We’ll be liveblogging throughout the weekend from The Texas Tribune Festival’s public and higher education track — which includes panels on the role research should play at state universities and how to pay for public education.
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 in
Public Education
Texas Still Undecided on No Child Left Behind Waiver
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.
Posted in
Public Education
SBOE Approves Charter School for Deion “Prime Time” Sanders
Former Dallas Cowboys cornerback Deion Sanders’ charter school application was among eight approved by the Texas State Board of Education today.
Posted in
Public Education
More Texas Schools Teach Safe Sex With Abstinence
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.
Posted in
Public Education
Some Teachers Left to Clean Up Budget Cut Mess
Dripping Springs ISD avoided laying off teachers as a result of state budget cuts. But it has eliminated custodial positions, and that has left teachers there with new tasks once the school bell rings: sweeping classrooms and taking out the trash.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Smith Eyes a Return
Austin lawyer and anti-affirmative-action advocate Steven Wayne Smith is planning a return to the Texas Supreme Court.
Posted in
Public Education
In Public Schools, Perry Shuns Federal Influence
Gov. Rick Perry’s early opposition to the Obama administration’s education policies — whose bipartisan backers include former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — make him something of an ideological outlier among Republicans.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
31 Days, 31 Ways: Tort Reform Bill Gives Texas High Court New Powers
DAY 28 of our month-long series on the effects of new state laws and budget cuts: Under a new tort reform law, the Texas Supreme Court will make rules to expedite certain lawsuits and to allow judges to dismiss meritless ones early on.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
High Court Approves “Pole Tax” on Strip Clubs
The Texas Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that a $5-per-patron tax on strips clubs does not violate the First Amendment, adding the latest chapter to a four-year legal battle.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Despite Questions of Bias, Williamson County DA Will Stay on Morton Case
A state judge has declined to remove District Attorney John Bradley from continuing to investigate the case of Michael Morton, whose 1987 murder conviction has been called into question by new DNA evidence suggesting someone else killed his wife.
