The UIC Center for Urban Education Leadership (CUEL) brief builds from recent CUEL analysis of schools that have proven most challenging to improve in Chicago Public Schools (CPS). In this research brief, CUEL researchers make the case for "high churn" schools to adopt an evidence-based stance as they seek to address the issue of chronic…

Educational attainment is an important determinant of one's success. Yet, absenteeism among adolescents jeopardizes chances of achieving their educational goals. Absenteeism can lead to an increasing disinterest in school and the chance of dropping out in school. Thus, this study determined how parental involvement affects absenteeism among 60…

Fostering Opportunities is an innovative student engagement program for middle school and high school students who have experienced foster care. In 2018, Fostering Opportunities was selected through an open, competitive process by the Governor's Office of State Planning and Budgeting to receive implementation funds financed through a hybrid Pay…

This report demonstrates the impact of a two-way multilingual family engagement communication platform, TalkingPoints, on student outcomes at a large, urban, K-12 school district. The study used a difference-in-differences model to examine how the introduction of TalkingPoints influenced attendance, behavior, course proficiency, and state…

This report summarizes the academic and post-secondary outcomes for student athletes and non-athletes in the 2017-2018 school year.

In response to concerns expressed by high school counselors, the researchers developed a quantitative Likert-scale survey to examine the relationships between academic performance (defined as school attendance and final grades) and recreational video gaming and texting. Questions about video gaming and texting were included with other questions…

To understand the most common reasons that students leave the Austin Independent School District (AISD), and identify where students go after they leave, the Department of Research and Evaluation conducted a survey in English and Spanish. For the purpose of the survey, leavers were defined as students who attended AISD during the 2014-2015 school…

This study seeks to extend our present knowledge of language learners' classroom engagement by exploring the relationship between the multidimensional classroom engagement and the group variables: course achievement, course absence and motivational orientation to learn English. A survey research design was adopted, and 122 EFL learners provided…

English language learners were more likely to attend school and to meet the STAAR passing standards in reading and math when their teachers used creative teaching strategies more frequently. These findings coincide well with the research that encourages teachers of foreign languages to be creative in their teaching so that students not only…

This report summarizes 2015-2016 data for students who received school-based behavioral health services provided by the Vida Clinic as compared with matched comparison students who did not receive these services.

This report summarizes findings presented in "School-Connect Intervention on High School Students' Discipline Referrals and Academic Outcomes" (Hutson, Beland, & Douglass, 2016). To frame their evaluation of the effectiveness of School-Connect in Austin Independent School District (AISD), Hutson et al. (2016) addressed three key…

This report describes characteristics of AISD students from the Class of 2014 who graduated on time, dropped out, or continued in high school. The report also includes demographic information and data for dropout risk factors identified in previous research.

The Creative Learning Initiative (CLI) is a community-wide effort to bring creative learning and the arts to each and every student in Austin. Lead by MINDPOP, the City of Austin, and the Austin Independent School District (AISD), CLI designs systemic and sustainable programs that integrate creativity, creative teaching strategies, and the arts…

About 12% of 2009-2010 AISD kindergarten students left AISD before the 2010-2011 year. The vertical teams with the highest out-of-district mobility for kindergarten students were LBJ (16%), Anderson (14%), and Akins (13%).

About 18% of 2009-2010 Austin Independent School District (AISD) pre-K students left AISD in 2010-2011 for kindergarten. The vertical teams of schools with the highest out-of-district mobility for pre-K students were Anderson (29%), LBJ (21%), and Reagan (20%).