CIS of Texas Evaluation Fiinal Technical Report - TEA - Home ...

Texas Education Agency, Evaluation of Communities in Schools (CIS) of Texas
2. Purpose of the CIS of Texas Evaluation
The CIS program has been widespread (in 55 counties) in Texas, the only state that provides
complete support ($20.7 million in 2008) for the operation of a state CIS office in addition to
support for local programs implemented across 28 affiliate offices throughout the State.
Although CIS is considered the largest dropout prevention program in the State, the number of
students the program currently has the capacity to serve represents only a fraction of the two
million children that the TEA estimates are at-risk in Texas. In order to assess the advisability of
increasing the capacity of CIS of Texas to serve more students, it is important to examine its
effectiveness in preventing students from dropping out and keeping students in school.
The Texas Education Agency (TEA), administrator of CIS of Texas, is tasked with carrying out
the legislative authorization for the design and implementation of a comprehensive evaluation of
CIS of Texas that accomplishes the following objectives:
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Examines the degree to which CIS of Texas programs meet student needs.
Assesses the impact of CIS of Texas programs on at-risk students.
Identifies barriers and facilitators to successful CIS of Texas program implementation.
Figure 1 depicts the conceptual framework for the evaluation. It can be visualized as a multilevel
evaluation involving: (1) individual within-subjects and quasi-experimental studies at the
student- and school-levels, including a nested design accounting for students within schools,
and (2) an affiliate or network study involving information from key stakeholders across the CIS
of Texas Network and intensive case studies of five local affiliates. The strength of the design is
the use of multiple methods to collect, analyze, and synthesize information related to program
effectiveness, quality, delivery, and other important program indicators. The use of mixed
methods also allowed us to maximize the strengths of one method while filling in gaps or
weaknesses of others. Additionally, the collection of information from multiple data sources
allowed for the triangulation of results, providing greater confidence in the findings presented in
the report. This technical report contains a detailed description of the evaluation design and
methodologies used to meet the study objectives, detailed results of each level or component of
the evaluation, and conclusions based on the evaluation findings. 1
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An external review of the draft report was conducted by three experts in the field of education research and dropout prevention. We would like to thank Dr.
Geoffrey Borman, Dr. Jay Schmink, and Dr. Robert Houston for their thoughtful comments and constructive feedback. The final report reflects their
suggestions for improving the presentation and content of the report.
Final Technical Report December 2008
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