The Texas Education Code (§ 29.051) 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 the district's Dual Language Bilingual Program. Included…

There has been a scarcity of studies exploring the influence of students' American Sign Language (ASL) proficiency on their academic achievement in ASL/English bilingual programs. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of ASL proficiency on reading comprehension skills and academic achievement of 85 deaf or hard-of-hearing signing…

The Texas Education Code (§ 29.051) 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 the district's Dual Language Bilingual Program. Included…

This study hypothesized that HISD prekindergarten participation consistently correlated with better educational outcomes for students. Taking into account students' age differences through kindergarten enrollment, propensity score matching controlled for students' background characteristics. Three cohorts of students in this study were eligible or…

Much of the achievement gap between rich and poor students can be attributed to out-of-school factors, yet few schools have a comprehensive, coordinated system for addressing students' nonacademic needs. Within a group of Catholic schools located in one city, this study examined academic achievement on the Stanford Achievement Test battery in…

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…

English language learners (ELLs) are at risk of falling behind academically because of unaddressed gaps in academic language and literacy skills. The Everyday ExcELLence Institute was a collaboration between the Multilingual, Curriculum, Instruction, & Assessment and Professional Support & Development departments and was intended to…

The Houston Independent School District (HISD) currently offers five bilingual programs and two English as a Second Language (ESL) programs for English language learners (ELLs). These programs are intended to facilitate ELL students' integration into the regular school curriculum and to ensure access to equal educational opportunities. This…

The Migrant Education Program (MEP) is authorized under Title I of the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001" (NCLB). Title I states that the purpose of the MEP is to assist states in efforts to meet the special needs of migrant students. The purpose of this report was to evaluate the impact of the migrant education program on students'…

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…

Secondary-level English language learners (ELLs) are at risk of falling behind academically because of unaddressed gaps in academic language and literacy skills. The Everyday ExcELLence Institute was a collaboration between the Multilingual, Curriculum, Instruction, & Assessment and Professional Support & Development departments and was…

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 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…

One dimension of language proficiency considered important for reading and writing academic texts is morphological awareness--the understanding of how complex words are formed from meaningful smaller units (i.e., affixes, roots) that contribute to words' meanings and functions. This quasi-experimental study evaluated the effects of instruction on…

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…