Minority Education Innovation Dr. Selina V. Mireles Texas State University

Minority Education Hispanics have accounted for more than half (50.5%) of the overall population growth in the United States in this decade, a significant new demographic milestone for the nation's largest minority group. A new Pew Hispanic Center report analyzes Latino growth and settlement patterns over the past three decades (Pew Hispanic Center, 2008).

Minority Education Minority students still have large gender gaps. Minority males are falling further behind than females African American and Hispanics take more remedial math courses as compared to white counterparts. Latino/as and African Americans have greater dropout rates when compared to whites Students who attend schools in low SES areas are not challenged as much as those students in high SES areas (Hambrick, 2008)

What’s Working? How and Why

FOCUS Model Credit-Bearing Course Learning Support Developmental Mathematics Academic Support Services Credit-Bearing Course research-based best practices

THE focus Student The majority of students served by the FOCUS program are female Hispanic or African-American comprise 39% of the student demographic.

THE focus Student FOCUS is designed for students who are struggling with DE. Students must apply to the program and are accepted based on our determination that they can benefit from the program. Eighty-five percent of the students have taken a developmental mathematics course prior to FOCUS and failed; about a quarter of these had taken either level one or two of the developmental mathematics sequence two to four times. On average students enter the program with a THEA score of 211. The state cut off is 230.

FOCUS Model Credit-bearing Course Developmental Mathematics Course Backwards Design Developmental Mathematics Course Just-In-Time Learning Support Contextualized Real-World Problems Correlation Numeracy/Literacy Cultural Relevance Technology Hot Topics

FOCUS Student Status As of May 2012, Persistence 60% Graduation 31%

Math Readiness Indicators TSI / THEA Scores LASSI Scores MARS Scores SAT / ACT Scores CMR College Exam Grade Point Average Mathematics History TSI Status Read / Write Personal Interviews

Math Readiness Indicators The position of the Center for Mathematics is that several indicators should be used to determine a student’s mathematics coursework entry point.

Contact information Dr. Selina V. Mireles Professor, Department of Mathematics Founder & Director, Center for Mathematics Readiness Texas State University svmireles@txstate.edu (512) 245-2338