Texas School Research Articles

Closing the Emergent Bilingual Achievement Gaps: A South Texas Culturally Responsive School Principals’ Data-Driven Decision-Making and Instructional Interventions

This study focuses on the culturally responsive leadership practices of a South Texas school principal. Texas ranks second out of 10 states with the highest emergent bilingual enrollment. Culturally responsive leadership integrates a dynamic view of the socio-political and cultural contexts in a school setting. As the student population becomes increasingly heterogeneous in Texas classrooms, scholars highlight disparities in academic outcomes across various racial, ethnic, and language groups and argue that paradigmatic shifts are needed to effectively serve minoritized students’ unique educational needs. Accordingly, there is an urgency for principals to be culturally responsive instructional leaders who promote and implement the academic mission of the school via the creation of culturally responsive sustainable instructional practices.

Gauging Medical Students' Interests in Infectious Diseases.

Infectious diseases is a crucial specialty in medicine, yet applications for fellowship have declined even as the United States faces an imminent shortage of infectious disease physicians. Career interests often develop in medical school, but little is known about which interests and experiences are associated with interest in ID. Evaluate interest in ID among medical students and identify factors associated with interest and disinterest in ID careers. We developed a 26-question survey to gauge interest in infectious diseases (ID). All 16 medical schools in Texas were contacted and invited to participate. A total of 262 students across 9 medical school campuses completed the survey. Those interested in ID as a career had a significantly higher interest in public health (p<0.0001) and global (p<0.0003) health. The presence of an ID campus interest group (p<0.0015) and direct experience with the ID profession (p<0.0001) were also associated with interest. The most common reasons for lack of interest were lack of interest in pursuing internal medicine or pediatric residency, lack of compensation, and lack of procedures. Those interested in ID expressed interest in a wide variety of career pathways within ID, the most common being general inpatient and outpatient ID, as well as medical microbiology and global health/tropical medicine/travel medicine. Based on this survey, recruitment efforts for new ID fellows might include focusing on students with interests in public and global health, as well as increasing direct exposure to ID at the medical school level.

Complicating our image of the “good student:” Mexican students’ use of navigational capital in a newcomer school

Newcomer schools inherently frame students in terms of what they lack—namely, fluency in the English language. The purpose of this study, drawing on a six-month ethnography of 14 tenth grade students from Mexico, is to counter this deficit framing by exploring, using the additive framework of community cultural wealth, what supports newcomer students from Mexico have and use in the context of a newcomer school in Central Texas. I argue that participating students were assisted in their coursework by their previously developed navigational capital, which enabled them to position themselves as “good students.” However, these students’ efforts to embody the behaviors of “good students” occasionally led them to not ask clarifying questions, as they did not want to appear to have not paid attention. I end exploring the complications inherent in students using their community cultural wealth to navigate inequitable educational structures that reward docility over learning.

Texas School Social Workers: Demographics, Work Characteristics

Texas School Social Workers: Demographics, Work Characteristics

The Use of a Multimedia-Enabled, Serialized Worked-Example Artifact in an Online Environment for Secondary Education

High school students in rural and semi-rural areas are disadvantaged because their schools struggle to attract and retain instructors who are qualified to teach career and technology courses that ready students for the knowledge economy. The effects of the pandemic moved much knowledge-economy work online by adopting study-from-home (SFH) models; however, educational institutions have been slow to validate corresponding study-from-home instructional models. In response, the current study developed study-from-home instruction using a multimedia-enabled, serialized worked-example artifact to teach financial accounting and modeling for high school students. The study featured grounded theories that inform the design of SFH instruction and online facilitation for a yearlong study. The instruction aimed to promote the far transfer of domain-specific, career-development knowledge regarding financial accounting and modeling. To do so, authors conducted a quasi-experiment with 50 students from five public high schools in rural and semi-rural East Texas. The result shows that socially situated SFH instruction whose design follows the principles of cognitive load theory, situated learning, and cognitive apprenticeship promoted mastery-of-learning outcomes over the course of an academic year. Our findings indicate a promising new direction in the design of remote instruction that delivers complex content to small-screen mobile devices for high school students.

