Education Commissioner Robert Scott's successor will have his or her hands full. The job requires a delicate balancing act in regard to state officials and school administrators. So who could get Gov. Rick Perry's nod for the post?

Aguilar on the House District 77 primary, Batheja on the HD-101 and SD-9 primaries, Galbraith on the GOP candidates for two Railroad Commission slots, Grissom on the latest in the Kerry Max Cook case, Hamilton on Texas A&M's new accountability website, Murphy and M. Smith on how much superintendents make, Ramsey interviews a would-be Democratic Party chair, Root on that nice Ted Nugent, M. Smith on the resignation of the state's education commissioner and Tan on the continuing court fight over Planned Parenthood: The best of our best content from April 30 to May 4, 2012.

During the 2011 legislative session, we compiled a salary database of all the state’s highest-paid school administrators: superintendents. After a year and a $5.4 billion reduction in state funding to public education, we are doing it again.

Texas Education Agency Commissioner Robert Scott is leaving the post Gov. Rick Perry appointed him to in 2007. 

Public schools in Texas employ about 25,000 less employees than they did at this time last year. Use this interactive to see what happened in your school district.

On this week's TribCast, Ben, Ross, Emily and Morgan discuss redistricting, public school accountability testing and the controversy involving Susan G. Komen for the Cure and Planned Parenthood.

The TEA has released new guidelines that set tough thresholds for school districts hoping to take advantage of special legal exemptions passed by the Legislature and intended to help schools cope with significant budget cuts.

Proposition 6 on the Texas constitutional ballot would allow the land commissioner to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to public education. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports that the measure has seen little opposition. 

As the popularity of online learning grows, public schools are grappling with how to most effectively integrate it into their classrooms — and some in the education community worry about the increasing influence of for-profit companies.

The lawsuits over public education funding that are currently taking shape will be the latest in a long history of court intervention in Texas' school finance system. But how much can the judiciary do to fix it? 

Despite more details from the Obama administration today about how it would exempt states from complying with the law's signature requirements, the Texas Education Agency has yet to decide whether it will apply for a waiver on federal accountability requirements under the 2001 act.

Abstinence still rules on a state policy level, but from Midland to Spring Branch, a quiet message is spreading through Texas schools: It's time to start teaching students about contraception. 

DAY 23 of our month-long series on the effects of new state laws and budget cuts: The state's prison education system, known as the Windham School District, eliminates or reduces classes for Texas inmates. 

DAY 8 of our month-long series on the effects of new state laws and budget cuts: Armed with fewer resources, educators prepare students for rigorous new STAAR test.

DAY 1 of our 31-day series on the effects of new state laws and budget cuts: Thousands of Texas teachers will not have jobs to return to in the fall, the result of a school finance plan that cut $4 billion from districts statewide. 

The new accountability ratings released Friday for public school campuses in the state's 1,228 districts and charter schools are markedly lower from the ratings given last year.

Supporters say the new chairwoman of the State Board of Education is a mild-tempered, fair leader who is well suited to oversee the fractious board. Her critics say she is a culture warrior who injects her religious and political agenda into classrooms.

There's a day in July that school districts eye with a mixture of anticipation and dread. This year, it's on the 29th, when the Texas Education Agency will publicly release the accountability ratings for the state's more than 1,000 districts.