A study to revise the commercial curriculum of Gladewater High School to fit the needs of potential graduates.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1959 F53

Recent juvenile justice reforms aimed at increasing the certainty and severity of punishment also have increased the likelihood that youthful offenders will enter the adult prison system. In response to this distinct population, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) established the Youthful Offender Program (YOP) for all incarcerated offenders younger than 18 years of age. A central feature of the YOP is the therapeutic community (TC) – primarily for minimum security offenders. Analyses of the participants are largely descriptive; to date, there have been no known evaluations of the TC. Interview and survey data from security and treatment staff at five youth-oriented prisons in Texas, including the Clemens Unit which houses all male offenders in the YOP, suggest youthful offenders are different from adult offenders. As such, they enter prison with a variety of needs and require more time and supervision. Using TDCJ individual-level data of YOP participants from 1996–2002, a treatment group (i.e., TC participants) and a control group (i.e., non-participants) were constructed to assess the impact of participation in the TC on institutional adjustment as measured by the infractions. Descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests, and chi-square analyses were conducted and discussed. Results from a Cox proportional hazard model indicate participation in the TC does not have an effect on time-to-failure (i.e., disciplinary infractions) within the one-year observation period. A sample of TC participants with short time lags between entry in TDCJ and entry in the TC was drawn for better comparison with non-participants, and additional analyses were conducted. Multiple regression, binomial logistic regression, and survival analysis indicate that participation in the TC has a statistically significant negative effect on the frequency of infractions (i.e., participation is associated with fewer infractions) but does not have an effect on the severity of infractions or time-to-failure. Offender education level was statistically significant in every model, which indicates increased education is associated with fewer infractions, less severe infractions, and decreased hazard of infractions. Other control variables reaching statistical significance were age (i.e., fewer infractions and decreased hazard), property offense (i.e., decreased hazard), and gang affiliation (i.e., more severe infractions). / text

The purpose of this dissertation was twofold. First, the study sought to determine if the Texas Academic Skills Program (TASP) Reading score predicts success on the Examination for the Certification of Educators in Texas (ExCET). Second, the study addressed the effect on individuals of color of raising the minimum TASP Reading score entrance requirement for admission to teacher preparation programs. Data were collected from the ExCET Office of a Carnegie I metropolitan university. The defined sample consisted of 961 participants who had a TASP Reading score and had taken an Elementary Comprehensive ExCET, an Elementary Professional Development ExCET or a Secondary Professional ExCET between September 1999 and January 2001. Linear Regression, Box Test, Predictive Discriminate Analysis, and frequency distribution tables were used for analyses. This investigation examined the effects of the independent variable of TASP Reading score on the performance of participants on the dependent variable, the ExCET. Four null hypotheses were tested at the .05 level of significance. The TASP Reading score was a statistically significant predictor for success on the Elementary Comprehensive ExCET, Elementary Professional Development ExCET, and the Secondary Professional Development ExCET. However, the Predictive Discriminate Analysis indicated that a TASP Reading score of 220 predicted that no candidates would fail the Elementary Comprehensive ExCET, 6 participants would fail the Elementary Professional Development ExCET and 19 participants would fail the Secondary Professional Development ExCET. Five hypotheses addressed the effect of raising the TASP Reading score to 250. Findings of four hypotheses showed that raising this admission standard would impact the number of individuals of color granted admission to the teacher preparation program. These results call for the recommendation that governing agencies address the impact of state teacher education program accreditation that often results in the policy of relying on the TASP Reading score as one of the primary admission standards for teacher education programs. The unintended outcome of raising the reading admission standard in the anticipation of continued state accreditation is a noticeable loss of candidates of colors, especially African American candidates.