Academic Culture: Its Meaning, Measure and Contribution to Student Learning

This study had two objectives. One objective was to assess the psychometric properties of a survey instrument measuring a new latent variable, Academic Culture (AC), combining three observed variables academic press, disciplinary climate and teachers’ uses of instructional time. The second objective was to replicate the results of an earlier study identifying AC as a significant mediator of school leadership’s influence on student learning. Data for the study were provided from 2068 teachers located in 49 schools in 14 Texas school districts, as well as student achievement data from the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) and student socioeconomic (SES) data available from school websites. Second order Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Many-Facet Rasch (MFR) models were used to examine the survey instrument’s construct validity and its measurement invariance. Structural Equation Modeling was used to identify the extent to which AC mediated the effects of school leadership on student achievement controlling for student SES. Rasch analysis and CFA confirmed the measurement invariance and several forms of validity of the survey instrument. Replicating the results of an earlier study, results of structural equation modeling demonstrated significant effects of AC on student achievement and identified AC as a significant mediator of school leadership effects on student achievement. The study contributes to the quality of instruments available to school leaders for their school improvement work and to researchers inquiring about the most promising variables mediating the indirect effects of school leadership on student success.

Teachers’ language ideologies and practices on the use of Spanish in science classrooms

This study explores teachers’ use of Spanish in sixth-grade bilingual science classrooms at an urban middle school in Texas. We used a case study approach to study how two Spanish-English bilingual teachers utilized Spanish during instruction in a unit on space exploration and their beliefs on Spanish use in English-dominant science classrooms. The results showed that the teachers used Spanish mainly for classroom management purposes like redirecting behavior and reiterating instructions previously given in English. There were inconsistencies between teachers’ practices and beliefs regarding Spanish use. The school’s English-centered policy and a lack of validation of language as a resource for science learning hindered the use of Spanish as a tool for science learning. The implications of the findings for teacher professional development were discussed.

Discipline removal of students with disabilities in Texas: Patterns and trends across 15 years

In Texas public schools, discipline practices are governed by state and federal laws. These laws are intended to provide protections for students with disabilities to ensure that disciplinary actions take into consideration the nature and the impact of the disability. Although these laws and practices are in place, there is concern that students with disabilities continue to be overrepresented in alternative disciplinary settings. This study explores the extent to which students with disabilities have been effected by these laws and practices over a 15-year period. Specifically, the purpose of this study was to explore trends and patterns of disciplinary practices in Texas schools from 2007 to 2022. This study was interested in the extent to which students are removed from schools for disciplinary reasons, the types of disciplinary placements, and the degree to which discretionary and mandatory removals and used. Results indicate that there has been a steady decreasing trend in discipline removals for both students with and without disabilities. Simultaneously, there has been an increase in completion rates and a decrease in dropout rates. Despite these trends, students with disabilities continue to be overrepresented in alternative setting removals. Further, most of the discipline removals are for reasons that are at the discretion of the school, as opposed to disciplinary removals mandated by the state. Reasons for these discrepancies are discussed as are recommendations for improving these results.

Dealing with the social-emotional effects of the COVID-19 pandemic: School administrators’ leadership experiences in Texas, USA

The onset of COVID-19 in March 2020 presented unprecedented disruption to the education systems across the globe. Given that school leaders were at the forefront of guiding schools during the tumultuous times, the purpose of this article is to highlight the aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic on schools and examine how school leaders addressed these challenges, particularly the lingering social-emotional disruptions the students and teachers are experiencing. This qualitative study utilized an online survey to collect the perspectives of South Texas school leaders on the challenging circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings are organized by: leadership experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic (lessons learned and critical practices), additional knowledge and skills (social-emotional well-being, resources to address social-emotional well-being, and parental engagement), and suggestions for preparation programs (students’ social-emotional learning (SEL) and teachers’ well-being). The scale of emerging pandemic-related challenges has left school leaders scrambling to seek innovative approaches to maintain a safe and orderly teaching and learning environment. Implementing SEL for students and educators seems to hold promise.

Examining associations between physical activity context and children meeting daily physical activity guidelines: the role of outdoor play, sports, and other organized activities.

