The SELF Foundation afterschool program involved 255 students at Key, Revere, and Meyerland (formerly Johnston) middle schools in tutorials and enrichment activities to support their academic, social, and emotional development. All students at SELF schools were allowed to participate in a character-building essay contest for prizes. Program impact…

This report examines dual language program implementation in three Texas public school districts similar to Austin Independent School District. The school districts are compared in terms of demographic composition, program implementation, and English language learner (ELL) students' academic performance in 2014 on the state's academic test, STAAR.

This report provides a summary of the Home Instruction of Parents with Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) program activities and its effectiveness for HISD student participants. A total of 577 students and their parents participated in the Houston Independent School District (HISD) HIPPY program during the 2013-2014 academic year, which was more than…

Texas Administrative Code (BB § 89.1205) specifies that all elementary schools must offer a bilingual program to English Language Learners (ELLs) whose home language is spoken by 20 or more students in any single grade level across the entire district. Based on this rule, in addition to Spanish speaking ELLs, students speaking Vietnamese,…

The Parent Prep Academy (also referred to as the Academy) is a system of parent trainings and workshops in the Houston Independent School District (HISD). The courses are designed to strengthen families by developing parents as life-long learners. Within the Academy, courses are offered to provide information and resources empowering parents to…

The Houston Independent School District offers two primary bilingual programs for Spanish-speaking English-language learners (ELLs). In both programs, students may transition into a pre-exit phase of bilingual education so long as they meet certain performance criteria. In this Pre-Exit phase, predominantly English-language instruction is used in…

The Texas Education Code requires school districts to provide every language minority student with the opportunity to participate in either a bilingual or English as a second language (ESL) program. This report summarizes the performance of students who participated in the district's Dual Language Bilingual Program. Included in the report are…

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 wellbeing of the whole child and provide the foundational skills required for career and college…

The purpose of this report is to evaluate the student achievement performance on the state's standardized tests and Houston Independent School District's (ISD's) norm-referenced tests for students in Title I, Part A schools. This report discusses student performance on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR), Texas Assessment…

The SELF Foundation engaged 287 students at Key, Revere, and Welch middle schools in afterschool tutorials and enrichment activities to support their academic, social, and emotional development. Program impact was measured using reading and math performance, attendance, and disciplinary actions of SELF Foundation students compared to…

The Houston Independent School District offered five different bilingual programs for language minority students during the 2012-2013 school year. In the Pre-Exit phase of bilingual education, students transition to a predominantly English-language instruction program in core subject areas. This report summarizes the performance of students who…

The Texas Education Code requires school districts to provide every language minority student with the opportunity to participate in either a bilingual or English as a second language (ESL) program. This evaluation report summarizes the performance of students who participated in two of the bilingual programs offered by the district during the…

During the 2013-2014 academic year, the S.E.L.F. Foundation engaged 32 predominately at-risk students at Key Middle School (KMS) in afterschool tutorials and enrichment activities to support their academic, social, and emotional development. Outcome measures consisted of reading and mathematics performance before and after program implementation.…

Explains how one Houston (Texas) educator (Thaddeus Lott) has turned failing schools into laboratories for learning. It describes how Lott used a charter giving him freedom to train staff, develop a curriculum, and make hiring, firing, and promotion decisions at four schools to improve reading and math skills. Concluding comments address the…

A Houston, Texas, elementary bilingual program did not produce consistently equal or superior cognitive outcomes but was effective in facilitating second language learning. In order to ascertain the effects of the program on participants' self esteem, English reading level, and grade point average (GPA), the elementary and seventh grade GPAs of an…