Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White’s campaign is buying student newspaper ads that accuse his Republican opponent, Rick Perry, of playing politics with state universities.
Matt Stiles
Matt Stiles covered government and politics for the Tribune, with a focus on data journalism, from 2009 to 2011. He oversaw and developed the Tribune’s library of web applications and interactive graphics. Previously, he was a government reporter at the Houston Chronicle. While there, he won the newspaper’s Jesse Award for service journalism and beat reporting and was its reporter of the year in 2007. Before joining the Chronicle, Stiles worked as a reporter for nearly four years at The Dallas Morning News.
Posted in
Higher Education
“The School-to-Prison Pipeline”
A new report by Texas Appleseed spotlights two troubling trends: the high number and proportion of discretionary expulsions by school districts, often for low-level “persistent misbehavior,” and the disproportionate severity of discipline meted out to African-Americans.
Posted in
Transportation
TribBlog: TxDOT in the Paint
Burnt orange and Aggie maroon are out, for now, at the Texas Department of Transportation.
Posted in
State Government
Buyers Behind Bars
Inmates serving time in Texas prisons and state jails can buy certain “free world” goods provided that people outside unit walls send them money. During the last fiscal year, they spent about $95 million at prison commissaries. The most popular items? Instant soup, stamps and soft drinks, according to data obtained under the Texas Public Information Act.
Posted in
Demographics
Counting the Counties
Only three states — Louisiana, New Mexico and Alaska — are returning the census form at lower rates than Texas. But two dozen Texas counties are outperforming the national average, according to our interactive map.
Posted inState Government
Treemap: What Texas Inmates Buy
Inmates in Texas are allowed to buy common household goods from prison markets, known as commissaries. Our interactive chart visualize those purchases.
Posted inState Government
Map: Texas Census Participation
Explore the rate at which Texas counties have returned U.S. Census Bureau questionnaires in the mail.
Posted inState Government
Interactive Chart: Texas Senate Spending
See how Texas State Senators spent taxpayer dollars on staff payroll, travel and office expenses in 2009.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Sun on the Horizon
A small but growing number of state officials are warming to the idea of greater transparency and open access to raw government data, following a budding trend across the country. In the latest example, state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, wrote to numerous Texas agencies, urging them to post “high-value” databases online in open-standard formats.
Posted inState Government
Annise Parker: The TT Interview
Three months into her new job, the mayor of the state’s largest city says she’s working hard to combat the effects of a down economy, putting partisan differences aside to join with GOP congressmen in lobbying Washington to keep NASA intact, and trying to untangle the longstanding knot that is mass transit.
