News

GTF Grantee Update: UTeach Brownsville

With the start of the new school year, The University of Texas at Brownsville (UTB) has officially launched the UTeach Brownsville program! The collaboration between the Colleges of Education and Science, Mathematics, and Technology will let participating students earn a degree in math or science and simultaneously graduate with a teacher certification. Nationwide, thirty-four universities enrolled a total of more than 5,500 students this past spring in a UTeach program.

Greater Texas Foundation’s grant of  $500,000 played a major role in bringing the program to UTB as well as The University of Texas-Pan American. Support for this expansion began in 2010 when the Foundation made planning grants to each of the institutions in the amount of $45,000. GTF has also provided funding to help implement the UTeach program at other universities around the state. As GTF President Wynn Rosser noted, “The need for high quality math and science teachers is well established […] The Foundation is pleased to support a proven approach, like UTeach, to serve the Rio Grande Valley.”  

We wish the program’s staff and incoming class of more than sixty students the best of luck as they pursue this valuable credential.

 
For the full press release and a video about the program, click here.

For more information on the grant, click here.

GTF in the News: aggieTEACH

The TAMUtimes, an electronic Texas A&M newsletter, recently covered Greater Texas Foundation’s grant to support the aggieTEACH program. GTF President & CEO, Dr.  Wynn Rosser, is quoted as saying, “Our goals for this grant mirror those of aggieTEACH — most importantly, to improve math and science instruction in Texas through the preparation and support of highly qualified educators [...] We appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with Texas A&M University and Texas Instruments Foundation to support aggieTEACH.”

For the full story you can visit:
http://www.science.tamu.edu/articles/917/

For more information on the grant, click here.

GTF Grants $150,000 to The Hobby Center for the Study of Texas at Rice University to Help Complete Research and Establish Related Data Website

Greater Texas Foundation will provide $150,000 to Rice University to support completion of the post-2010 version of An American Challenged and The Texas Challenge. The grant will provide support for: (1) completing the printed versions of the post-2010 analyses for the Texas and America Challenge documents; (2) evaluating the results of the pre-2010 analysis; and (3) creating an online baseline and projections data website to display and continuously update results throughout the post-2010 decade.

For more information on The Hobby Center for the Study of Texas and their work, please visit their website at:

http://hobbycenter.rice.edu/

Greater Texas Foundation Commits to United for College Success Project

A grant in the amount of $15,000 to fund the United for College Success project. The purpose of the United for College Success project is to discover, document, and share “best practices” of high quality Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) in Texas related to college access and success for underserved students, and from there explore partnerships among the seven CMOs for ongoing alumni support. This project will bring college access/success representatives from KIPP, YES Prep Public Schools, UPLIFT Education and IDEA Public Schools together for four meetings during 2012, and result in a final report and formal panel presentation that summarize the group’s findings. (more…)

A New Measure of Educational Success in Texas

Texas needs a consistent and reliable measure to track its students and measure how well our state’s educational systems are preparing our young people.  To that end, the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems was recently commissioned (funded by Houston Endowment, endorsed by GTF and many others) to analyze how many of the nearly 300,000 eighth-grade students enrolled each year in Texas public schools go on to complete any sort of postsecondary credential within six years of their normal high school graduation date.

For the 883,000 Texas students starting 8th grade in 1996-98, the percentage getting any degree or certificate was only 21.9%. Among Texas’s important African American and Latino populations, it was less than 13%. This news is hard to swallow, but there is hope. For a copy of the full report text, see here.

GTF Funds aggieTEACH Program Expansion and Improvement Project

A grant in the amount of $150,000 over three years to fund the aggieTEACH program expansion and improvement project. aggieTEACH is an undergraduate secondary teacher preparation program designed for students majoring in STEM fields. Students in the aggieTEACH program obtain both their STEM degree and their secondary math or science teaching certification in the traditional four-year,120 hour undergraduate bachelor’s degree. (more…)

Turning the Mirror on Ourselves, by Luzelma G. Canales, Executive Director of Resource Development and Administration, Lone Star College System

Luzelma G. Canales, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Resource Development & Administration
832.813.6815 (office)
Lone Star College System
5000 Research Forest Drive
The Woodlands, TX 77381-4356

In my fifteen years as a community college administrator, I have spent countless hours sitting around a table reviewing student outcome data for math students. I, too, continue to see the call for innovative-evidenced based strategies for improving outcomes for math students. I also concur with Dr. Treisman’s assertion that we continue to ‘pilot’ programs and strategies. Seldom do we have the courage to bring to scale promising practices and letting go of old practices.

I would suggest that it is time to move from a deficit to an asset model of student success. From a model where we keep trying to ‘fix’ our students to one where we turn the mirror on ourselves and consider that we might have to fundamentally transform how we approach the role of math in preparing a competitive workforce.

