Education Issues

Dallas ISD Prioritizes Pre-K (Just Don't Ask How They'll Pay For It)

"Universal pre-K" is the universal mantra of every school board member and education official in the city. It's the elusive idea that all future, predominantly poor, kids in Dallas ISD will have gone through an aggressive early childhood education program, and that earlier exposure to vocabulary and ... More >>

Teachers Union Set to Do a U-Turn and Endorse DISD Trustee Miguel Solis

Alliance-AFT, a Dallas teachers union that was making robo-calls a year ago to get Dallas school Superintendent Mike Miles fired, is about to endorse one of his strongest supporters for re-election to the school board. The union will inform members Friday that it has endorsed Miguel Solis for the P ... More >>

Texans Can Academies Hits the Charter-School Jackpot, Picking Up an Old Wilmer-Hutchins School Cheaply

There's a reason you find so many charter schools in decrepit strip centers and old Walmarts. Decent, school-appropriate real estate is hard to come by. When it is available, it's expensive, and charter operators, who don't get facilities funding from the state like public schools do, are often forc ... More >>

The Texas Education Agency Is Preparing to Close an Azle Charter School for Foster Kids

The way that Azleway Charter School Superintendent Steve Lenz describes it, his students wouldn't last long at a regular old public school. Even the ones that aren't hospitalized or in special ed are often several grades behind where they should be. They also tend to move a lot. "Some of our studen ... More >>

TEA Is More Aggressively Closing Charter Schools, but Is It Targeting the Right Ones?

No one wants to give kids a crappy education with taxpayer dollars, but Texas regulators are now cracking down on a few charter schools that aren't actually the most embarrassing ones in the state. In an announcement this month, the Texas Education Agency called out six charter schools that it pl ... More >>

To Battle Teen Pregnancy Crisis, Texas Builds $1.2 Million Abstinence-Only Website

You're a public health policymaker in Texas. Teenage girls in the state are getting knocked up at an alarming rate, then they're having babies and getting knocked up again. The data, along with the bulk of the scientific literature, suggest that the state's longstanding strategy of telling kids not ... More >>

Another Whiny Self-serving Essay About Teachers in the Morning News Sunday

On Sunday The Dallas Morning News printed an essay on its op-page by Austin writer John Savage about teaching in what he calls "the worst school in Texas." It's a piece that has been making the rounds from Salon to the blog of Diane Ravitch, a former champion of school reform who has become a bor ... More >>

If the Bushes Are Liberals Now, Then I Must Be a ... Kumquat?

Story in The New York Times today talks about the Bush dynasty reclaiming its influence in the Republican Party by championing immigration reform. I have another idea for them, based on their legacy in Dallas: school reform. But this is grudging, man. Why do I want the Bushes to reclaim anything? ... More >>

Deion Sanders and His Girlfriend Are Making a Reality Show for OWN about His Charter School

One way or the other, it seems, the folks behind Prime Prep Academy, Deion Sanders' taxpayer-funded charter school, are going to make some money off it. It's just a matter of how -- and how much. The "how" is a little clearer today, after Oprah Winfrey's cable network announced plans to air a real ... More >>

Activists Ask Rick Perry to Reduce Abortions by Adding Sex Ed to Special Session

Per the rules of the Texas legislature's special session, Governor Rick Perry can add any agenda items that he thinks need to be addressed, with abortion taking a pretty comfortable lead over anything else. Otherwise, any bills the legislators file right now are in free-floating purgatory. In a sho ... More >>

Congressman Louie Gohmert Seems to Think Sex Ed is for Teaching Kids How to Breed

The version of sex ed taught to Dallas ISD students, which is representative of what's on offer elsewhere in Texas, is completely absurd. It's tough to reach any other conclusion when the curriculum compares premarital sex to a frog slowly boiling alive in a pot of water and likens condom use during ... More >>

Sex Ed the Texas Way

Dallas wants to close the book on abstinence-only education. Texas keeps getting in the way.

