The Houston Education Research Consortium (HERC), in collaboration with 10 public school districts in the Greater Houston area, set out to better understand the prevalence, patterns, and consequences of student mobility on Houston area students and schools. This brief explores the informal networks of elementary school student mobility in the…

Mixed evidence on the relationship between school closure and COVID-19 prevalence could reflect focus on large-scale levels of geography, limited ability to address endogeneity, and demographic variation. Using county-level CDC COVID-19 data through June 15, 2020, two matching strategies address potential heterogeneity: nearest geographic neighbor…

Head Start is a national program that helps young children from families with low income get ready to succeed in school. The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) is the premier source of national information about Head Start programs and participants. For more than two decades, FACES has been advancing the knowledge base about…

This paper provides a foundation for the Research Symposium, "Strengths Approaches in Early Childhood Mathematics Education" by providing an overview of the development of strengths-based approaches in social work and education. A framework, adapted from the Strengths Approach (McCashen, 2017), for applying a strengths-based approach in…

At what point will educational actors recognize the limitations and utilize the possibilities of policy implementation processes to actualize long overdue reform measures for students--particularly those from historically marginalized backgrounds? Previous literature has attended to ways schooling processes replicate persistent historical, social,…

Though economically disadvantaged students in the Houston Independent School District (HISD) have "greater" access to pre-kindergarten (pre-k) than their peers, English learner (EL) students do not. Equity in access to nearby pre-k would mean at-risk students, particularly those targeted for free public pre-k in Texas, would have greater…

Atlanta, the fourth-fastest gentrifying city in the United States, is comprised of neighborhoods close to the city center and seat of urban wealth, that suffer from high poverty rates, unemployment, and low literacy rates. One neighborhood school has been ranked as one of the lowest in the state. To combat historical under-performance, Atlanta…

The field of computer science has long been plagued by issues of diversity - in particular, attracting and retaining those historically marginalized in computing contexts. This is a great loss to the field, to the future of innovation, and to society. Perhaps most importantly, it is an incalculable loss to those populations excluded from pursuing…

This dissertation examines the racialization of urban Latinx youth in alternative school settings. Set in a predominantly Latinx neighborhood in inner-city Houston, the research catalogues everyday Latinx student experiences and the ways they experience, navigate, and survive educational systems of structural inequity. Drawing on long-term…

Building on a growing literature showing that early college high schools substantially improve educational outcomes, we investigate possible spillover impacts of this intervention on civic outcomes in North Carolina, which houses an early college in most of its counties. We present both lottery and observational impacts on voting and criminal…

Educational reform and the development of performance measure policies have remained a continuous debate throughout the past several decades. These accountability policies and increased performance standards can have a significant effect on teacher practice and student outcomes. Policy initiatives have now shifted the definition of teacher quality…

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is an important driver of student well-being, academic achievement, and future success. Despite decades of work on motivation theory and frameworks to promote student motivation and achievement outcomes, connections between motivation and recent frameworks and measures of SEL could be stronger. The purpose of…

Summer learning for many students in a large urban school district in Tennessee is an inequitable experience. Academic learning gaps in reading and mathematics may expand over the summer for economically disadvantaged and underrepresented minorities. One school district, recognizing an opportunity to narrow the gap, launched its Superintendent's…

This basic phenomenological study explores the lived experiences of teachers that despite the challenges and adverse effects of poverty over historically underserved students' educational opportunities, have been able to enhance students' success. The interrelationships of poverty with race, class, ethnicity, and linguistic differences are…

From 2010 onwards, most US states have aligned their education standards by adopting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for math and English Language Arts. The CCSS did not target other subjects such as science and social studies. We estimate spillovers of the CCSS on student achievement in non-targeted subjects in models with state and year…