The need to establish appropriate, adequate, and decent educational facilities for school children across the nation has been well-established. The ability of school districts in each state to build these facilities has varied widely in the past. Historically, most facilities funding ability for school districts has come from the local community and has been tied to property wealth and the ability of the community to raise significant tax dollars to pay for school buildings. Responding to an expanding need for increased facilities funding and school funding litigation, the state of Texas added facilities funding mechanisms for public school facilities construction in the late 1990s. The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not the methods of facilities funding were equitable in the state of Texas. In this study, equity values were framed around three equity concepts established in school funding equity literature. These three concepts were (1) horizontal equity defined as the equal treatment of equals, (2) vertical equity defined as the unequal treatment of unequals, and (3) wealth neutrality defined as the absence of a relationship between school district wealth and the equal opportunity of students. The sample comprised 1,039 school districts in the state of Texas. Well-established equity measures were administered to data including capital outlays, weighted per pupil capital outlays, instructional facilities allotments, and school district wealth. Horizontal equity measures included the McLoone index, the Verstegen index, the federal range ratio, and the coefficient of variation tests. The Odden-Picus Adequacy index (OPAI) was administered to determine levels of vertical equity. Finally, wealth neutrality was determined utilizing the Pearson product-moment correlation test. Findings indicated that there were poor horizontal equity levels both in the top half and bottom half of the distribution of capital outlay spenders. A coefficient of variation test was administered to determine overall horizontal equity. While it did not indicate poor overall horizontal equity, the existence of extreme outliers in both halves of the distribution indicated that the dispersion of spending at the top and bottom of the distribution were inequitable. In fact, over the three year period of the study, fifteen percent of the top spending districts spent between forty and fifty percent of all capital outlay expenditures. Vertical equity was tested by implementing a court mandated equalization standard of eighty-five percent. When the OPAI was administered at this equity level, vertical equity was poorer than horizontal equity. Finally, while some state implemented facilities funding mechanisms were wealth-neutral, the overall funding system, with its heavy reliance on bonded indebtedness, was not.

The problem of this study was to analyze the teaching of religion in the state universities of Texas. The purposes of the study were (1) to describe instructors of religion, (2) to describe programs of chairs of religion, and (3) to examine the points of view of administrators who regulate Bible Chairs. The findings of the study are presented in five chapters. Chapter I is an introduction delineating the procedure taken in the study. Chapter II is an historical review of the literature and supplemental data. Chapter III outlines the process of data collection. Chapter IV contains a presentation of findings from university catalogs, instructors' information sheets, and data from questionnaires.

The problem of this study is to determine by testing and observation which of three specific procedures for the improvement of general reading ability was the most effective when used with groups of sixth-grade children in the Bowie Elementary Schools.

The problem of this study was to determine the extent to which certain characteristics of teachers of first-year algebra were related to a) their pupils' attitudes toward algebra and b) their pupils' achievements in algebra. An additional aspect of the study was to ascertain and study the differences between Anglo- and Latin-American pupils' attitudes and achievements in algebra.

The purpose of this study was threefold: (1) to determine what the curriculum offerings were in Texas high schools for General Metalworking I and II during the 1970-71 school year, (2) to determine whether these individual course offerings agreed with the state prescribed curriculum as set forth by the Texas Education Agency, and (3) to determine in what ways the course offerings of the individual schools differed from the state prescribed curriculum.

The study examined mathematics and English student achievement, attendance rates, dropout rates, and expenditures per pupil for Texas high school students in both open-enrollment charter schools and traditional public high schools for the 2009–2010 school year. All data were assembled using archived information found at the Texas Education Agency (TEA). This information included the TEA report entitled Texas Open Enrollment Charter Schools Evaluation; TEA Snapshot Yearly Report; and Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) data files. Microsoft Excel (Version 2010) was used to randomly select traditional public high schools categorized as Title 1 and non-Title 1 for comparison with Title 1 and non-Title 1 open-enrollment charter high schools. The IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) (IBM Statistics Version 20) was used for a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) conducted between one independent variable (charter or traditional school) and five dependent variables (mathematics exit-level TAKS scores, English exit-level TAKS scores, attendance rates, dropout rates, and expenditures per pupil). Traditional public high school students had higher or better average mean values than charter schools for mathematics exit-level TAKS scores, English exit-level TAKS scores, attendance rates, dropout rates, and expenditures per pupil. The ANOVA found that four of the five dependent variables were statistically significant at the 0.05 confidence level for the independent variable of school type, whether charter or traditional school. There was no significant difference found between the schools for attendance rates. Effect size calculations, using the eta-squared method, confirmed the comparisons with significant differences.