I am happy to see that experts like Dr. Treisman and his team at the Dana Center are asking us to have courageous conversations about the role of math not as a course but in preparing students for programs of study and ultimately to enter the workforce with the skills that they need to fulfill their job requirements.

However, I continue to see most of the national, state, and local discussion around what we can do to improve the transitions and/or alignment between K-12 and higher education. We can’t, however, ignore the fact that many of our new college entrants (especially in community colleges) are nontraditional students that have been out of school for a while. The adult student truly does not have two to three years to spend taking remedial courses before they can begin to earn credits towards a certificate or degree.

Adult education theories tell us that we must engage adult students in learning by honoring the experience that they bring with them to college. It is, therefore, critical that we look to models that leverage contextualized and/or integrated curriculum to help students understand the relevance of what they are learning to real life experiences. Jobs for the Future’s Breaking Through initiative has done an incredible job of documenting effective practices from throughout the country that leverage adult education theories and accelerate students’ time to completing a credential, certificate, or degree without compromising instructional rigor.

When interviewed, students participating in these programs will tell you that it is only through rigor, relevance, and high expectations that they are successful. In Achieving the Dream, we learned that ‘listening to the voices’ is a critical aspect of institutional improvement. I, therefore, challenge myself and my colleagues from throughout the country to accept that students are the experts in their educational journey and that we have much to learn from how they successfully navigate our institutions to complete the requirements to earn their degree. Imagine a time when we invite the student to be part of the solution of how we can improve teaching and learning.

Making the promise of upward mobility through education a reality, by Dr. Uri Treisman, Founder and Director, Charles A. Dana Center, UT Austin

Educate Texas’s Statewide STEM Strategy and STEM Districts, by Dr. Reo Pruiett, Program Officer at Educate Texas

Dr. Reo Pruiett is a program officer for the T-STEM Initiative at Educate Texas (formerly Texas High School Project). To learn more about Educate Texas and Dr. Pruiett’s work, visit www.thsp.org.

According to the Alliance for Science & Technology Research in America, 2011:

• Between 2008 and 2018, new jobs in Texas requiring postsecondary education and training will grow by 1.3 million while jobs for high school graduates and dropouts will grow by 915,000.
• Between 2008 and 2018, Texas will create 4 million job vacancies both from new jobs and job openings due to retirement.
• 2.2 million of these job vacancies will be for those with postsecondary credentials, 1.1 million for high school graduates and 667,000 for high school dropouts.
• Texas ranks 31^st in terms of the proportion of its 2018 jobs that will require a Bachelor’s degree, and is 1^st in jobs for high school dropouts.
• 56% of all jobs in Texas (7.7 million jobs) will require some postsecondary training beyond high school in 2018.

As the Greater Texas Foundation noted in their introductory post, Texas and our nation are facing significant barriers to increasing the number of students who are college ready and earn a credential or degree. In the second post of the series, Michael Collins stated there are promising practices across the U.S. that are improving students’ chances at succeeding in attaining a postsecondary credential or degree.  Collins states that “a growing number of states and colleges are implementing more proactive strategies to prevent the need for developmental education. This includes making early assessment and early remediation opportunities available to high school students.”  Yet, with many promising solutions and best practices options available, how do we as a state or nation join forces to make sure these practices are in place to serve our students and our communities?  How can communities collaborate to meet the educational needs, workforce needs and business and industry needs at the same time?

Educate Texas, a public-private initiative of Communities Foundation of Texas, is currently focused on ramping up efforts to scale promising practices learned from innovative public school models that promote and provide post-secondary access and career opportunities to traditionally underserved students.  Since 2005, Educate Texas (formerly known as the Texas High School Project), along with its private foundation partners and the Texas Education Agency has been supporting the start-up of Texas-Science, Technology, Engineering Math (T-STEM) Academies and Early College High Schools (ECHS) which primarily serve students typically under-represented in postsecondary education. At 108 schools, the investment in innovative school models in Texas is the most extensive anywhere in the United States.  The T-STEM academies are designed to offer college ready curriculum and instruction with a focus on math and science-related subjects, while ECHSs are designed to provide the opportunity to earn both a high school diploma and one to two years of transferable college credit by high school graduation.

Math should be a gateway, not a gatekeeper, to a successful college education. Students must come to see math as an essential aspect of their everyday lives, no matter what their field of study. They need to think, “I can understand this, I can do this, this is important to know.” The math pathway for students pursuing majors in the math-oriented disciplines is well established: Students work their way through algebra to calculus.  Certainly, students entering science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields need to be proficient in pre-calculus and the algebra on which it depends.

