Eric.ed.gov – Standards Implementation in Texas: Local Perspectives on Policy, Challenges, Resources, and Instruction

The Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL) examines how college- and career-ready standards are implemented, if they improve student learning, and what instructional tools measure and support their implementation. The Center studies elementary and high school math and English Language Arts (ELA) standards, and has a special focus on understanding implementation and effects of CCR standards for English Language Learners (ELLs) and students with disabilities (SWDs). This analysis examines select data from a survey administered to districts, principals, and teachers in the state of Texas during the spring of 2016. A stratified random sampling technique was designed to ensure the sample was representative of districts in Texas. Forty-two Texas districts completed the survey. In every sampled elementary school, two fifth-grade math teachers, two fourth-grade ELA teachers, one SWD teacher, and one ELL teacher were sampled. In high schools, two ELA teachers and one teacher in each of the following specialties or subjects: SWD, ELL, algebra, algebra 2, and geometry were sampled. The three math subjects were chosen because they are the most common high school math courses, thus including them maximizes the number of high school target course responses obtained. Researchers wanted to identify math classes enrolling students who were likely to be required to take the state mathematics assessment. Fifty three districts were identified. Of those, 42 agreed to participate and completed the survey. This is a 79.2% response rate. In total, 149 principals (or designated staff) out of the 211 eligible principals completed the principal survey in Texas, for a response rate of 70.6%; and 603 out of 1,089 sampled teachers responded, for a response rate of 55.4%. These analyses help answer the following C-SAIL implementation research questions: (1) To what extent is the policy system specific, consistent, authoritative, powerful, and stable, at the state, district, and school levels; (2) What is the nature and quality of support and guidance at the state, district, and school levels (e.g., challenges and resources); and (3) How are teachers changing the content they cover, and how does this differ for the subjects of ELA and math as well as for teachers of ELLs, teachers of SWDs, and for elementary and high school teachers?