An eighth-of-a-cent sales tax increase is being proposed in San Antonio to fund full-day pre-kindergarten for primarily low-income children in the city.
Morgan Smith
Morgan Smith was a reporter at the Tribune from 2009 to 2018, covering politics, public education and inequality.
In 2013, she received a National Education Writers Association award for “Death of a District,” a series on school closures. After earning a bachelor’s degree in English from Wellesley College, she moved to Austin in 2008 to enter law school at the University of Texas.
A San Antonio native, her work has also appeared in Slate, where she spent a year as an editorial intern in Washington D.C.
Posted inState Government
A Tale of Two Parties
Big tents and boos on one hand, and talk about how to start a fire on the other: Notes from the Republican Party’s convention in Fort Worth and from the Democratic Party’s convention in Houston.
Posted in
Public Education
Workforce Commissioner: Education Testing System is Broken
Texas Workforce Commissioner Tom Pauken said he disagrees with a coalition of business leaders who said it would oppose any additional funding to public education if the existing accountability system is rolled back.
Posted in
Public Education
Business Leaders Draw a Line on Education Funding
In a news conference on Wednesday, leaders in the business community said that they would not stand for increased funding for education if it came with any rollback of accountability standards in Texas public schools.
Posted in
Public Education
Charter Schools to File School-Finance Lawsuit
Texas is now about to face six lawsuits targeting the way it funds public schools. The Texas Charter School Association announced Tuesday it would join in legal action against the state over school financing.
Posted inState Government
Fired Jasper Police Chief at the Center of a Divide
Former Police Chief Rodney Pearson has become a reluctant symbol for many in Jasper’s black community of how little has changed in race relations since James Byrd Jr.’s dragging death.
Posted inState Government
Platform Splinters
Though in theory the platform sets forth official positions on topics as diverse as foreign policy and legislative procedure — and as specific as the HIV/AIDS crisis and the federal minimum wage— many officeholders take it as more of a guide than a rulebook.This year, the biggest debate may be not about what the document says, but what it doesn’t.
Posted inState Government
In Jasper, Black Leaders Say Tensions Escalating After Chief’s Dismissal
Jasper continues to deal with fallout from the dismissal of its first black police chief. Black community leaders in the East Texas town say racial tensions are at “an all-time high.”
Posted in
State Government
Defamation Lawsuit Puts New Statute to the Test
A defamation lawsuit filed by WallBuilders founder David Barton has become an early test of new tort reform legislation intended to protect free speech.
Posted inState Government
Jasper Police Chief Firing Exposes Rift in City Politics
The short-lived tenure of Jasper’s first black police chief — and the public feuding it has provoked — threatens to wrench open still healing wounds from the town’s troubled past.
