, concerns remain about the quality and quantity of STEM teachers in the workforce. The UTeach teacher preparation program (TPP), founded at the University of Texas at Austin in 1997, is specifically designed to address these concerns by recruiting students directly from STEM majors and offering students the opportunity to receive a secondary STEM teaching certification alongside their STEM degree with no additional time in college. While UTeach has undoubtedly increased the number of teachers produced at universities that have adopted the program, questions remain as to the quality of those teachers when compared to other teachers in the workforce. UTeach has never had a formal, third-party evaluation of its teachers in the field; this study intended to fill this gap by investigating the test scores of the students of UTeach-produced teachers. This study pursued the following research questions: (1) How do students taught by UTeach teachers compare to students taught by non-UTeach teachers in terms of their math and science state test scores?; (2) Are there differences in student test scores between UTeach and non-UTeach teachers for different subgroups of students (i.e., does the UTeach effect hold true for all students)?; and (3) Are there certain malleable factors that may explain differences between TPPs?

Technology, industry, and vocation are changing. Today's jobs require enhanced skill sets and higher levels of education (Carnevale, Smith, & Strohl, 2010; Castells 2010; Hanushek, Woessmann, Brewer, & McEwan, 2010; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2016). Indeed, the jobs and careers of tomorrow are quickly turning towards proficiencies which require education beyond traditional high school diplomas. Policies and practices now focus on better transitions between high school, higher education, and the workforce--completing what is known as the P-16+ pipeline (Bailey, 2009; Kleinman, 2001). Reform also centers on reshaping what was known as vocational education into a modern, alternative path to better prepare students for College and Career Readiness (CCR). Vocational education reorganization has been centered on encouraging better CCR, in a greater number of students. The use of the term vocational education has fallen out of favor and been replaced with Career and Technical Education (CTE). CTE has become more integrated and rigorous that includes advanced technology and new career paths. CTE courses today offer exposure to career planning and job exploration; they provide industry exposure through hands-on experiences and mentoring (Hutchins, B. C., & Akos, P. 2013; Rojewski, & Hill, 2014). For this project, PK-12 and postsecondary data is used to describe high school and postsecondary outcomes at various transitions in the P-16+ pipeline. For this report, student participation in CTE was collected and coded according to popular (and scholarly) conceptions of regular, CTE, and advanced CTE+ students (Bragg, & Reger, 2002; Castellano et al, 2003; Stipanovic et al, 2012). Advanced CTE+ students are described as those taking part in either: (1) a number ([greater than or equal to]2) of advanced CTE+ courses; or (2) a program with progression of advanced CTE+ courses. Two forms of credit based courses were combined with CTE courses to create advanced CTE+ comparison groups. The first is Dual Credit (DC) in which students simultaneously enroll in both high school and college courses earning credit in both. In addition, Advanced Technical Credit (ATC) courses allow schools to offer credit for technical courses which are taught at the college level by teachers with special training. Both DC and ATC courses were matched with CTE indicators to create a CTE+ course, one in which a CTE course was taken for college credit. Short and long term outcomes suggest great efficacy in CTE+ and continued growth in participation in CTE. P-16+ results show that participation in CTE+ has lasting impacts. As calls for CTE reform and growth continue due to policy shifts and legislative changes, these results may better direct further reform and new projects.

This paper considers an unavoidable feature of the school environment, class rank. What are the long run effects of a student's ordinal rank in elementary school? This research shows that students with a higher third grade academic rank, conditional on achievement and classroom effects, have higher subsequent test scores, are more likely to take AP classes, to graduate from high school, enroll in college, graduate from college, and ultimately have higher earnings 19 years later. This research studied the classroom rank of 3rd grade public school students in Texas for students between 1995 and 2008. Classroom rank is constructed using standardized test scores for students who took the exams in English. Academic achievement and rank are highly correlated.

Texas is taking a multipronged approach to improving developmental education delivery and increasing student success rates by aggressively pursuing programmatic, research, and instructional strategies that will boost college completion and help reach labor market goals. Texas higher education has committed itself to providing improved and more efficient avenues to success for academically underprepared students through the Texas Success Initiative system, which is more nuanced in its advising, placement, and curricular interventions than previous models. Catch the Next, Inc. (CTN), established in 2009, is a national college readiness and completion organization empowering students to catch college and career dreams. The program combines holistic student services and a comprehensive academic pathway that ensures student and institutional success. CTN empowers Latino and other underrepresented students to catch their college and career dreams. The CTN program, known as "Ascender," expedites transition into credit-bearing courses, targeting at-risk students entering community college, including Latino and first-time college-goers. Texas state higher education policy is now shifting towards large-scale adoption of a corequisite model. This study investigates the Ascender programs emphasis on wrap-around services that include academic, emotional-social, and community supports for Latino and other under-served community college students. The Ascender program contains an asset-based curriculum approach that focuses on strengths. It views diversity in thought, culture, and traits as positive assets. The Ascender program focuses on "literacy-based approach across disciplines," which highlights literature and culture reflective of the demographics of the classroom in all classes.

Police officers have become increasingly common in public schools in Texas as well as across the U.S. As police officers have increased their presence in public schools, their role in school discipline has often expanded. Though there is growing public debate about the consequences of police presence in schools, there is scant evidence of the impact of police on student discipline and academic outcomes. This project provides the first quasi-experimental estimate of funding for school police on student outcomes, leveraging variation in federal Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants and detailed data on students from the Texas Education Research Center (ERC). The rise in discipline is driven by sanctions for low-level offenses or school code of conduct violations. Findings from the study reveal that receiving federal funding for school police in Texas increases disciplinary rates for middle school students by 6% but does not change high school disciplinary rates. There is also suggestive evidence that exposure to a three-year federal grant for school police decreases high school graduation rates by approximately 2.5% and college enrollment rates by 4%.

Race-based affirmative action policies are widespread in higher education. Despite the prevalence of these policies, there is little consensus on how affirmative action policies affect students either before they reach college or after they matriculate into college. This study provides new evidence on the benefits of affirmative action policies for underrepresented minority students. This study takes advantage of the fact that the Supreme Court ruling in "Grutter v. Bollinger" in 2003 reversed the 1996 elimination of race-based affirmative action in Texas public universities. By analyzing the effects of this policy change on students' secondary school attendance, college application behavior, and college graduation, the study provides new evidence on the effects of affirmative action policies on minority students' outcomes both before and after they matriculate to college.