This annual report provides information for the 2015-16 school year on grade-level retention in the Texas public school system. Data on retention are provided by student characteristics, including grade level; race/ethnicity; gender; degree of English proficiency; and economic, at-risk, immigrant, migrant, and overage statuses. Data also are…

Purpose/Objectives: The purpose of this paper is to provide baseline data and characteristics of food served and consumed prior to the recently mandated nutrition standards as authorized by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA). Methods: Over 600,000 school lunch menus with associated food production records from 61 elementary schools…

Prompted by changing demographics, economic pressures, and global competition, Texas and members of the Southern Regional Education Board adopted policies to boost minority enrollment and success in higher education around the turn of the century. This study draws upon IPEDS graduation rate data for a benchmark year, 2002, and for 2006 through…

The Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) has synthesized key data on English learners (ELs) into two-page PDF sheets, by topic, with graphics, plus key contacts. The topics for this report on English Learners (ELs) who are Asian or Pacific Islander include: (1) Top 10 Asian and Pacific Islander Languages Spoken Among ELs: SY 2013-14; (2)…

The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB)-State Data Exchange is a cooperative effort of the SREB and the statewide higher education governing and coordinating boards in the South. Founded in 1969-1970, it is one of the nation's oldest, most comprehensive sources of comparative data on public higher education. The Data Exchange annually…

The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB)-State Data Exchange is a one-of-a-kind regional program with 23 statewide higher education governing and coordinating board partners. The Data Exchange annually collects, compiles, and publishes: (1) the most current and detailed comparative statistics on postsecondary education in the 16 SREB states;…

The Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) has synthesized key data on English learners (ELs) into two-page PDF sheets, by topic, with graphics, plus key contacts. The topics for part one of this two part report on English Learner (EL) students who are Hispanic/Latino include: (1) Percentage of EL Students Who Are Hispanic/Latino, by State,…

This annual report provides information for the 2012-13 school year on grade-level retention in the Texas public school system. Data on retention are provided by student characteristics, including grade level; race/ethnicity; gender; degree of English proficiency; and economic, at-risk, immigrant, migrant, and overage statuses. Data also are…

The issue of underrepresentation in gifted and talented (GT) programs has developed into a critical educational concern. At the core are ambiguous identification assessment practices, especially for bilingual students. To illustrate, this article reports data from the last decade that supports the underrepresentation of gifted Hispanic bilingual…

Service learning is an effective means of implementing course curriculum in the real world (Driskoll, 2009). As a Carnegie Foundation classified campus for the Advancement of Teaching, Community Engagement, the University of Texas Brownsville actively promotes service learning and partnerships with community agencies (www.utb.edu/vpaa/cce/Pages/).…

This study adds to the research on the problem of disproportionality of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) students in special education (SE) in four districts and 13 elementary campuses in south Texas. Data was disaggregated and analyzed at the state, district and campus level when possible utilizing the composition index (Donovan &…

Student perspectives reflect school climate. The study examined perspectives among deaf and hard of hearing students in residential and large day schools regarding bullying, and compared these perspectives with those of a national database of hearing students. The participants were 812 deaf and hard of hearing students in 11 U.S. schools. Data…

Little is known about the costs charter schools incur to foster security--a vexing phenomenon when one considers policymakers' and parents' seemingly high and growing want for school safety. Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics and Texas, we reveal how much charter schools spend on security, how they put these resources to…

The core work of the National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools consists of four stages: identifying practices of highly effective high schools, designing interventions and transfer of practices, evaluating the intervention's implementation and effects, and evaluating implementation at scale. The purpose of this report is to describe the…

The primary purpose of this study was to provide quantitative data on the use of released Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) exams as benchmark test instruments in a sample population. Teachers have expressed concern over "teaching to the test," especially with the use of benchmark testing. This study was specifically…