In Texas, parents can get their children exemptions from the vaccines required to attend public and private schools for “reasons of conscience.” Use our lookup tool to see how exemption rates have changed in school districts and private schools across the state.
Shelly Cheng
Shelly Cheng was a 2019 fellow on the data visuals team at The Texas Tribune. She studied computational data journalism for her post-baccalaureate at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and political science for her bachelor’s at Colorado College. In the past, Shelly has interned at The Wall Street Journal, where she pitched and produced enterprise interactive visual and data stories about politics and business.
Posted in
Texas Legislature 2019
Texas vaccine exemption rates have reached an all-time high. Did Texas make it too easy for parents to opt out?
Texas has resisted recent attempts to change its vaccine laws, allowing parents to get their children exemptions for “reasons of conscience.” Use our lookup tool to see how exemption rates have changed in school districts and private schools across the state.
Posted in
Politics
We asked every Texan in Congress: Have you read the Mueller report?
We also asked the 38 members of the Texas delegation how Congress should respond to the Mueller report.
Posted in
Texas 2020 Elections
Is Texas really going purple? Our Heat Index will show how competitive your district was — and is.
Is Texas really a swing state? To explore the question, we looked at nearly 20 years of election data to assess the competitiveness of every congressional and legislative district in the state. Take a tour of some of the state’s hot spots and then type in your address to find out the lay of the land in your districts.
Posted in
Texas Legislature 2019
Some lawmakers want Texas to release vaccine opt-out rates for each school, not just for districts
Texas tries to track the number of students with vaccine exemptions every year, but the data is incomplete and doesn’t include the opt-out rates for individual public schools. Amid a recent rise in measles cases across the country, some in the Legislature are calling for more detailed reporting.
