Houston Independent School District (HISD) has provided prekindergarten classes for Houston area four-year old students since the 1985-1986 academic year. The focus of the program is on lifelong learning to enhance the physical, emotional, and social well-being of the whole child and provide the foundational skills required for career and college…

The purpose of the Houston Independent School District (HISD) and Head Start Collaborative programs is to share the responsibility for closing the achievement gap between economically-disadvantaged children and their more affluent peers. Currently, HISD collaborates with the following four federally-funded Head Start agencies that serve regional…

This research study questioned the degree to which six professional texts guiding implementation of the Common Core Standards in reading address the needs of diverse learners. For the purposes of this research, diverse learners were specifically defined as above grade level readers, below grade level readers, and English learners. The researchers…

This study hypothesized that HISD prekindergarten participation consistently correlated with better educational outcomes for students. Taking into account students' age differences through kindergarten enrollment, propensity score matching controlled for students' background characteristics. Three cohorts of students in this study were eligible or…

For some time now, it has been evident that the policies pursued by the United States to elevate the academic performance of students, particularly those who are most economically disadvantaged, have not produced the results that were promised or hoped for. This paper analyzes the efforts of schools and school districts to improve academic…

For over 30 years, the Department has published the Annual Condition of Education (COE) report in order to provide education stakeholders quality information about the status of Iowa's education system. The 2020 COE covers a wide variety of content from information about Iowa's students, schools, educators, administrators, performance and school…

Background: Research has documented the importance of high-quality early childhood experiences in preparing children for school. Quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS) have recently emerged in many states as a way to build quality of child care and to promote better child outcomes. Objective: The goal of this study was to determine if…

The goal of Head Start is to develop the cognitive and social-emotional skills of children from low-income families to prepare them to succeed in kindergarten and beyond. Presently, Houston Independent School District (HISD) collaborates with four federally-funded Head Start agencies: AVANCE, Gulf Coast Community Services Association (GCCSA),…

For educators, the content of the curriculum really is like oxygen: it is the necessary precondition for improving schools, closing the achievement gap, engaging parents, and preparing teachers. However, when educators take the content of the curriculum for granted, they lose opportunities to coordinate and collaborate. Good curriculum instruction…

The purpose of this study was to explore how knowledge is socially constructed, negotiated, and shaped by group members in language arts instruction in a kindergarten classroom. This study explored how reading was socially constructed among group members and provided a situated definition of reading. A cycle of activity focusing on team work was…

As early childhood education continues to move to the forefront of public policy debate, more attention is being paid to early literacy. Strickland and Riley-Ayers (2006) indicated that early literacy and early learning opportunities play a vital role in academic achievement. This study invested whether there were statistically significant…

"Reading Mastery" is designed to provide explicit reading instruction to students in grades pre-K-5. One of several Direct Instruction curricula from McGraw-Hill, "Reading Mastery" is available in two versions: (1) "Reading Mastery Classic" (for grades pre-K-2) aims to help beginning readers identify letter sounds,…

The Native American and Alaska Native Children in School (NAM) discretionary grants program aims to reduce the persistent achievement gaps between Native American and Alaska Native (NA/AN) youth and their peers on measures of reading and English language arts (ELA) (NCES 2015) and on measures of college-readiness in reading (ACT 2017). One reason…

This mixed-method phenomenological study was conducted in 2 concurrent phases. The quantitative phase consisted of a researcher designed questionnaire conducted with 103 public school kindergarten teachers in California. Thirty-five close-ended and 2 open-ended questions were included. Descriptive and inferential statistics were utilized to find…

Fingertip Facts is a compendium of some of the most frequently requested data sets from the Utah State Board of Education. This year's Fingertip Facts includes the following data sets: (1) SAGE Testing, 2016-17; (2) 2016-17 ACT Scores; (3) 2016-17 CTE Career Pathways; (4) 2017 Public Education General Fund; (5) 2017 Public School Enrollment…