Less than one-quarter of US children meet physical activity (PA) guidelines. Understanding the context in which PA occurs and how these contexts may play a role in meeting PA guidelines is an essential step toward developing effective behavioral interventions. The purpose of this study was to examine associations between PA context (sports participation, participation in other organized physical activities, active travel to school, and outdoor play) and the number of days children met PA guidelines in a representative sample of children living in Texas. We analyzed cross-sectional data from a statewide sample of fourth-grade children in Texas who completed the 2019-2020 Texas School Physical Activity and Nutrition (Texas SPAN) survey. The Texas SPAN survey was designed to monitor the statewide prevalence of overweight/obesity among school children and assess habitual self-reported obesity-related behaviors, including diet and PA. Weighted Poisson regression models were employed to examine the associations between PA contexts (sports participation, participation in other organized physical activities, active travel to school, and outdoor play) and the number of days children met PA guidelines, adjusting for sex, race/ethnicity, overweight/obesity, urban-rural status, and economic disadvantage. A total of 16.7% of fourth-grade children met physical activity guidelines every day during the week (mean age = 9.4 ± 0.6 years; female = 48.7, 51.8% Hispanic, mean days meeting PA guideline = 3.6 ± 2.3 days). One in ten (11.2%) children did not meet daily PA guidelines on any day of the week, and 72.1% met them between 1 and 6 days. Participating in sports (b = 0.22, 95%CI:0.14, 0.30), any other organized physical activities (b=0.13, 95%CI:0.017, 0.19), and playing outdoors 1-3 days (b = 0.25, 95%CI:0.04, 0.46) and 4-7 days in the past week (b = 0.77, 95%CI:0.57, 0.97) was significantly and positively associated with the number of days children met PA guidelines. Participating in sports, participating in other organized physical activities, and playing outdoors may beneficially influence the number of days children meet PA guidelines. PA programs should consider these contextual factors and investigate how to promote organized activities and outdoor play effectively and appropriately among children.

Effectiveness of work‐based learning training in secondary family and consumer sciences

AbstractThis mixed methods study investigated the effectiveness of work‐based learning (WBL) experiences in secondary Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) programs, focusing on bridging the gap between secondary education and workforce readiness. Participants included secondary FCS teachers from public middle and high schools in Texas. The findings highlight WBL integration challenges due to varying levels of awareness, training, and industry partnerships among FCS educators. Enhancements in teacher training and stronger industry–education partnerships are recommended to improve the quality and diversity of WBL, aiming to better prepare students for dynamic workforce demands.

A Systematic Examination of Texas School District Websites for Suicide Prevention Information

AbstractYouth suicide and related behaviors continue to be a significant public health concern in the USA. Multiple approaches across settings, including schools, are required to address this multi-faceted public health concern. The Texas Suicide Safer Schools Report recommended that districts post suicide prevention information on their websites as one piece of more comprehensive suicide prevention initiatives. However, there is no examination in the literature on whether this recommendation has been implemented and what, if any, information is accessible to parents and students about suicide on school district websites. This study quantifies the suicide prevention information available on a random sample of 20% of all Texas school district websites (N = 242) and conducts exploratory analyses to examine what district features are associated with an increased likelihood of posting this information. Results indicate that 53% of the sampled websites contained any suicide prevention information. Of the websites containing this information, the most frequent types posted were the numbers of suicide prevention hotlines followed by links to professional organizations. Significant relationships were found between Hispanic/Latino enrollment and information available in Spanish, independent school districts (vs. charters), and posted suicide prevention information, as well as total district enrollment and posted suicide prevention information. Implications and targeted efforts for improvement are discussed.

