Browse TCER’s reports below. The newest reports are available at the beginning of the list; click on the page numbers at the top and bottom of the table to find earlier work. Click the headings to reorder the list by title, date, or file type. Alternately, use the sorting options to narrow your search by category, keyword, or both. Click the arrow on the left side of the title to view/hide an abstract of the report.
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| Students Training for Academic Readiness (STAR) Evaluations | October 2007 | Parent Page |
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The STAR project combines interventions in the school, family, and community with the goal of improving students' awareness of and preparation for postsecondary educational programs. STAR also seeks to build a college-going culture in the low-income and minority communities it serves. The first year report relies on surveys of STAR students, teachers, and parents; archival data provided by the Texas Education Agency; and interviews with counselors, teachers, and administrators in STAR districts. While the report describes where schools are as they begin to implement STAR's college readiness reforms, it highlights broader issues about the role of schools in preparing families and students for the demands of postsecondary education.
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| Texas Open-Enrollment Charter School Evaluations | March 2007 | Parent Page |
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Texas enacted its charter school law in 1995, and the state's first open-enrollment charter schools opened in the fall of 1996. The legislation enabling charter schools requires that they be evaluated annually and the Texas Center for Educational Research (TCER) has participated in each annual evaluation, beginning in 1996-97.
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| Evaluation of the Texas Technology Immersion Pilot (eTxTIP) | December 2006 | Parent Page |
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The Evaluation of the Texas Technology Immersion Pilot (eTxTIP) is a multi-year research project that studies the effect of technology immersion on student learning and teacher proficiency in Texas middle schools. The study compares outcomes across campus, teacher, and student-level outcomes for a set of 22 middle schools in which all teachers and students received laptops and a matched comparison sample of 22 middle schools that did not receive laptops.
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| Texas Study of Personnel Needs in Special Education | May 2006 | Parent Page |
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TCER's research on Texas's special education personnel needs supports efforts by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), to foster greater state accountability and establish data-driven planning and self-assessment processes that help states and schools to address provisions of the recently enacted Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004).
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| Texans Getting Academically Prepared (TGAP) Evaluations | March 2006 | Parent Page |
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The Texas Education Agency's (TEA's) state GEAR UP project-Texans Getting Academically Prepared (TGAP)-has provided interconnected activities supporting early awareness of and preparation for higher education among low-income and minority students, their families, and schools in six South Texas school districts. Over its six years (1999-2005), the state grant was guided by three goals for (a) building educator and student capacity for successful participation in challenging college preparatory programs, (b) increasing student and family awareness of opportunities for college and financial aid assistance, and (c) providing meaningful incentives and support for high student achievement from the business community.
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| Texas Open-Enrollment Charter School Revenue: Supplement to the 2003-04 Evaluation  | February 2006 |  PDF (540 KB) |
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This study assesses funding differences, and the sources of differences, between charter schools and traditional districts in Texas. The need for this research stems from conflicting reports on charter school revenues and growing concern over the quality of charter school financial data reported through Texas's Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS). Charter school operators and advocates have also called for more research on possible funding gaps, reporting that charter schools receive less revenue per student than traditional districts. TCER's analysis finds that primary source of funding gaps in Texas is the difference in facilities funding for the two types of schools.
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| Texas Study of Students at Risk | October 2004 | Parent Page |
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These reports present findings from a comprehensive evaluation examining the effectiveness of three state-level programs with the common goal of helping students at risk of failure to achieve academically.
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| Profiles of High-Performing Texas Open-Enrollment Charter Schools | May 2003 | Parent Page |
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This report presents an in-depth look at ten high performing Texas charter schools and describes the innovative and effective practices successful charter schools use to meet student needs. Selected charter schools either had sustained high performance levels across years or had demonstrated an ability to substantially improve their accountability ratings over time.
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| Learning and Integrating New Knowledge and Skills (LINKS) | November 2002 | Parent Page |
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The Learning and Integrating New Knowledge and Skills (LINKS) project was designed to integrate established and emerging technologies into the teacher preparation program at Texas Woman's University (TWU). The project was supported by an U.S. Department of Education's Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) grant. LINKS encouraged development of university faculty's ability to use and model web-based technologies, changes in teacher education technology curriculum content and delivery, and enhancement of preservice teachers' performance requirements and responsibilities in field-based locations. This study's purpose was to describe changes in institutional processes as well as changes in behaviors and attitudes of faculty, mentor and supervising teachers, and preservice teachers during the second year of implementation.
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