In his biennial State of the Judiciary address on Wednesday, Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson urged the Legislature to protect legal aid funding — and renewed his call for the reform of judicial elections.
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.
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Public Education
Charter Schools Eye Permanent School Fund
Charter schools want access to the state’s Permanent School Fund, which guarantees bond issues for traditional public schools, allowing them to secure advantageous interest rates. Not everyone is on board — including the traditional public schools.
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Public Education
U.S. House Votes on Texas Education Money [Updated]
In the latest round of the political feud over $830 million in federal funding, House Republicans, led by U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville, passed a bill Saturday that attempts to block the enforcement of the Texas-specific Education Jobs amendment.
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Public Education
Texas Social Studies Standards Receive Failing Grade
A report from a conservative education think tank says social studies standards in Texas give students a distorted and politicized view of history that, in one case, resembles “Soviet schools harping on the glories of state socialism.”
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Public Education
Cy-Fair Superintendent on Education Cuts
In an interview with KRLD’s Scott Braddock in Dallas, David Anthony, the departing superintendent of the state’s third-largest school district, said districts are in a “difficult situation” as they try to meet new student achievement measures while coping with cuts.
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Guides
Texplainer: Can the Lege Overrule Perry on Education Money?
Gov. Rick Perry has said he can’t sign an application to receive $10 billion in federal education aid because it requires an assurance he cannot constitutionally make: that the Lege will not use the money to offset state funding of public education.
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Public Education
Perry, Doggett and Their $830 Million Feud
Six months after Congress established the $10 billion Education Jobs Fund to help states retain and hire teachers, Texas is one of only two states that has not received its money. Whether the state will gets it depends on a game of political chicken between Gov. Rick Perry and a certain Austin Democrat.
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Public Education
David Dunn: The TT Interview
The executive director of the Texas Charter Schools Association talks with The Texas Tribune about how cuts in education funding will hit charter schools hardest, and how they can partner with traditional public school districts in “win-win”arrangements — like sharing facilities.
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Public Education
Doggett Responds to Perry Jabs
That “certain Texas congressman” whom Gov. Rick Perry called out in his address today for blocking federal education money responds. U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett says Perry’s jibe “says less about the state of the state and more about his own state of denial.”
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Economy
Senators Grill Education Agency Over Cuts
At the Texas Education Agency’s first appearance before the Senate since the release of a budget that reduces school funding by $9.3 billion, senators called for a “full picture” of the state’s spending on public education.