Comparative Analysis of Texan CTE and Australian VET Programs

Texas is facing a worker deficit crisis for the nearly 1 million “middle skill” jobs requiring applicants to possess industry-based certifications earned through technical training and learning- think plumbers, dental assistants, estheticians, and mechanics. Since our society heavily depends on the contributions of middle-skilled workers for proper functioning, the recent deficit in qualified applicants has elicited significant operational disruptions throughout Texas. Career and Technical Education (CTE) is a secondary school framework that aims to “provide individuals with rigorous academic content and relevant technical knowledge and skills needed to prepare for further education and careers.” CTE is just one of the many avenues of advancement Texas schools are pursuing in hopes of graduating a new generation of career-ready citizens who can resolve the middle-skill worker crisis. However, CTE is far from perfect, and Texas could benefit greatly from referencing successes of international vocational frameworks to inform their curriculum decisions and revisions. This research outlines a comparative analysis of Texan CTE and Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) conducted using data from three avenues of query: subject matter expert interviews, CTE student survey results, and scholarly references. This analysis concluded that CTE is designed to expose students to diverse postgraduation career options, while VET places focus on students earning industry-based qualifications via on-site experience. In other words, CTE offers exploration of a breadth of vocational offerings, while VET offers depth of tangible outcomes for students in desired middle-skill industries. In reflecting on these discoveries, Texas would benefit from integrating aspects of the Australian School-Based Apprenticeship and Traineeship (SBAT) model into its present CTE framework to simultaneously address the middle-skilled worker crisis while providing students with a more fruitful and flexible educational experience.

GenZs environmental attitudes and ecology behavior nexus: Urgent education message

Environmental education in schools is critical to help decrease plastic litter pollution because plastic pollution could be the most significant health problem of the 21st century. Our research examined the environmental behaviors and attitudes of Generation Z (Gen Z) high school and undergraduate students in South Texas, USA. The research was important because we need to understand what young people believe and value if we are going to see any change in environmental behavior. Results supported research on how teachers can influence student environmental attitudes, behaviors, and knowledge with education. Feedback from students revealed significant attitude change and a rich narrative of pollution and watershed ecology knowledge and behavior themes. These themes disclosed that a holistic environmental science curriculum is necessary to connect Earth systems with the plastic litter pollution cycle.

A Qualitative Study on the Socialization and Transitions of Early College High School Graduates in Texas

Early College High Schools (ECs) are growing in popularity as an affordable avenue for students to obtain up to an associate's degree while in high school in Texas. Using Merton's (1966) Anticipatory Socialization Theory, this study investigated how ECs shaped 13 graduates’ social behaviors and norms while in high school, and then how they leveraged those behaviors in their transition to college. Results indicate that while ECs proved to be a supportive environment with nurturing teachers, these programs deemphasized social activities, leading to varying preparation of the social skills necessary for college fully. Recommendations for practice and future research are provided.

Using the Nutrition Facts Label to Make Food Choices Is Associated with Healthier Eating among 8th and 11th-Grade Students: An Analysis of Statewide Representative Data from the 2019-2020 Texas School Physical Activity and Nutrition Survey.

Nutrition labels are a tool to inform and encourage the public to make healthier food choices, but little information is available about use in multi-ethnic adolescent populations in the U.S. The purpose of this study was to examine associations between the level of nutrition label usage and healthy/unhealthy eating behaviors among a statewide representative sample of 8th and 11th-grade students in Texas. We analyzed cross-sectional associations between the Nutrition Facts label use and eating behaviors from a statewide sample of 8th and 11th-grade students in Texas, (n = 4730, weighted n = 710,731, mean age = 14.7 ± 1.6 years; 49% female, 51% Hispanic), who completed the 2019-2020 Texas School Physical Activity and Nutrition (TX SPAN) survey. Students self-reported their level of nutrition label usage to make food choices (5-point Likert scale from "Never" to "Always") and previous day consumption of 26 food items (13 healthy, 13 unhealthy). The 26 food items were used to calculate a Healthy Eating Index (HEI) score (0-100), a Healthy Foods Index (HFI) score (0-100), and an Unhealthy Foods Index (UFI) score (0-100). Weighted linear regression models were employed to examine the associations between self-reported use of nutrition labels to make food choices and HEI, HFI, and UFI scores. Marginal predicted means of HEI, HFI, and UFI scores were calculated post hoc from linear regression models. The odds of consuming specific individual food items for nutrition label usage were also calculated from weighted logistic regression models. All linear and logistic regression models were adjusted for grade, sex, Body Mass Index (BMI), race/ethnicity, economic disadvantage, and percentage of English language learners by school. A total of 11.0% of students reported always/almost always using nutrition labels to make food choices, 27.9% reported sometimes using them, while 61.0% indicated they never/almost never used nutrition labels to make food choices. The average HEI score among students in the sample was 47.7 ± 5.9. Nutrition Facts label usage was significantly and positively associated with HEI (b = 5.79, 95%CI: 4.45, 7.12) and HFI (b = 7.28, 95%CI:4.48, 10.07), and significantly and negatively associated with UFI (b = -4.30, 95%CI: -6.25, -2.34). A dose-response relationship was observed between nutrition label usage and HEI, HFI, and UFI scores, such that the strength of these associations increased with each one-point increase in nutrition label usage. Students who reported using nutrition labels always/almost always to make food choices had significantly higher odds of consuming healthy foods including baked meat, nuts, brown bread, vegetables, whole fruit, and yogurt (ORrange = 1.31-3.07), and significantly lower odds of consuming unhealthy foods including chips, cake, candy, and soda (ORrange = 0.48-0.68) compared to students who reported never/almost never using the Nutrition Facts label. Using the Nutrition Facts labels to make food choices is beneficially associated with healthy and unhealthy eating among 8th and 11th-grade students, although the proportion of students using nutrition labels to make their food choices was low. Public health efforts should be made to improve nutrition literacy and encourage nutrition label use among secondary students in the United States.

