In 2023, the U.S. Department of Education announced the "Raise the Bar: Lead the World" initiative to use decades of research and professional experience to transform public education and advance education equity. There are three focus areas: (1) Achieve Academic Excellence; (2) Boldly Improve Learning Conditions; and (3) Create Pathways…

In this study, we describe a teacher educator's first experience implementing a service-learning project in a children's literature course in which pre-service teachers helped provide read-alouds for the local public library's summer reading program. We sought to examine the impact the project had on the seven participants. Data was collected…

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative study was to bring together teachers from different academic disciplines to engage them in lesson study (LS) cycles with a focus on literacy. Design/methodology/approach: This research employed a qualitative case study and occurred in one secondary school along the Texas (USA) and Mexico border. Ten…

Principals are responsible for academic achievement within their schools and, as such, drive the decisions in reading instruction for their campus. There is much research on instructional decision-making and reading instruction, but little exists on the connection between the two. This study focuses on the reading instructional decisions of…

For linguistically diverse students, the path to college is often defined by language. Depending on assessments and institutional policies, students may be placed into course sequences in developmental English, adult basic education, and/or English as a Second Language courses. The purpose of this study was to better understand developmental…

Researchers have found that middle school students undergo developmental changes that require unique educational structures and support. As a result, experts have suggested a number of specific strategies for organizing middle schools in order to best meet students' needs. This Information Capsule summarizes middle school redesign initiatives that…

Texas' overall goal must be to reduce the percentage of its population without basic literacy and numeracy skills to no more than the percentage of jobs available to these underprepared workers. With only 14 percent of tomorrow's jobs projected to require less than a high school education, nearly one Texas worker in five will be unemployable. The…

This article features Edcouch-Elsa High School, a 1,500-student comprehensive high school in Edcouch, Texas. Edcouch-Elsa, which is located in the southern Rio Grande Valley, draws students from Edcouch, Elsa, and the surrounding agricultural communities located in the Delta Area of Hidalgo County, Texas. With about 25% of the students living with…

The Texas Agricultural Extension Service (TAEX) Literacy Initiative has three major components: literacy awareness, cooperation and coordination with other state agencies and organizations, and programmatic responses. During 1991, the TAEX Literacy Initiative addressed the literacy awareness component through these activities: writing a research…

This instructional module is intended to train adult educators in integrating competency-based education (CBE) and state-of-the-art instructional technology in their adult basic education (ABE) classrooms. It is divided into seven instructional units. The following topics are covered in the individual units: the tenets of CBE and its role in ABE,…

Among the recommendations of the Texas Council on Vocational Education concerning literacy and training are the following: (1) the governor and legislature should conduct a statewide, multimedia campaign to heighten Texans' awareness of the importance of workplace literacy, dropout prevention, literacy programs, and the human and economic aspects…

Even Start family literacy programs in Texas were evaluated by outside evaluators. Data were gathered from two groups. The first group consisted of 631 families who were enrolled in 11 Even Start programs in Texas during the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 program years. A survey, in English or Spanish, was administered to all parents in attendance on two…

Texas' and Oregon's experiences in building a performance measurement and reporting information system (PMRIS) for their adult literacy programs were compared. The Oregon PMRIS development effort was a multiyear project involving 10 programs and calling for collection/reporting of data regarding 10 of 272 benchmarks recommended by the Oregon…

Composed of forms outlining specific activities funded by the Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA) in Texas, this annual report for fiscal year 1990 opens with summaries and fiscal breakdowns of programs funded by LSCA Titles I, II, and III. The remainder of the document contains project reports and system evaluation reports for: (1) Title…

Composed of forms outlining specific activities funded by the Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA), this annual report for FY 1989 opens with summaries and fiscal breakdowns programs funded by LSCA Titles I, II, and III. The remainder of the document contains project reports and system evaluation reports for: (1) Title I--Areas Without…