Anthony Bryk and Uri Treisman[1]

Through the planning, start-up, implementation and ongoing support of T-STEM Academies and ECHS campuses, Educate Texas has discovered that math can indeed be a barrier to postsecondary access for traditionally underrepresented students. The T-STEM and ECHS campuses focus relentlessly on math, particularly Algebra I mastery to ensure that lack of math skills does not hinder postsecondary prospects for students.  ECHSs are strategic about the timing and dosage of instructional strategies for math classes, while T-STEM Academies rely on the T-STEM Centers (seven university-based centers, tasked with supporting T-STEM academies and all Texas schools by designing innovative STEM curricula, delivering professional development and creating strategic partnerships among businesses, higher education entities, and school districts).  The T-STEM Centers provide intensive, focused, and customizable professional development units on math instruction for teachers in T-STEM Academies.

Educate Texas is committed to ensuring first-generation, low-income Texas students are college-ready and poised for postsecondary success. Yet, the need to do more and reach more students statewide is compelling. Educate Texas understands that while individual school start-up is a worthy endeavor, more dramatic and positive impact for the postsecondary success of Texas’s underserved students can be achieved by taking STEM to scale.

One way Educate Texas is scaling STEM is through the development of a statewide STEM strategy. Educate Texas believes our state can benefit from embracing select STEM talent development strategies that intentionally align and support both economic development goals of the state and the individual opportunities of its students. Our current work has helped us create a robust network of superintendents, policy makers, state agencies, philanthropic groups, practitioner and community based organizations and higher education institutions that can support a statewide STEM strategy: a coordinated approach that links STEM education, workforce, and economic development through scalable policy, programs, and practice to prepare students for enriching lives and to help grow Texas’s economy.

Elements of the STEM statewide strategy include:

• Alignment of economic and talent development in an ongoing strategic approach tied to specific growth targets for both, mobilize STEM champions to support and sustain the effort, and identify innovations in policy and practice that will benefit the state;
• Growth and expansion of current quality STEM teaching and learning, and the assets that support it; and
• Identifying and launching STEM-ready communities within Texas to inspire and drive student demand, support STEM integration in classrooms across regions, and advocate for high expectations of STEM knowledge and skill development at the local level.

In addition to developing and launching a statewide STEM strategy, Educate Texas has embarked upon an effort to launch a STEM district.  Educate Texas recently issued a Dallas-Fort Worth metro area Request For Proposal to build district and community support for STEM education district-wide.  The STEM District-wide initiative’s objectives include:

• Being intentional about ensuring rigor and high quality curricula and instruction in math, science, technology and design throughout a district (K-12);
• Building STEM talent in the classroom and a pipeline for a highly skilled and knowledgeable workforce; and
• Working with institutions of higher education, businesses/industry and economic development to ensure alignment of goals, efforts, and resources.

One of several interested North Texas districts will be officially invited to partner with Educate Texas to build out its district-wide STEM education model in early 2012. Through these large-scale efforts, Educate Texas hopes to continue to expand postsecondary opportunities and ensure postsecondary success for an ever-growing proportion of Texas’s students.

Mathematics for Postsecondary Readiness and Success, featuring special guest blogger Michael Collins, Associate Vice President, Postsecondary State Policy, Jobs for the Future

Our first guest blogger is Michael Collins, Associate VP, Postsecondary State Policy at Jobs for the Future.  To learn more from Mr. Collins and his work, follow him on Twitter @mikejff and read other publications he has authored at  www.jff.org.

In my role at Jobs for the Future (JFF) over the last seven years, I’ve had a front row seat to observe–and participate in– state and national efforts to improve developmental math. JFF leads the state policy work for Achieving the Dream, the Developmental Education Initiative, and most recently, Completion by Design. Each of these initiatives includes a focus on improving completion rates for students in developmental math.

The state policy team at JFF works with policy makers, and we collaborate with other national policy, research, and philanthropic organizations—all of which support community college innovation. Here are some trends we see in the field of developmental math improvement.

First, a growing number of states and colleges are implementing more proactive strategies to prevent the need for developmental education. This includes making early assessment and early remediation opportunities available to high school students. We also see an uptick in the number of states and colleges promoting dual enrollment and early college as strategies to help students avoid developmental education.

Second, there is a major emphasis on acceleration. These efforts include testing Fast Track models that compress levels of developmental math into shorter time periods; breaking up semester-length courses into Modules; and Co-Requisite models that allow developmental math students to enroll in college-level math with built-in supports.

Third, we also see a push to leverage technology. Many of the acceleration strategies, particularly those that are self-paced, are computer-aided. And assessment, advising, instruction, tutoring, and practice are increasingly available online.

All of these trends are promising, but fixing developmental math is daunting. Fortunately, in addition to the efforts above, there are sister initiatives attacking developmental math in tandem. The Statway Initiative, for instance, is challenging long-held assumptions about the content of college-level math, which has profound implications for developmental students.  And other national initiatives such as Getting Past Go and Complete College America are supporting developmental math redesign efforts. In Texas, the Developmental Education Demonstration pilots and the State’s Complete College America Innovation Challenge Grant also feature innovation in developmental math.

