The Dallas mayor left a hugely successful private sector career to lead the country’s ninth-largest city through an economic meltdown and the aftermath of a City Hall corruption scandal. And he doesn’t regret a minute of it. Here, he talks about fighting a sky-high crime rate, how he keeps party politics from his office, and every urban area's Achilles' heel: education. Full Story
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Paging Dr. Doug Ross. Debra Medina may soon be endangering your popularity. Full Story
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In their first and probably only televised debate, Bill White sounded experienced, as you'd expect of a three-term mayor of Houston, while wealthy hair care magnate Farouk Shami was more passionate, more animated, and much more prone to political mistakes. Full Story
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The federal push for accountability at "persistently low-achieving" schools across Texas is running smack into the hard, slow work of improvement at the local level. Full Story
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The Obama administration — which is one of the ways Mark Sanford and Rick Perry are not alike. Full Story
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State school leaders from across the West are complaining of too much federal intrusion into local curriculum decisions, along with inflexible rules – including that national standards be adopted “word for word.” Full Story
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State Rep. Terri Hodge, D-Dallas, dropped her reelection bid on Wednesday to plead guilty to lying on a tax return. But it's too early for Eric Johnson, her West Dallas-born, Ivy League-educated primary opponent, to claim victory. Full Story
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Disability rights advocates say State Board of Education member David Bradley's comment to the Texas Tribune — "If you sit on the mental health commission, do you have to be retarded?" — is offensive and uninformed. Full Story
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The former Houston mayor hits the airwaves. Full Story
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Few members of the State Board of Education have finance expertise. Should we be concerned that they manage the investments of the $23 billion Permanent School Fund? Full Story
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The death penalty and DNA testing in a 16-year-old triple murder in the Texas Panhandle. The second debate between the three Republican candidates for governor. Charter schools are having a hard time hanging on to the employees that matter the most: Teachers. The possibilities and perils of a switch to electronic medical records. A rundown of top races. Who's giving to candidates, and how much? Social networks and politicians. Ballots: The slow reveal. And a new and highly requested feature makes its debut. The best of our best from January 23 to 29, 2010. Full Story
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Bellaire High School senior Li Boynton is smarter than you, so she gets to watch the State of the Union with Michelle Obama. Full Story
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Teachers quit Texas charter schools at nearly three times the rate of traditional public school districts, according to state data. Dozens of individual schools lost well over half their teachers in the latest year. Full Story
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The president announced he would ask Congress for an additional $1.35 billion for the Race to the Top education grant program — which Gov. Perry spurned last week — along with more flexibility in doling it out to individual districts. He also took a swipe at Texas. Full Story
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In Texas, they earn 35 percent less than their Anglo counterparts — a disparity that's bigger here than elsewhere. Is it because of education, age, discrimination, or some combination of the above? Full Story
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It costs an average of 63 percent more to attend a four-year state school today than it did in 2003 — and that's still not enough to keep pace with bulging university budgets. Some policy makers see the higher education business model on the cusp of collapse. Full Story
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A big week, with the State Board of Education working on social studies textbooks — Thevenot was all over that this week, starting with a story that got national attention — and then the first debate between the GOP gubernatorial candidates, a story we tag-teamed with poll analysis, Hu's and Ramsey's live-blogging, Philpott's audio, and video. Our first TribLive event coaxed some news out of House Speaker Joe Straus, and E. Smith also interviewed Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson on beaches, politics, and, um, politics. We featured M. Smith on athletes in politics, Aguilar on the pack of Republicans chasing U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall, Rapoport on women in campaigns, and Hamilton on candidates outside the spotlight. The best of our best from January 11 to January 15, 2010. Full Story
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On day three of the State Board of Education's social studies curriculum hearings, targets of the conservatives' ire included Marcus Garvey, Clarence Darrow, and Ted Kennedy. Full Story
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In the midst of the social studies curriculum revisions, the SBOE member and former chair kicks off a debate about, of all things, hip-hop. Full Story
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State Board of Education members played mostly nice with one another Thursday, as they added and subtracted historical figures to the social studies curriculum. In: the first Hispanic Texas Supreme Court justice, Tejanos who died at the Alamo, and W.E.B. Du Bois. Out: "Ma" Ferguson, Henry Cisneros, and Dolores Huerta. Full Story