The purpose of this study was to investigate how STEM designation affected high school
mathematics performance over the years by studying T-STEM schools. How T-STEM high schools’
mathematics performance changed by school type (Texas Public Schools (TPS) versus Charter
Schools(CS)), gender, ethnicity, the number of years as a T-STEM designated school, socio-economic
status, and at-risk student population was also examined. A total of 40 (N=40) stand-alone T-STEM
designated high schools’ student level data was examined in this study. The analysis of the first
question yielded results implying that T-STEM designation did not make any positively impact
students’ mathematics performances over the years in T-STEM designated schools. For the second
question, it was found that Charter School (CS) type T-STEM schools outperformed TPS type TSTEM
schools in almost all grade levels. In addition, the analysis of the second research question
revealed that T-STEM academies fell short of meeting the expectations of closing the achievement gap
between male and female students, at –risk and non-at-risk students, students with differing socioeconomic
status, and ethnic groups. Yet there are some differences between CS type T-STEM and TPS
type T-STEM schools; CS type T-STEM schools seemed to be doing a better job in closing the
achievement gap, especially for the at-risk and economically disadvantaged student groups.