The effectiveness of these efforts is not yet known, but we still think they represent a promising trajectory.  Current student outcomes are so dismal as to justify experimentation.  We also stand to gain tremendous knowledge that will put us ever closer to identifying effective and efficient ways to help students in developmental math complete college.

Mathematics for Postsecondary Readiness and Success

Texas and the United States face significant barriers to increasing the number of students who are prepared for postsecondary education and earn postsecondary credentials. In particular, lack of alignment in curriculum and expectations between K-12 and postsecondary education can substantially impede students’ academic preparedness for college, which often leads to placement in remedial education and ultimately puts students at risk of non-completion.[1]

In Texas, the trends speak for themselves:

• Three out of five students (74,000 of 126,000 students) who enroll in postsecondary education do not attain a credential within six years.
• Of those students who enroll in PSE, almost half who do not attain a credential are lost in remedial education.
• Fifty percent of community college students and 20 percent of freshmen at four-year institutions enroll in remedial education and most do not matriculate into credit bearing courses. (42,000 students entering postsecondary education enroll in developmental education; 8,000 of them complete a degree or credential. 34,000 do not.) [2]

Further, in addition to financial costs of remedial education, the cost of lost time for students is substantial. The authors of a 2008 study of California students found “students with deep remedial needs who successfully transfer to a 4-year college spent on average 5 years before transferring and transferred only 1 year’s worth of courses.”[3]

One of the most significant academic barriers for students is college mathematics. According to a 2007 ACT study, “while more than two-thirds of high school teachers surveyed believe they are meeting state standards for preparing students for college-level mathematics, approximately the same ratio of postsecondary educators believe students are coming to college underprepared.”[4]

Nationally, there is an ongoing conversation about whether all students need to be on track for college algebra or an alternative, such as statistics, based on field of study. It is becoming more and more apparent that math readiness may not  be one size fits all.

For example, according to a 2010 survey of two- and four- year public institutions in Texas conducted by Greater Texas Foundation, entry-level math requirements vary by institution type (e.g. two-year or four-institution, and regional or flagship university) and by field of study – particularly science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields compared to non-STEM fields.[5] In fact, for students interested in STEM fields at four-year institutions and/or attending one of the flagship institutions in the state, the threshold for college readiness is pre-Calculus or Calculus.

Examples of promising practices and programs to improve alignment and therefore college readiness include: early college high schools and other dual credit options; early assessment of college readiness (e.g. Accuplacer or other placement exam provided for students at the high school level); enhanced curricular alignment between K-12 and postsecondary institutions; and innovative remedial education pilots.

This blog series will explore the issue of college readiness, and in particular math preparedness, from a variety of viewpoints and interventions. Guest bloggers will include:

• Michael Collins, Associate VP, Postsecondary State Policy, Jobs for the Future
• Dr. Reo Pruiett, Program Officer, Texas High School Project/Communities Foundation of Texas
• Dr. Uri Treisman, Director, Charles A. Dana Center, The University of Texas at Austin
• Dr. Luzelma Canales, Interim Associate Dean, Community Engagement & Workforce Development, South Texas College

We welcome you to follow the conversation over the next four to six weeks and join the conversation by using the comment boxes below each blog post.

GREATER TEXAS FOUNDATION ESTABLISHES STATE’S FIRST ECHS SCHOLARSHIP FUND

BRYAN, TX – Greater Texas Foundation (GTF) today announced a financial commitment of more than $3 million to establish the state’s first scholarship program designed specifically for the growing number of early college high school (ECHS) graduates in Texas. Working with five state universities, the GTF Scholars: Early College High School Transfer Scholarship and Retention Program is expected to provide financial assistance to more than 700 students over the next six years from the more than 40 early college high schools statewide.  (more…)

GTF commits $500,000 over three years to 100kin10 STEM education initiative

In August, GTF committed $500,000 to support 100kin10, a coalition of dozens of organizations led by Carnegie Corporation of New York to increase the number of qualified teachers (100,000 in 10 years), retain top performing teachers, and build a movement to improve STEM education in the U.S.

(more…)

GTF awards $150,000 to Valley Initiative for Development and Advancement (VIDA)

In July, Greater Texas Foundation awarded $150,000 to Valley Initiative for Development and Advancement (VIDA) for 20 low-income residents of the Rio Grande Valley to receiving training and education in high demand occupations. VIDA combines financial assistance with wrap around support services — including an intensive single-semester developmental education sequence in partnership with South Texas College — for the underserved adults who are motivated to attend college. With the funds received from the GTF, VIDA participants will receive need-based financial support including tuition, fees, books, childcare, transportation and emergency assistance. (more…)

New GTF Building: LEED Gold Certified

In 2010, Greater Texas Foundation set out to do something no one else had done – design and build the first LEED Gold Certified facility in Bryan, Texas. The building is now complete and is also one of the first LEED buildings constructed in the Brazos Valley. “LEED” is an acronym which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

LEED is an internationally-recognized green building certification system. Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) in March 2000, LEED provides building owners and operators with a framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions. (more…)

Greater Texas Foundation Has Moved!

