Demographics

Stiles and Thevenot collaborate on the salaries paid to superintendents, and even compare them on price per student… Ramsey’s look at redistricting and next year’s elections… Aguilar’s report on jails, brought to you by the federal agency that’s in the ag business… Rapoport’s peek at the power behind Texas pre-kindergarten programs… Smith’s conversation with Dan Patrick, in three parts… Grissom’s narrative on a circular immigration and deportation route financed by two governments… Ramshaw finds doctors agreeing on public policy and split on strategy and tactics… Hu’s latest Stump Interrupted puts the camera on Farouk Shami… Hamilton’s story on two retired cops who are taking on cargo theft in Texas… And Kreighbaum and Stiles pop open the itineraries of your folks in Congress. The best of our best from December 12 to 18, 2009.

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El Paso is in the national news today, and — for the first time in recent memory — it has nothing to do with its proximity to drug war-torn Juarez. Forbes actually has some good news about the border city: Incomes for college graduates in El Paso are rising faster than any other major metropolitan area of the nation.

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On the eve of a noisy election year, the former lieutenant governor of Texas takes us on a tour through voting and demographic statistics.

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Border communities struggle to keep younger, educated residents when larger cities dangle economic and quality-of-life opportunities. They're afflicted with the reputation of being black holes of talent — where escape is necessary in order to prosper.

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On both sides of the border, there are calls to end the U.S. Border Patrol's Alien Transfer and Exit Program. But Border Patrol officials say their plan to break the connection between smugglers and immigrants is working.

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The inflamed immigration rhetoric of the past couple of years has waned, but a report the National Conference of State Legislatures released today shows that state lawmakers still have passion for the issue.

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The U.S. Border Patrol says its illegal immigration repatriation program is working to break the crossing cycle in Arizona, but officials in Texas and Mexico worry the program creates more problems than it solves.

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Ramsey and others on Bill White and the changing state of the race for governor; Thevenot's two-parter on what Dallas churches are doing to combat social ills and racial division; Ramshaw on the use of force by school district police departments (and why parents don't know about it); Grissom's two-parter, abetted by Stiles, on unregulated payday lenders; Aguilar on Mexican immigrants who play against type; and Rapoport on those missing extra checks for retired public employees. The best of the best from November 21 to 25, 2009.

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The number of Mexican-born professionals living in the United States has more than doubled since 1995. They're not the undocumented workers you see in evening-news mug shots or aerial photographs of a littered and barren desert. They're college graduates — some with multiple degrees — who join their blue-collar counterparts in their journeys north.

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Houston Mayor Bill White met with the press late Monday to respond to Tom Schieffer and other's calls for him to run for Governor.

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The Dallas church community has vowed to forge 25 partnerships with high-poverty public schools and push for 700 units of housing for the homeless — a down payment on a larger effort to heal wounds left by racism and injustice.

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Multi-part stories from Ramshaw and Grissom and Stiles on mental health services for detained immigrants and on payday lenders who provide exorbitantly priced credit to people with nowhere else to turn... Twitter, word clouds and the race for governor — a Stiles joint... Farouk Shami is in and Hu was there to watch... Philpott went to Bastrop for a gather of Republican governors... Rapoport finds a State Board of Education that's trying to control itself... and we have the skinny on legislative races that are likely to be competitive (only about 5 percent of the races on the ballot). It's the best of The Texas Tribune from November 14 to 20, 2009.

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Andre Osborne was so over-medicated in the Willacy Immigration Detention Center that he fell off of the top bunk of his bed, badly injuring his face and eyes.

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The day after DPS warns parents that Mexican cartels are trying to recruit their kids to sell drugs, the agency issues a press release that says DPS efforts are pushing back drugs and preventing them from getting here.

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That warning comes as law enforcement officials report an increase in the number of youth from Mexico and the United States becoming involved in human and drug trafficking.

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"Barely adequate." "Haphazard at best." That's how investigators describe the quality of care at immigrant detention centers all over Texas.

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The physically disabled and suicidal detainee was put in an isolated cell without her crutches. She was strip-searched and denied feminine products. For days, she slid around on the floor, covering herself and the cell in menstrual blood. When inspectors came out to investigate, they found a facility poorly equipped to provide mental health treatment to its 1,500 detainees.

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KBH resigns herself to staying in the Senate, Grissom investigates the broken border, Ramshaw outs IT contractors who make gigabucks from state agencies, Hu gives Hutchison and Perry the Stump Interrupted treatment, the new head of the Foresenic Science Commission faces his critics, Stiles posts a searchable database of fines levied by the state ethics commission, and Hamilton discovers the consequences of party switching (none): The best of the best from November 9 to 13, 2009.

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For many who call the border home, all the guns, all the money, all the technology, and all the police badges have done little to address the problems that make their lives insecure.

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One little speech and everybody’s all atwitter.

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