Universal pictures: A lithophane codex helps teenagers with blindness visualize nanoscopic systems.

People with blindness have limited access to the high-resolution graphical data and imagery of science. Here, a lithophane codex is reported. Its pages display tactile and optical readouts for universal visualization of data by persons with or without eyesight. Prototype codices illustrated microscopy of butterfly chitin-from N-acetylglucosamine monomer to fibril, scale, and whole insect-and were given to high schoolers from the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Lithophane graphics of Fischer-Spier esterification reactions and electron micrographs of biological cells were also 3D-printed, along with x-ray structures of proteins (as millimeter-scale 3D models). Students with blindness could visualize (describe, recall, distinguish) these systems-for the first time-at the same resolution as sighted peers (average accuracy = 88%). Tactile visualization occurred alongside laboratory training, synthesis, and mentoring by chemists with blindness, resulting in increased student interest and sense of belonging in science.

Advanced Placement Human Geography Exam Participation and Performance in Texas School Districts

Texas is the state with the largest number of students taking the Advanced Placement (AP) Human Geography exam. State policy allows schools to offer AP Human Geography in ninth grade as a substitute for the on-level World Geography Studies course. AP’s growth in Texas has been driven by state policy that financially incentivizes students, teachers, and schools to participate in the program. This article examines changes in the geographic distribution of AP Human Geography course offerings and exam results in school districts across the state. Using data provided by the Texas Education Agency (TEA), AP Human Geography exam participation rates and scores were mapped for the period from 2014 to 2019. The results show the number of districts with low rates of qualifying scores has increased in each participation category with fifty-seven additional low-qualifying districts in 2019 compared to 2014. Racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps exist in many schools, calling into question the inequitable impacts of the state’s AP incentives and the practice of using AP Human Geography as a warmup AP course. Texas school districts should improve the preparation of students for advanced course work. Researchers can further explore district-level AP participation and performance through case studies and other methods.

Lessons Learned from the Robb Elementary School, Uvalde, Texas School Shooting

Lessons Learned from the Robb Elementary School, Uvalde, Texas School Shooting

From the Frying Pan to the Fire: A qualitative analysis of teacher experiences as schools emerge from COVID-19 closures

In the 2020–2021 school year, teachers and students at PK-12 schools in Texas, a large southern U.S. state, returned to in-person instruction from fully virtual learning. This manuscript reports the findings from the second year of a longitudinal study examining the experiences of teachers instructing their students both remotely and in-person during the COVID-19 pandemic. Transcripts of interviews and focus groups were qualitatively coded, and findings include increased teacher stress in the new work environment, a return of teacher autonomy but uneven consideration in decision-making, and concerns for student well-being. Themes present in year two are compared to important findings from year one.