We appreciate your patience with us as we move our offices this week.  Our phones may be temporarily unavailable, but we will be available through email and will respond to your request as quickly as possible. We will officially be open and moved as of July 18, 2011.

Our new offices will be located at:

6100 Foundation Place Drive
Bryan, Texas 77807

(The nearest intersection is Villa Maria Ave. and Jones Rd.)

Please note that our phone and fax numbers have also changed:

Phone: 979-779-6100
Fax: 979-779-6699

Texas Regional Action Plan

In 2010, Greater Texas Foundation, Communities Foundation of Texas, Houston Endowment, and The Meadows Foundation engaged FSG Social Impact Advisors to identify and research historically underserved regions in Texas where targeted postsecondary completion efforts could be most impactful. The regions were identified based on several factors, e.g. postsecondary completion data and number of students receiving Pell grants.  Drawing upon FSG’s work, several state and national stakeholders are engaging in ongoing discussions about their interest in the development of a regionally-structured public-private partnership focused on improving postsecondary outcomes for students in the following regions: Central Texas, El Paso, Gulf Coast, Metroplex and South Texas.

We are pleased to share the final materials FSG developed for this work. Click here to see the full overview of the Texas landscape and for region-specific summaries.

Math Readiness Blog Series

Check back the week of December 5, 2011 for the first post in a series of posts about math readiness

Foundation Awards $453,000 to Help Establish Clint Early College High School

A grant in the amount of $453,000 to establish Clint Early College High School:

The fast growing Clint Independent School District (CISD) encompasses a diverse, geographically large area within the Upper Rio Grande Border Region, 25 miles east of El Paso.  The district has an estimated student population of 10,800, of which 98% are Hispanic, 86% are economically disadvantaged, 38% have limited English proficiency and 60% are considered at-risk.  Based on its distance from local Institutions of Higher Education (IHE), Clint Early College High School will NOT be co-located on an IHE campus.  Students will receive college classroom instruction through visiting professors, visual/distance learning, and busing to the campuses.  This project will vary largely from other ECHS’s in Texas, as many schools are located directly on or proximate to an IHE.

The CECHS will serve as a case study for future districts to follow in building a successful early college high school that is at a distance from an IHE partner.  What can be learned from this case study will be invaluable in scaling this project to other rural areas around the state.  Greater Texas Foundation is partnering with the Meadows Foundation on this project.

Dollars for Degrees: Two reports highlighting the importance of scholarships and financial aid on student success and post-secondary degree completion

College scholarships have long played an important role in ensuring access to post-secondary education in the U.S. However, we are now as a nation increasingly recognizing the imperative of focusing on post-secondary persistence and completion as well. An example of why this shift in focus has come about can be seen in data from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board which tracked the cohort of students who were 9th graders in 1997. Of those 250,000 students, thirty percent enrolled in post-secondary education and did not complete a credential within six years compared to twenty-nine percent who did not graduate from high school. In absolute terms, seventy-five thousand students who graduated high school and enrolled in college left empty-handed. In response to this issue, Greater Texas Foundation (GTF) engaged FSG Social Impact Advisors to examine how scholarship funders, including GTF, could design their programs to improve post-secondary persistence and completion, in addition to improving access. Forward-looking scholarship funders have an opportunity to structure and target their post-secondary scholarships so that they enable student success.

Full reports are listed below:

Dollars for Degrees: Structuring post-secondary scholarships to increase student success

Dollars for Degrees: Financial aid and its impact on post-secondary degree completion in Texas

RFP Release: Greater Texas Foundation Scholars

It is our pleasure to announce the Greater Texas Foundation Scholars: Early College High School Transfer Scholarship & Retention Program. Through a combination of financial and non-financial supports, the purpose of this scholarship and retention program is to increase the number of Texas early college high school graduates who successfully transition to a four-year institution of higher education and complete a baccalaureate degree.

This Request for Proposals (RFP) is open to all public and private four-year post secondary institutions of higher education in the state of Texas. All potential applicants are invited to submit a letter of inquiry (LOI) for this scholarship and retention program. Please limit to one LOI per institution. For more detailed information, see our RFP page.

A brief online information session will be held from 8:00am to 9:00am (Mountain Time) on October 14, and an extended information session will be held November 1 from 8:30am to 3:00pm (Mountain Time) in El Paso, Texas. Participation in both is strongly recommended. Additional information and a registration link for both information opportunities are available on our RFP page. Please register for the November 1 informational in El Paso no later than Monday, October 18.

