The purpose of this study was to explore how district funding for 4 years of PSAT administrations for all students in Grades 8-11 impacted Hispanic students at a North Texas school district. Using college admissions data from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC), the researcher examined overall district-wide college admissions percentages for…

This report presents a question-driven exploration of growth and achievement data using SAS EVAAS reports. The purpose of this exploration was to bring additional data, information, and ways of thinking about student growth to ongoing district conversations about the measurement of campus-level student growth.

The Global Graduate initiative was developed to help Houston Independent School District (HISD) students be successful in college and in the global workforce upon graduation. The program emphasizes six characteristics in its Global Graduate Profile: A Leader, Adaptable and Productive, A College-Ready Learner, A Critical Thinker, A Skilled…

The Global Graduate initiative was developed to help Houston Independent School District (HISD) students be successful in college and in the global workforce upon graduation. The program emphasizes six characteristics in its Global Graduate Profile: A Leader, Adaptable and Productive, A College-Ready Learner, A Critical Thinker, A Skilled…

This case exemplifies the effects of high stakes standardized testing and accountability on education and school district personnel. The case focuses on a school counselor who inadvertently gave the students the actual PSAT (a preliminary college entrance exam) instead of a practice test during a college preparatory workshop. The error caused the…

Hispanic high school graduates have lower college completion rates than academically similar white students. As Hispanic students have been theorized to be more constrained in the college search and selection process, one potential policy lever is to increase the set of colleges to which these students apply and attend. In this paper, we…

"Exploring Texas's Private Education Sector" is the eighth entry in the "School Survey Series." This brief synthesizes information about Texas's accredited private schools from a first-of-its-kind survey about these types of choice programs and more to Texas's private K-12 schools in collaboration with the Texas Catholic…

Universities have long used standardized American College Tests (ACT), Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT), and high school Grade Point Averages (HS GPA) for academic admission requirements. The current study of 127 minority college students in a Historically Black University in South Texas assesses an alternative measure, the Non-Cognitive…

In the present study, we examine the roles of 1) explicit information about language provided to learners prior to treatment and 2) aptitude (specifically grammatical sensitivity) within Processing Instruction. Forty-two learners of Spanish in their third-semester of study were divided into two groups: those who received explicit information (EI)…

Underrepresented high school students must be effectively prepared for postsecondary education. Ensuring that all students graduate from high school college-ready is requiring educators to rethink traditional programming in an attempt to better meet the needs of all students. Therefore, the utilization of college preparation programs such as…

Although the SAT has traditionally been the standardized test of choice for Texas students, nearly a third of the college-bound population in 1998 opted to take the ACT in addition to the SAT. Because most universities now accept both the SAT and the ACT, many testing experts believe taking both exams is a growing trend due to increased pressure…