A campus's mobility rate from one year was the best predictor of its mobility rate in the next year. This study used five years of data (school years 2012-13 through 2016-17) from across the Houston area to look at what predicted the amount of school year mobility taking place on a campus. Several predictors were considered, including the type of…

Background and Purpose: Each school year, in the state of Texas, students unexpectedly change schools almost 450,000 times. In the Houston region alone, students change schools more than 60,000 times. These school changes are not random, tend to be geographically contained though not within school districts, and carry significant ramifications in…

Three decades after the first charter school law passed in the United States, myths about these public schools not only persist but continue to fuel strong claims and divisive debates. Commentators point to education management organizations (EMOs), for-profit organizations which manage or operate a network of charter schools, as examples of…

In 2013-14, the United States spent over $630 billion on its public education system in hopes of providing children with greater opportunities to excel academically and improve their life trajectories. While public education dollars have risen at a relatively fast pace historically, education policymakers and practitioners should be seeking to…

School districts altered instructional delivery from solely in-person to a combined virtual/in-person model in the 2020-2021 school year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Houston Independent School District (HISD) offered in-person and virtual instruction to early learners at school-based programs (SBP), early childhood centers (ECC), and…

Since the first charter school law passed in Minnesota in 1991, over 40 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws allowing the publicly funded, privately managed, and semiautonomous schools of choice. Ever since the first charter school opened in Minnesota in 1992, the battle for fair funding has raged across the land. On the one hand,…

The Houston Independent School District's (HISD) goal is to produce capable, confident young adults who are poised to excel in whatever they do. Whether they emerge from high school with dreams of pursuing higher education or choose to enter the workforce immediately, HISD wants its graduates to be ready to succeed. One way they assess their…