Texas Education Research Center

Principal Investigators:

Deanna Schexnayder and Christopher T. King

Sponsors:

Texas Education Agency, Texas High Education Coordinating Board

Research Partner:

The University of Texas at Dallas

Project Duration:

September 2007 - August 2012

Description:

The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) and its partners -- including the Ray Marshall Center -- have established an Education Research Center (ERC), sponsored by the Texas Education Agency and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which will conduct research for the benefit of education in Texas, as authorized by Section 1.005 of the Texas Education Code. Current approved projects are:

Project 1: College Readiness, Transition, and Performance

The Ray Marshall Center will use linked high school and postsecondary education records, in combination with variables developed from the TEA AEIS public database to determine the rates of graduation and college enrollment for seniors in Texas school districts and factors associated with successful transitions to postsecondary education. Statistical models that were developed in a similar project that used different data sources will be run on data obtained from the ERC data warehouse to test the degree to which findings are consistent across the different data sets and available variables used in the two separate projects.

Project 2: An Analysis of Early Education Factors Associated with School Success in the Elementary Years

Ray Marshall Center researchers will conduct an exploratory analysis of the relationship between participation in pre-kindergarten and success in the early school years. Outcome measures to be used in this phase of the analysis will be either 1st grade passing rates or 3rd grade performance on TAKS tests, depending on the years of TEA data available in the ERC data warehouse at the time that the study is conducted.

Reports Available:

Study of Early Education in Texas: The Relationship of Pre-K Attendance to 3rd Grade Test Results
Authors: Aletha Huston, Anjali Gupta, and Deanna Schexnayder
Date: March 2012
Publication Type: Report. 51 pp. 

Factors Associated with Education and Work after High School for the Classes of 2008 and 2009
Authors: Greg Cumpton, Deanna Schexnayder, and Christopher T. King; with assistance from Chandler Stolp 
Date: February 2012 
Publication Type: Report. 93pp.