Heightened concerns about the health of the teaching profession highlight the importance of studying the early teacher pipeline. This exploratory, descriptive article examines preservice teachers' expressed motivation for pursuing a teaching career. Using data from a large teacher education program in Texas, we use a natural language processing…

With the 2015 passage of the "Every Student Succeeds Act" (ESSA), the oversight of language policy in U.S. schools shifted from federal to state governance. Although the education of students officially designated as English learners (ELs) has historically been grounded in federal law, we argue that ELs' educational experiences are also…

All but seven U.S. states have laws that govern some aspects of dyslexia screening, intervention, or teacher training in public schools. However, in the three states that mandate child-level reporting, data indicate lower than expected rates of dyslexia identification when compared with commonly accepted dyslexia prevalence rates. To better…

Research suggests that educators' use of resources influence the ground-level effects of policy. However, we know very little about educators' utilization of policy resources. This study employs a mixed-methods research design to provide empirical evidence of the policy resources available to education policy implementers and the ways in which…

Texas educates the second-most students in the country with a home language other than English. Students are identified as English learners (EL) based on a state language assessment that evaluates a student's primary language other than English to determine if the student qualifies for additional support to develop the English language skills…

This qualitative phenomenological research study used narrative inquiry to investigate rural superintendents' experiences with the application of principle-centered leadership in their districts. Ten superintendents from rural districts in east Texas were interviewed. Narratives were analyzed by organizing, describing, classifying, and…

Many students graduate from high school unprepared for the rigorous reading required in entry-level college and career work. This brief builds on a recent report (Wilkins et al. 2010) that used the Lexile measure (a method for measuring the reading difficulty of prose text and the reading capability of individuals) to estimate the proportion of…

This study examined 328 preservice educators' level of confidence in addressing four sexuality education domains and 21 sexuality education topics. Significant differences in confidence levels across the four domains were found for gender, academic major, sexuality education philosophy, and sexuality education knowledge. Preservice educators…

Five language assessment tests (LATs) are used for identifying children of limited English speaking ability in Texas: Basic Inventory of Natural Language; Bilingual Syntax Measure; Language Assessment Scales; Primary Acquisition of Language; and Schutt Primary Language Indicator Test. Interrelationships between LATs and relationships between the…

A study compared the effects of different methods of analyzing trends to illustrate how failure to account for change in classification will lead to misinterpretation of data on the performance of students with disabilities. Data from five years of assessment in Texas is used to illustrate effects of classification changes. (Contains references.)…