Foundation Takes a South Texas Learning Tour

Greater Texas Foundation recently completed a six-month planning process in which the foundation examined current and projected educational needs in Texas and how the foundation’s efforts might be best aligned to address them.  Through this process, we learned a great deal about the challenges Texas students face on the road to post-secondary completion and how we can focus our efforts to best help students.

To enhance our learning, over the course of four days in April 2010, a group of Greater Texas Foundation staff and directors traveled 1075 miles by van to learn about the educational needs and challenges in South Texas and meet the individuals confronting these challenges. Our learning agenda included questions such as: Who are South Texas students? What are the largest unmet educational needs in the region? What are the largest barriers to post-secondary preparation, access, persistence and completion? (more…)

Rising to the Challenge Scholarship Program Awards Announced

The foundation believes that community colleges play an important role in our states post-secondary educational environment.  Students often find it difficult, however, to make the transition from a community college setting to a four-year institution of higher education.  The Greater Texas Foundation Rising to the Challenge scholarship program is meant to encourage and support students in making that transition.

The foundation awarded eight grants of $25,000 each for a total of $200,000. The schools awarded the funds include: Tarleton State University, Texas A&M University-Texarkana, Texas Woman’s University, Texas Tech Foundation, Inc., University of North Texas Foundation, Sul Ross State University, University of Texas of the Permian Basin, University of Houston-Clear Lake.

Generation Proud Scholarship Program Awards Announced

The Greater Texas Foundation Generation Proud scholarship program is meant to encourage and support first generation college students by removing critical barriers that keep them from pursuing and completing a post-secondary degree.

The foundation awarded grant awards of $25,000 each for a total of $200,000. The organizations awarded the funds include: Sul Ross State University, Tarleton State University, Texas Tech Foundation, Inc., University of Houston-Clear Lake, University of Texas-San Antonio, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, University of Texas-El Paso, and University of Texas-Permian Basin.

Foundation Supports Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board was formed in 1965 by the Texas Legislature and charged with the job of providing coordination and leadership for the Texas higher education system.  Currently, the board is focused on Closing the Gaps by 2015, and is doing so by working with people and organizations statewide, ranging from the Legislature to the Governor to higher education institutions all over the state.

Realizing that research, innovation and planning are necessary in order to positively affect future students in Texas, the THECB is undergoing a strategic planning process jointly supported by the Houston Endowment, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Meadows Foundation and Greater Texas Foundation.  The primary goal of the THECB’s strategic planning process is to establish an outcomes based student-centered culture at all Texas public colleges and universities.  The benefits of a university with a student-centered culture are immeasurable. In these institutions, student success is the highest campus priority, as measured by the number and percentage of students who complete rigorous programs and degrees with the measurable skills necessary for success beyond undergraduate education.

Current data on student progress and achievement in the state show areas that require quick attention if educational outcomes for students are to improve.  In Texas, less than half of those enrolling in post-secondary education go on to complete a post-secondary degree or credential within seven years of graduating high school.  This disconnect is currently the focus and central theme in the statewide Closing the Gaps initiative, with goals to increase rates of post-secondary participation and completion in Texas.  The total project cost is $546,000 with Greater Texas Foundation contributing $108,000 to support the process facilitated by FSG Social Impact Advisors. Beyond the creation of a strategic plan, FSG will also aid with the development of methods and strategies to implement and achieve these goals.  The plan is estimated to finish in March 2010.

Visit the Coordinating Board website to read more about the Closing the Gaps Initiative.

Greater Texas Foundation Announces New Strategic Plan

Greater Texas Foundation recently completed a six-month planning process, under the guidance of FSG Social Impact Advisors, in which the foundation examined current and projected educational needs in Texas and how the foundation’s efforts might be best aligned to address them.  Through this process, we learned a great deal about the challenges Texas students face on the road to post-secondary completion and how we can focus our efforts to help students overcome these challenges.  Read more about our journey…

Charles A. Dana Center AMDM Mathematics Capstone

Greater Texas Foundation awarded $410,000 to the Charles A. Dana Center at The University of Texas to support the developmentof an Advanced Mathematical Decision Making (AMDM) mathematics capstone course. In response to the new graduation requirement that Texas high school students complete four years of mathematics, the Dana Center—in partnership with the Texas Association of Supervisors of Mathematics (TASM)—utilized the funds over a two-year period to support the development of a rigorous and engaging capstone high school mathematics course designed to follow Algebra I, Geometry and Algebra II.

The course material presents a very hands-on, real-world application approach to the uses and theories of mathematics.  More specifically,

the course emphasizes statistics and financial applications, and it prepares students to use algebra, geometry, trigonometry and discrete mathematics to model a range of situations and solve problems.”

AMDM is designed to help students prepare for many non-mathematics intensive college majors.  It will also serve students who might not be planning to attend college but instead enter into a workforce training program.  The course is being piloted by 120 teachers in 90 Texas schools, as well as a few schools in Illinois and Indiana.

