Houston Education
Research Consortium

The Houston Education Research Consortium is a research-practice partnership between the Kinder Institute and eight Houston-area school districts to guide data-driven, equity-minded policy. HERC uses a jointly developed research agenda that involves both researchers and school district leaders working together on critical issues to improve educational equity. The research center follows a long-term, rather than project-based, collaboration to solve longstanding problems with a focus on informing decision-makers directly.

Our commitment to Houston ISD
As a new superintendent and Board of Managers are appointed to Houston ISD, Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research remains committed to informing district leadership in its efforts to improve student outcomes. Learn more.

Initiatives

The Equity Project

Student Mobility

Emergent Bilingual Students

Prekindergarten

Study on Social and Emotional Skills

Postsecondary Readiness

Wraparound Needs

Research

Social and Emotional Skills of Students in the Houston Independent School District (Brief 1)

Two briefs analyze the social and emotional skills of a representative group of 10 and 15-year-old students in HISD.

REPORT: September 17, 2021 EDUCATION

Predictors of School Year Student Mobility in the Houston Region

This study identified student characteristics associated with school year mobility for more than 260,000 students in grades 4 through 8 who began the 2016-17 school year at a school in one of ten Houston area school districts.

BRIEF: September 1, 2021 EDUCATION

Changing Schools: Differences in School Year Student Mobility by Subgroup (Part 4)

This study used seven years of data from the state of Texas (2010-11 through 2016-17) to illustrate how statewide patterns of school year student mobility differed by subgroup. Patterns of student mobility differed by race, socioeconomic status, and English learner status.

BRIEF: August 16, 2021 EDUCATION

COVID-19 U.S. School District Action Plans: How were school districts prepared in the spring of 2020?

HERC collected 45 school district action plans addressing continuity of learning during the COVID-19 pandemic from school districts in 15 states that were publicly available between March and May 2020.

BRIEF: July 15, 2021 EDUCATION

Eviction Prevalence and Spatial Variation Within the Houston Independent School District

This research brief examines the distribution of eviction filings across the Houston Independent School District (HISD) in 2017 and 2018.

BRIEF: June 9, 2021 EDUCATION

Exit Only or Revolving Doors: Student mobility to and from non-Texas public schools and non-district charters

To investigate this phenomenon of “returners,” Houston Education Research Consortium researchers followed two types of leavers in a cohort of Houston-area students to see if and when they return.

BRIEF: June 1, 2021 EDUCATION

Literacy by 3

The Literacy by 3 Classroom Practices and Campus Literacy Growth study is the first to examine the relationship between Literacy by 3 practices and campus literacy growth in HISD.

BRIEF: May 21, 2021 EDUCATION

An Alternative Approach to Measuring Student Immigrant Generation

The goal of this methodological study is to evaluate the efficacy of an innovative approach to create a proxy indicator of immigrant generation for school districts to use when data on immigrant generation or parent birthplace are unavailable.

BRIEF: May 5, 2021 EDUCATION, IMMIGRATION

Long-term English Learners (LTELs): Increases in LTELs in Texas (Part 2)

This brief highlights the increasing percent of English learners becoming long-term English learners in the last two decades and points to a set of mechanisms that may serve to explain this increase.