Dr. Cristobal Rodriques

Across the state of Texas, based on the U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection which reports school level data, on average a Texas public high school provides to 12% of their high school seniors with access to Calculus, which is a significant college readiness indicator. The challenge is on average Black and Latino students are less likely to be enrolled in calculus than their white peers. Additionally, given the state’s segregated realities, some schools offer no access to calculus or below the state’s average, and in some affluent public schools 100% of their seniors have or have taken calculus. Further, such segregated realities additionally show other equity indicators around discipline and teacher equity variables such as one-year teacher turnover rates, teacher certification rates, average teacher salaries, and students per counselor that additionally influence concentrated inequities that also influence College Readiness indicators. This study uses Texas as a case study given its segregated realities to model an equity index at the school level tied to college readiness accessibility across Black, Latino, and White students using additional equity variables to demonstrate a pathway to improving equity for each Texas public high school. This study aims to counter the current school grade system, adopted by many states, which assigns a letter grade of A thru F to schools based on test scores, and instead creates an equity-index or equity-letter grade based on equity variables using federal data sets centered around college readiness, discipline, and teacher equity variables.

Lunch available starting at 11:45am