Worth the Wait, DISD's Potential New Sex Ed Curriculum, Teaches Some Really Weird Stuff

This year, a group of parents and administrators at the Dallas Independent School District embarked on pretty much the most thankless task there is: finding a new sex ed curriculum for the district's students. The job is thankless in large part because no matter what they do, someone's going to get ... More >>

Here Are All The Reasons Why Texas Teenagers Can't Seem to Stop Getting Pregnant

Congratulations, Texas! After a lot of hard work and many long nights, we're number one in the nation for repeat teen births. According to the Centers for Disease Control, which released a new report on April 2, in 2010, 22 percent of Texas teenagers aged 15-19 who gave birth were delivering their ... More >>

Faced With Rising Teen STD Rates, County Health Officials Lobbying DISD to Jettison Abstinence-Based Sex Ed

Teenagers, volatile bundles of hormones that they are, are going to have sex. That's an iron law of nature, as unchangeable as the fact that lions like to eat zebras. It's also a fair bet that, unless they are taught otherwise, these teenagers are going to have sex in an completely unsafe and irresp ... More >>

Texas Reps. Say Planned Parenthood Recruits Schoolkids, Aim to End Its Sex Ed Effort

Texas parents beware: your children are being "imperiled" by "abortion peddlers" who want to teach them "sex education." No. No, they're not. Although at some point someone might want to teach them to put a condom on a banana, and conservative lawmakers, predictably, want to make damn sure that per ... More >>

Closing the School-to-Prison Pipeline

If DISD's Mike Miles has a plan for that, then let's give him a chance.

The Future of Texas' Public Schools. (Spoiler Alert: With Dan Patrick, That Future is Bleak.)

Houston Republican Dan Patrick -- a conservative radio shock jock and founder of the Tea Party Caucus in the Texas Senate -- is vowing to lead the charge in the next session of the Texas Legislature for a school voucher system that would give away tax money to private and religious schools. That's ... More >>

Republicans Begin Renewed Push For School Vouchers

State Senator Dan Patrick, a Houston Republican, fired something of a warning shot two weeks ago when he announced a renewed push for school choice, both in the form of vouchers and expanded charter offerings. "To me, school choice is the photo ID bill of this session," Patrick told the Houston Chr ... More >>

Texas Charter Schools, Parents Sue State Over Facilities Funding

Dana Allen, a Lakewood parent, is thrilled with the education her 5-year-old receives at Lindsley Park charter school, but is displeased that the school has no gym, no cafeteria, no library and no computer lab. She attributes the absence of such basic niceties to the school's lack of state funding f ... More >>

Deion Sanders' Charter School and the Making of a Prime Time Scam

A businessman and a bishop used Cowboys' Hall of Famer Deion Sanders' name to drum up interest in a charter school. Then they tried to score from the deal.

Bryan Rep. Bill Flores Wants To Revive Abstinence-Only Education Funding

All this arguing we're doing about contraception is getting a little tiresome, isn't it? Sure, we get to use the word "sluts" repeatedly in a national conversation, and we've watched several elderly male politicians state their understanding of how birth control works, explanations which often deser ... More >>

Dallas' Charter School Plan May Be a Good Idea, But It Was Badly Executed

Before Vote to Help Uplift Sell Less Expensive Bonds, City Council to Get Schooled on Charters

​Below is the charter school briefing the city council was promised last week, but only after the heated discussion punctuated by Mayor Mike Rawlings's fiery call to expand charters -- because, as he said, "freedom is choice, choice creates excellence, and excellence graduates kids." The purpose o ... More >>

Item Involving Charter School's Bonds Pushes Council Into Passionate Philosophical Debate

​This was a good day -- such days do occur -- to study democracy in action at Dallas City Hall. The city council engaged in a smart debate on a proposal to help a charter school organization sell bonds to build more charter schools. The mayor and council decided not to decide. If you listened to ... More >>

Survey Says Texas Schools Are Now a Little Less Awful at Teaching Students Sex Education

​Just three years ago, 94 percent of the state's school districts told their kiddos: Just say no to sex. And that was that when it came to sex ed -- abstinence only and nothing but, which was working out real well considering that Texas's teen-pregnancy rate was the third-highest in all the land. ... More >>

My, How This Crisis is Growing

Interim Super: "The Annual Ratcheting Up of Standards is Catching Up With" Dallas ISD

Dave Goldfinger​And the hits just keep on coming: One week ago today the Texas Education Agency officially announced that the Dallas Independent School District had more campuses deemed academically unacceptable (33) than exemplary (30) -- a radical shift from last year's stats, thanks in large pa ... More >>

Michael Hinojosa's Gone, But As He Begins New Job, His Time in Dallas Is Not Forgotten

Photo by Patrick MichelsMiss him yet?​Former Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa officially begins his new gig in Cobb County, Georgia, today. Hence, this morning's piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "New Cobb superintendent's job 1: Close students' achieveme ... More >>

If Buyouts Were Fine for Teachers, Says Local Lawmaker, Why Not Offer to Students Too?

