Council on Research and Evaluation (CORE)

Dr. Lisa Bowman-Perrott is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at Texas A&M University, and is an affiliated faculty member with the Center on Disability and Development. She has directed and co-directed federal grant projects funded through the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and the Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA). Her research across the years has broadly focused on effective academic and behavioral interventions for students at-risk of school failure. Dr. Bowman-Perrott’s research agenda includes examining outcomes for students who are culturally and linguistically diverse (including English learners), The goal of her research is to help researchers and practitioners gain a better understanding of interventions that improve (and factors that contribute to) students’ academic, behavioral, and social success

Dr. Bowman-Perrott and Dr. Fuhui Tong are working on two collaborative projects, Project Diverse and Project ¡LEER! with colleagues at Baylor University and the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Project DIVERSE

Project DIVERSE (Doctoral Scholars Implementing Socially Valid Evidence-Based Practices and Research for Improving the Language, Literacy, and Social-Emotional Outcomes of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Exceptional Learners) is a multi-site, interdisciplinary doctoral training grant funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education.

This grant addresses the need to prepare doctoral scholars to conduct research, train teachers, and translate research to evidence-based practice specific to ELs with disabilities. A total of 15 doctoral scholars across all three universities engage in research on a range of topics related to bilingual and special education. Scholars have presented at conferences such as the Council for Exceptional Children, Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (SSSR), and the American Educational Research Association (AERA). They have also won awards such as the Graduate Student Service Award, and a Student Research Week Award. In addition, the first Project DIVERSE scholar graduated in December 2025!

Project LEER

Project ¡LEER! (Literacy, Language, and Social-Emotional Support for English Learners with and without Disabilities in Inclusive Settings to Improve Reading Outcomes) is an interdisciplinary grant project funded through the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of English Language Acquisition. The two primary aims of Project ¡LEER! are to: (a) provide professional development for teachers within a multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) framework focused on evidence-based literacy and language support for ELs with and without disabilities, and (b) pilot ClassWide Peer Tutoring (CWPT) with ELs with and without disabilities.

Through Project ¡LEER!, their research team developed and delivered in-person, virtual, and hybrid workshops on topics such as national and state-level contexts for serving English learners, evidence- based instructional strategies for ELs, MTSS, and considerations for distinguishing second language acquisition from a learning disability. Participants were more than 2,100 pre-service teachers, and k-12 special education teachers, general education teachers, bilingual education teachers, MTSS specialists, multilingual coaches, behavior interventionists, and school administrators across Texas. They also developed, piloted, and revised materials to adapt CWPT to meet the needs of ELs with and without disabilities and their native English speaking peers in high school science classrooms. ELs achieved social as well as academic benefits as a result of participating in CWPT. More