The approach taken by three Texas school districts in high poverty and high minority areas to improve standardized achievement scores is explored. The three districts implemented an instructional management program consisting of aligning the curriculum, filling the curriculum gaps, and monitoring student progress. A first step in the curriculum…

The Emergency Immigrant Education Program of the Houston Independent School District (Texas) was intended to provide services to help immigrant children achieve a satisfactory level of academic performance. A total of 12,135 eligible immigrant students were identified in the Houston schools through October 1995, an increase of 149% above the…

The Texas Education Code requires the Commissioner of Education to develop and propose alternative methods of assessment for students who have not passed the exit level test. The goal of this requirement is an alternative mechanism by which a student can demonstrate the knowledge and skills measured by the exit level test and thus earn a high…

As the idea of including limited English proficient (LEP) students in large-scale assessments is becoming popular among researchers, the practical question of how to do so meaningfully so that the needs and performances of LEP students are recognized while their scores are interpreted and used correctly becomes more important. This paper presents…