To learn more about the curriculum, visit the AMDM project website.

Read about what pilot teachers are saying about AMDM here.

The FIRST Texas Expansion Plan

First Texas announces its Strategy and Expansion Plan. 

FIRST provides the nation a direct solution to an imperative call to action that the U.S. revamp its science, technology, engineering and math workforce in order to maintain its position as a secure nation.

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is an organization that strives to inspire students of all ages to embrace the fields of science and technology through hands on exploration.  In all programs, FIRST students team up with professionals (business men and women, engineers and scientists, and professors) and they solve modern day, real problems in the world.  These programs not only help students develop their science and technology skills, but they also help to develop self confidence, personal character and responsibility to oneself and to a team. 

Check it out here, to see how the Foundation support’s FIRST efforts.

To read the new Strategy and Expansion Plan, or more generally about the organization, visit the Dallas FIRST website.

To read about what Texas teams are doing, see here.

Foundation Grantee Receives William E. Simon Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Social Entrepreneurship

Greater Texas Foundation supports KIPP To (and through) College program, which is a college preparatory and support program designed to ensure access to and success in college for low income, minority students.  The minds behind the KIPP charter school program and nationwide movement, Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, have recently been awarded the William E. Simon Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Social Entrepreneurship (also known as the Manhattan Institute Award for Social Entrepreneurship).

The Manhattan Institute Award for Social Entrepreneurship honors nonprofit leader who have founded innovative, private organizations to help address some of America’s most pressing social problems.  Throughout our history, the United States has been distinguished by the capacity of citizens to address social problems through new organizations established through their own initiative.  From Clara Barton and the American Red Cross to Millard Fuller and Habitat for Humanity, Americans have consistently come forward, without prompting or assistance from government, to organize nonprofit action to improve American society by providing services to those in need.  It is those who follow in such footsteps whom the Manhattan Institute Social Entrepreneurship Award seeks to recognize.

To visit the Manhattan Institute’s website, click here.

To read more about the award, click here.

Visit the KIPP website.

University of Houston, Clear Lake – Celebrating Our Elders Scholarship

For the 2009-2010 school year, University of Houston – Clear Lake was awarded one of the foundation’s $25,000 Generation Proud Scholarship Program awards.  The school decided to set up the Celebrating Our Elders Scholarships with the funding.  This program invites students to share how an African-American or Hispanic elder has, through their own achievements, inspired the student to pursue their dreams and realize their own potential.  These essays are meant to inspire first generation college students to begin and complete a higher education credential as a means to pursuing their dreams.  Additionally, these essays are publicly displayed and are meant to act as catalyzers and encourage other first generation students to also pursue higher education.

Krystin Ramos is a 2009 recipient of the award.  Read an excerpt from her essay below:

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest.” Those are the words of Confucius.

Without my father in my life and his positive encouragement there is no way I would have been able to make it this far in life.  He has instilled the knowledge and strength that was needed to overcome numerous obstacles and provide the will that helps me realize that I can achieve anything.  Being the first in my family to get this far in college has brought along many hardships, but he has been there by my side and provided any help necessary to get to the next step.  Because of this and his support I would like to celebrate my father as my elder.

When I was in ninth grade I encountered the hardest year in math: Algebra.  I always could pass all my subjects with A’s and B’s in junior high, but high school made me realize that the courses were a little different.  Math just wasn’t my favorite subject, and because of that I would shut down and couldn’t figure out my homework.  When I came home with my first exam and failing grade my dad sat me down and we had a talk.  I was expecting a lecture and probably a punishment, but instead I got something else.  My dad told me that together we would figure it out and I would pass Algebra.  I thought he was crazy but I knew failing a class was not an option.  Every night I would come home with homework and we would sit down together and try to figure it out with my notes and the text book.  I’d spend hours at the kitchen table with him after dinner until every problem was answered and I understood what I was doing.  Pretty soon the math homework stopped looking like a foreign language and started making sense, and when I brought home my report card I had a solid B in that class.

My dad inspired me to continue taking math and not avoid it because I was scared.  Now that I’m almost a junior in college I have to admit that now math is one of my favorite subjects.  Now that my little sister is reaching high school, she is having a hard time with math as well and it feels good that I can help her just like my dad did for me just a few years ago.

I hope I’m inspiring my little sisters and showing them that anything is possible, and you can achieve anything you want in life, just like my dad has taught me.

Read more about the Celebrating Our Elders Scholarship Program, here.

ECHS Students Making Big Strides

While in their senior year of high school, students in El Paso, Texas in are taking upper division course work at the University of Texas El Paso.  This group of 23 students attends Mission Early College High School and is among the first cohort to accomplish this level of completion. Because they have not completed high school, these students are not eligible for federal financial aid and therefore qualify for little funding to help pay for this course work at UTEP.  A grant from the Greater Texas Foundation has helped by providing scholarship money for these 23 students as they transition to upper division study at UTEP.

