From the Department of You Can’t Make This Stuff Up: The Arab world’s favorite news source takes on the State Board of Education.
state agencies
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
Criminal Justice
Night of the Insurgents
Voters routed state Reps. Delwin Jones and Norma Chavez on Tuesday, turned back former Rep. Rick Green’s bid for a spot on the Texas Supreme Court and handed victories to at least three candidates who appeared to benefit from the Tea Party insurgency in Texas.
Posted in
Energy
TribBlog: PUC Chairman Won’t Seek ERCOT Job
Smitherman says while it’s probably legal for the state’s top energy regulator to seek the ERCOT chief executive job, “it just doesn’t feel right to go forward.”
Posted in
Energy
Wind in the Wires
Many Texans like wind power. Few want electric transmission lines running through their ranches. Herein lies the problem.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Runoff Day: A Spectator’s Guide
Today’s elections in 18 Texas primary races, all but two involving Republicans, probably won’t change the overall temperature of the statehouse or our delegation to Congress. The partisan makeup of those places isn’t at stake until November. But for three House incumbents and challengers in two other races — for the State Board of Education and the Texas Supreme Court — how the vote turns out is a big deal.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Grissom on her two hours in Juárez, Grissom, Ramshaw and Ramsey on four of the runoffs on Tuesday’s ballot, Ramshaw on the religious experience that is voting for Dallas County’s DA and an energy regulator’s play for a job at the entity he regulates, Mulvaney on the Texas Senate’s biggest spenders, Aguilar on whether — as U.S. officials claim — 90 percent of guns used in Mexican crimes really flow south from Texas, M. Smith on the continuing Texas Forensic Science Commission follies, Stiles on how inmates spend their money behind bars and how counties are responding at Census time, Hamilton on the creative accounting and semantic trickery that allows lawmakers to raise revenue without hiking taxes when there’s a budget shortfall, and Hu on Austin’s first-in-the-nation car-sharing program. The best of our best from April 5 to 9, 2010.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
The Inquisition
Ninety minutes of back-and-forth on Wednesday between a House committee and representatives of the Texas Forensic Science Commission — but not its chairman — covered the besieged agency’s nonexistent enforcement power, lack of written procedural guidelines, and public records policy. Oh, and the late Cameron Todd Willingham.
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
Public Education
TribBlog: Drop-Out Throw-Down!
Bill White and Rick Perry fought over the hotly contested high school drop-out rate on Tuesday. Is it 30 percent (White)? 10 percent (Perry)? Or, more likely, somewhere in between?
