Julian Vasquez Heilig

Accountability Texas-Style: The Progress and Learning of Urban Minority Students in a High-Stakes Testing Context

This study examines longitudinal student progress and achievement on the elementary, middle, and high school levels in relation to accountability policy incentives in a large urban district in Texas. Using quantitative analyses supplemented by qualitative interviews, the authors found that high-stakes testing policies that rewarded and punished schools based on average student scores created incentives for schools to “game the system” by excluding students from testing and, ultimately, school. In the elementary grades, low-achieving students were disproportionately excluded from taking the high-stakes Texas Assessment of Academic Skills tests, demonstrating gains not reflected on the low-stakes Stanford Achievement Test–Ninth Edition. Student exclusion at the elementary level occurred through special education and language exemptions and missing scores. Furthermore, gaming strategies reduced educational opportunity for African American and Latino high school students. Sharp increases in 9th-grade student retention and disappearance were associated with increases in 10th-grade test scores and related accountability ratings.

From Dewey to No Child Left Behind: The Evolution and Devolution of Public Arts Education

This historical narrative tracks the evolution and devolution of visual arts education from Deweys progressive era pedagogy and the theory of the arts as experience through the modern accountability movement. Archival material, state curricular documents, and conversations with policymakers show an increasing focus on core subject areas of reading, writing, and mathematics at the expense of arts education. Texas House Bill 3, the third generation of accountability legislation in the Lone Star State, provides a case study of the status of arts education after more than fifteen years of high-stakes testing and accountability. Policy considerations are offered for arts education and its future standing within the public educational curriculum.

Nearly 50 Years Post-Jim Crow Persisting and Expansive School Segregation for African American, Latina/o, and ELL Students in Texas

This study addresses the segregation of English language learner (ELL) students in schools across Texas. We descriptively analyze levels of racial, economic, and linguistic isolation experienced by ELL students across the state of Texas. We also examine the association between segregation by race/ethnicity, economic disadvantage, and language proficiency with high-stakes accountability ratings. Despite nearly two decades of accountability policies that have promised equality, our statistical analyses show that a majority of ELL students in Texas still attend high-poverty and high-minority schools, and we find that segregation by socioeconomic status (SES) and race and ethnicity is highly significant for predicting whether schools will be low performing relative to high performing.

A Nostrum of School Reform? Turning Around Reconstituted Urban Texas High Schools

A mainstay in NCLB and the Obama administration education plan is turning around low-performing schools. This study utilized surveys and interviews with school leaders from four turnaround urban high schools in Texas to understand student outcomes before and after school restructuring and reconstitution. Although some organizational changes were apparent; overall, respondents cited rapidly changing technical strategies and haphazard adjustments from external sources as a great challenge. Reconstitution also magnified challenges that existed before and after restructuring efforts. Most importantly, the evidence suggests that school reconstitution did not immediately improve student achievement, impact grade retention and decrease student dropout in the study schools.

Community-Based Education Reform in Urban Contexts: Implications for Leadership, Policy, and Accountability

The top-down nature of school reform in urban communities has prompted educators, students, parents, and citizens alike to question the ways in which we hold public schools accountable for student learning and performance. Education research representing a wide range of disciplinary perspectives including history, sociology, political science, and public policy and interdisciplinary fields, such as leadership studies and program evaluation, has contributed greatly to our understanding of the role of schools, neighborhoods, and communities in urban education reform. Although research and policy discourses analyzing and comparing the effectiveness and drawbacks of reform, whether top-down or grassroots, are far from new, the knowledge base concerning how such efforts should take place, by whom, and the degree to which they are sustainable remain underdeveloped. This special issue of Urban Education presents a timely exploration of community-based reform efforts designed to improve student achievement and school success within the decades-long era of high-stakes, performance-based accountability. Given increased support for testing and standardization,

A Story within a Story: Culturally Responsive Schooling and American Indian and Alaska Native Achievement in the National Indian Education Study

There have been numerous calls to increase quantitative studies examining the role of culturally responsive schooling (CRS) on American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) achievement. The National Indian Education Study (NIES) is the only large-scale study focused on (AIAN) students’ cultural experiences within the context of schools. Given that NIES also includes achievement on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), it has the potential to inform and guide policy directed specifically toward AIAN students. To examine ways NIES might potentially inform policy, the present study examined the degree to which AIAN student experiences as reflected in NIES are associated with achievement on NAEP. We then examined NIES against a CRS framework and found that NIES could inform policy to the detriment of AIAN students.

At-Risk Student Averse: Risk Management and Accountability.

Purpose – The prevailing theory of action underlying accountability is that holding schools and students accountable will increase educational output. While accountabilitys theory of action intuitively seemed plausible, at the point of No Child Left Behinds national implementation, little empirical research was available to either support or critique accountability claims or to predict the long‐term impact of accountability systems on the success of at‐risk students and the schools that served them. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the work and perceptions of school teachers and leaders as they seek to meet the requirements of educational accountability.Design/methodology/approach – Interviews with 89 administrators, staff and teachers revealed a variety of methods utilized to manage risks associated with low test scores and accountability ratings.Findings – The findings reported in this paper challenge the proposition that accountability improves the educational outcomes of at‐risk students and ...

Immigrant DREAMs: English Learners, the Texas 10% Admissions Plan, and College Academic Success

English learners (ELs) are facing unique issues in higher education that remain largely unexplored. This research focuses on college choice, enrollment, and graduation among high-achieving ELs who were eligible for automatic admission to any public higher education institution in Texas by having graduated in the top 10% of their high school class. We found that large enrollment gains for ELs were not observed until revised Texas DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) legislation stipulated that immigrant students fulfilling reformulated residency requirements were entitled to in-state tuition rates. The majority of top 10% ELs enrolled at border institutions, were largely first-generation college students, and experienced generally higher cohort graduation rates at Texas flagship universities.