Our commitment to Houston ISD
April 6, 2023
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.
Over the past 12 years, the institute’s Houston Education Research Consortium has partnered with HISD to conduct research that has been used to improve academic and behavioral outcomes. Jointly developed with school district and department leadership, research topics have ranged from expanding access to pre-kindergarten to increasing opportunities for STEM courses, and numerous topics in between. All of this research—over 80 briefs/reports to date— was produced at no cost to HISD, and much of it was used to inform HISD’s recent strategic plan.
We will continue to support efforts to provide equitable access to opportunities and improve student outcomes in HISD and are looking forward to conversations about continuing our partnership with the district. We offer our support in the following ways:
- Provide free, high-quality research, guided by the needs of district and department leadership, to be used for district decision making
- Support HISD in using research to guide any short- and long-term strategic planning
- Offer guidance and training around how best to measure and track progress toward the Board of Managers’ and Superintendent’s stated goals for students, and
- Serve as a supplementary resource for HISD’s Office of Research and Accountability.
Ruth N. López Turley | turley@rice.edu
Director, Kinder Institute for Urban Research
Erin Baumgartner | erinbaumgartner@rice.edu
Director, Houston Education Research Consortium