To read more on this story click here

Greater Texas Foundation Renewing Support of Book Trust Program Within Two Local Schools.

During the 2008-2009 school year, GTF supported the Book Trust program for Kemp Elementary School (Bryan) and College Hills Elementary School (College Station). For the coming school year, these schools will again be supported. Book Trust is an independent charity dedicated to helping people learn to love books, at any age or in any culture. Book Trust provides $7.00 a month for each child supported by the program to buy books from the Scholastic catalog, books that help to build a home library. Most children participating in this program have little access to books and reading outside the classroom, and for many, these books are the first and only things they have ever bought and owned. Not only does the Book Trust program encourage and help kids to become better readers, we know from evaluation that many kids take their books home and read with younger brothers and sisters. This is a program that reaches beyond the bounds of the classroom by taking literacy and a love of reading into the home.

Foundation’s 2008 Annual Report Released

What an exciting year for the Foundation. In 2008, Greater Texas Foundation had the opportunity to support a diverse spectrum of education related programs and initiatives. From books for local school children to robotics competitions for high school students to induction and training support for aspiring teachers, the Foundation’s grantmaking reached students of all ages throughout the state of Texas. Still, while reflecting on the year’s overall
grantmaking, an important theme emerges: scholarships… Read more in our 2008 Annual Report.

Foundation Supported Schools Receive TEA Exemplary Rating

Congratulations to the following GTF supported schools for receiving an exemplary rating from the Texas Education Agency:

KIPP Houston High School – GTF supported a college preparatory and support program, To (and Through) College, designed to ensure access to and success in college for low-income, underrepresented students.

Brownsville Early College High School – The foundation, in partnership with the Meadows Foundation, funded establishment of Brownsville Early College High School at the University of Texas at Brownsville in partnership with the Brownsville Independent School District. The project is intended to increase access to higher education for underserved and underrepresented students.

Mission Early College High School – Although not directly supporting the school, the foundation supported scholarships for 23 students who graduated early from Mission Early College High School to enroll in upper division studies at The University of Texas at El Paso in the students’ senior year of high school.

College Hills Elementary – The foundation funds BookTrust at College Hills Elementary, which provides $7 a month for each child to purchase books from the Scholastic Book Club Catalog. This program provides the opportunity for every student to choose and own their own books, an opportunity many students do not have.

Web-Based Educational System for Learning Mathematics: Reasoning Mind

Greater Texas Foundation has committed $150,000 over three years to Reasoning Mind, a nonprofit dedicated to helping children better understand and perform higher in the subject area of mathematics. This GTF funded program will provide additional students with core math instruction from the RM system. The grant will cover the cost of implementation for schools in low-income areas that lack sufficient funding to cover the cost of tuition, implementation, and teacher training.

Reasoning Mind currently operates in 28 schools in Texas, as well as in many schools in California and Louisiana.

Texas Community Colleges to Receive $3.2 Million in Grants

Four Texas community colleges were recently selected by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and MDC, Inc. to receive $743,000 each to support efforts to increase the effectiveness of remedial education. The colleges (Coastal Bend College, El Paso Community College, Houston Community College, and South Texas College) are all part of the national Achieving the Dream Initiative, which was originally funded in Texas by The Lumina Foundation for Education and the Houston Endowment. The Gates Foundation is in a new partnership with MDC, Inc. and the Texas grants are part of a larger commitment of $16.5 million in grants to 15 community colleges and 5 states “to expand groundbreaking remedial education programs that experts say are key to dramatically boosting the college completion rates of low-income students and students of color” (Gates).

Greater Texas Foundation recently made more than $1 million in grants to support expansion of Achieving the Dream in Texas. The expansion added five new schools (Temple College, Odessa College, Austin Community College, Blinn College, and Richland College) for the state, which means that now more than 60% of the state’s community college students are enrolled in an Achieving the Dream Institution.

For the official press release, see here

$3 Million to University of Houston to Support Middle School Initiative

$3,000,000 to the Integrated Science, Math and Reflective Thinking (iSMART) master’s degree program. The main goal of the iSMART master’s degree program is to prepare and increase the number of highly qualified in-service middle school math and science teachers in Texas. Participating teachers will develop in-depth content and pedagogical knowledge and leadership skills through reflective collaboration with on-line classmates. Program activities will include analyzing and writing curriculum, analyzing theories of learning and models of integration of science and mathematics, studying children’s thinking of content, and reflecting on video of own practices.

Program Website

Press Releases

$3M Grant Supports iSMART Online Graduate Program

2008 Charitable Activities Annual Report

Greater Texas Foundation’s 2008 Charitable Activities Annual Report is released. See link below.

2008 Charitable Activities Annual Report