State Rep. Sid Miller​Last night in Austin, state Rep. Sid Miller laid out a novel solution for Texas's troubled school budget: the Taxpayer Savings Grants Program, a reward of nearly $5,000 for any parents who'll do us all a solid and take their kids out of public school. Under Miller's plan, par ... More >>

Ranger Tries to Use Outside Contributions to Tie Blackburn to Charters. Donors Say: "Nope."

Lew Blackburn​At some point this evening, the Dallas Independent School District board of trustees will elect new officers. Among the front-runners for president is Lew Blackburn, which may explain why Carla Ranger took to her blog earlier today to throw Blackburn under the bus.You see, there's no ... More >>

At Last, Carla Ranger Weighs In On Budget Cuts

​It's been a long while since Dallas Independent School District District 6 trustee served up a hot sports opinion on her blog. But given the looming "new reality" that has led to trustees being asked to consider giving teachers $10 million to scoot before they're fired, Ranger can hold her tongue ... More >>

Dallas ISD Trustees Take A Look At Ways to Bring More Charter Schools Into the District

​A handful of Dallas Independent School District gatheredn the old board room at 3700 Ross this morning to poke at a question with big implications: How can the district get the most of its new partnerships charter schools, possibly even next school year? Born out of April's West Dallas "School Zo ... More >>

Days After Cheering TEA Ratings, DISD Misses Feds' Adequate Yearly Progress Standards

​One week ago today the Texas Education Agency sent word: With significant help from the state, the Dallas Independent School District racked up 63 exemplary schools, while several high schools long on the academically unacceptable list finally get a reprieve. Not all was well, as dropout and comp ... More >>

On L.A.'s Skid Row, a generational war over how to teach the American children of illegal immigrants

Education Guru To Dallas Teachers: In School Reform, "There Are No Miracles"

Patrick MichelsDiane Ravitch speaking at the Dallas Institute's first annual Education Forum last night.​The big shakeups credited with turning around public schools in New York, New Orleans and Washington, D.C. -- which Mayor Tom Lepeprt and organizers cite as influences for a new school reform e ... More >>

Trustee Carla Ranger Is Very Unhappy With DISD Super's West Dallas Initiative

DISD trustee Carla Ranger​Yesterday Patrick Michels brought back this report from Dallas City Hall, where Mayor Tom Leppert and Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa introduced the so-called the West Dallas "School Zone," a public-private partnership involving charter ... More >>

Speak Out, Loud And Proud

Dallas ISD's Long and Winding Road to Broad Prize Just Hit a Dead End

​Perhaps you've seen the promotional materials -- they've been everywhere during the past five years, as the Dallas Independent School District (and superintendent Michael Hinojosa, especially) eased on down that Road to Broad, so named for the $2 million award given to urban school districts who ... More >>

Sex "Education" Has Failed Texas Students, Says Texas State University Study

Abstinence-only sex education doesn't work. You know it. Bristol Palin knows it. Shoot, anyone who has ever been or met a teenager knows that telling them to "just say no" is the best and possibly only way to get them to says yes, yes, YES!Still, it's nice that the folks at the Texas Freedom Network ... More >>

Word By Word

LIFT raises money for literacy

School Of Rock Branch To Open In Dallas Area

The Austin-based Paul Green School of Rock, which served as the inspiration for the 2003 hit comedy School of Rock, will open the doors to its first Dallas area branch in June. The school, with its mission statement of "saving rock 'n' roll one kid at a time," has already opened enrollment for its ... More >>

Hard-on for Reading

So That's How Journalism Works

About 30 minutes ago, Rod Dreher posted this item to Dallas Morning Views, the editorial board blog for Dallas' Only Daily: "Murray: NCLB doesn't work In today's Wall Street Journal, Charles Murray writes that No Child Left Behind doesn't work, and the Texas education statistics President Bush us ... More >>

"Nice Kid, But..."

To get into the right college, sometimes you have to be better than perfect

The Resurrection of Sandy Kress

Or, how a Democrat and reviled former DISD board president found a happy home pushing "educational acoountability" for the GOP

Letters to the Editor

Man with the Plan DISD's New Math

Buzz

Good God, a good grade; Has he even unpacked yet?

Flunking Out

Charter school scandals are teaching Texas a tough lesson -- one the state should have known four years and $77 million ago.

Easy pickings

In the Legislature this year, lawmakers may find that it's better to give than receive