An Evaluation of State Compensatory Education, 2015-2016. Research Educational Program Report

The State Compensatory Education (SCE) program is designed to reduce dropout rates and increase academic performance of students identified as being at-risk of dropping out of school. SCE operates as a funding source to supplement instructional services and offer academic support to students who meet the SCE at-risk criteria established by the state. For this year's evaluation of SCE, the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) served as the state assessment measures for grades 3 through 8 and the STAAR End-of-Course (EOC) served as the state assessment measures for grades 9 through 11 for the 2015-2016 school year. The completion status of the class of 2015 was also assessed. Because the district no longer administers a norm-referenced test, such as the Stanford or Iowa (for English speakers) or Aprenda or Logramos (for Spanish speakers) given in prior years, there was no assessment measure for grades 1 and 2. The purpose of this report is to describe and evaluate the SCE-funded programs in HISD as required by law. The district must evaluate and document the effectiveness of instructional programs in reducing any disparities in performance on the STAAR and STAAR EOC, as well as disparities in the rates of high school completion, between students at-risk of dropping out of school and all other district students. This evaluation compares at-risk students' performance on the STAAR and STAAR EOC with the performance of their notat-risk counterparts. As required by the TEA (2010), differences in passing rates between at-risk and notat-risk students are reported for the past three years when data are available so that movement in reducing the disparity in passing rates can be ascertained. In compliance with guidelines specified by the TEA (2010), high school completion rates are reported for at-risk and not-at-risk students attending HISD.