The Texas Center for Education Policy (TCEP), part of the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement at The University of Texas at Austin, is only a year old but already has matured into a respected authority on education, from pre-kindergarten through college.

A Resource for the Legislature
During Texas lawmakers' 2007 session, the center helped craft a successful $120 million legislative package designed to sharply reduce the state's high school dropout rate and expand support networks for at-risk students. Under the legislation, a pilot program will finance student-club activities for school children who are at risk of dropping out. Every year, an estimated 120,000 students drop out of Texas schools.

The center, which promotes equity and excellence at all levels of education, was asked to assist with the legislation after about 50 lawmakers attended a dropout prevention conference co-sponsored by the center. Dr. Angela Valenzuela, director of the center, associate vice president for the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, and professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the College of Education, says she hopes Texas lawmakers will continue to turn to the center for expertise on education policy.

"The Legislature has expressed a desire for thoughtful analyses of research and intelligent guidance and input as they review proposed legislation," Valenzuela says. "It's very gratifying to know that they see the center as a resource for that analysis and guidance."

Helping Across the Community
Others are turning to the center for analysis and guidance as well:

• The center convened a November 2006 gathering on college readiness. Education leaders from throughout Texas assembled to discuss the crises and policies regarding students' under-preparedness for higher education.
• The center hosted the K-12 Arts Education Summit in April 2007.
• This fall, the center along with the College of Education will join an effort spearheaded by Dr. Gary Orfield, co-founder of Harvard University's Civil Rights Project. Orfield's research project will study the impact at The University of Texas at Austin of shifts in race-conscious policies and their alternatives.
• In spring 2008, the center will bring together Texas health policy experts to discuss some of the myriad health issues affecting the state's schoolchildren.

"We want to tackle difficult issues like distributing education funds more equitably and reducing teacher and principal attrition rates," says former state Sen. Carlos Truan, a member of the center's advisory board. "This can be done, we believe, by drawing on the best research available, tapping into the best minds on education-related issues and sharing our conclusions and findings with policymakers."

An Advocate for Education
Founded in spring 2006, the Texas Center for Education Policy addresses education topics such as teacher quality and experience, state accountability and assessment, college readiness, and bilingual and immigrant English-language learners.

Over the years, a number of people had envisioned a university-wide education policy center. Among them were College of Education professors Dr. Alba Ortiz, Dr. Pedro Reyes and Dr. Jay Scribner, School of Law Professor Gerald Torres, College of Education Dean Manuel Justiz and University of Texas System Chancellor Mark Yudof. Anne Mauzy and her husband, the late Texas Supreme Court Justice Oscar Mauzy, shared that vision. In 2002, two years after the judge's death, the Oscar and Anne Mauzy Endowment for Educational Policy Studies and Research was established at The University of Texas at Austin.

"We talked about what the needs were around here before we decided where we wanted to put our money when we died, and this is what we decided on," Anne Mauzy, now a member of the center's advisory board, told the university's student newspaper, the Daily Texan. "There were a lot of policy questions that we needed answers to."

A Leader at the Helm
In 2005, the University of Georgia tried to recruit Valenzuela as director of an education policy center that would focus on bringing Mexican immigrants into higher education. The University of Texas at Austin countered with an offer that included establishment of a university-wide policy center to advance research-based policies that promote equity and excellence in public elementary, secondary and higher education. With Valenzuela at the helm, the university's center opened in 2006.

Valenzuela, an expert on academic achievement among Latino youth, was recently awarded a Fulbright scholarship that will enable her to travel to Mexico to study how Mexican and U.S. institutions can work to expand human rights, particularly educational opportunities, to immigrants in the United States. Dr. Pedro Reyes, professor of educational administration, will serve as interim director during her absence.

Dr. Gregory Vincent, vice president of the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, says, "The Texas Center for Educational Policy is a great example of community engagement and fulfills one of our strategic initiatives to connect the intellectual resources of the university to the needs of the communities it serves."

For more information, please visit our website at www.utexas.edu/diversity.

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