Public education

One education model — with unproven results — serves almost a third of pre-kindergarteners in Texas. Its grade? Incomplete.

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The feds want Texas to sign onto a movement toward national education standards in order to get up to $700 million in "Race to the Top" money. Texas officials say our students —and our curriculum — aren't for sale.

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The El Paso school board this week dumped a controversial policy requiring teachers to give automatic grades of 50 to students who didn't earn them. But teachers are still allowed to do so at their discretion.

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Even if Cynthia Dunbar doesn't seek reelection to the State Board of Education, another conservative Republican stands ready to take up the cause.

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Nearly 130,000 students attend Texas charter schools, but 40,000 more are waiting to get in.

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It was a political week, with a full-court press from our staff on Bill White's switch to the governor's race and all of the fallout; the moves during the first week of filing for political races; Philpott's look at Republicans challenging Republicans; Hu's latest in the popular Stump Interrupted series; Ramshaw on emergency rooms, family doctors, and child protection; Stiles and Grissom mapping payday lending locations juxtaposed with family income data; Rapoport on the state budget and education; Thevenot on KBH's plans for schools; and Hamilton on the power (or not) of political endorsements. The best of the best from November 28 to December 4, 2009.

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Texas school chief calls requirements to adopt national curriculum standards "unprecedented intrusiveness"

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Education has emerged as one of the more contentious fronts in the gubernatorial campaign, with Kay Bailey Hutchison this week releasing a barrage of school proposals and attacks on the status quo. But the differences between the candidates have more to do with execution than with design.

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The stimulus money increased funding for education last session. But can the state keep it up next session without more federal money?

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Hoping to push a wide array of digital content and teaching tools to public schools, the Texas Education Agency has cut a deal with a division of The New York Times for an electronic curriculum portal and searchable access to the newspaper’s content since 1851.

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When students get back from Thanksgiving break, the problems with their education system may not be fixed yet — but there’s no need to worry because the gubernatorial candidates are on the case.

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Do charter schools outperform traditional public schools? Should they be allowed to expand? Who holds them accountable if they fail? David Dunn, founder of the Texas Charter School Association, explains.

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School district police departments use tasers, pepper spray, dogs and drawn handguns to control crime on campus. But most don't keep data on the incidents, leaving parents no way to track them. Many even refuse to turn over their “use of force” guidelines, saying parting with their policies could create a security threat.

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Texas will not adopt national school curriculum standards, risking its ability to get a $700 million federal grant.

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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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Rev. Rayford Butler watched as the churches of West Dallas slipped into irrelevance and the surrounding community suffered. The hard truth: neighborhood pastors failed to work together, selfishly competing with one another.

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Two legislative ABCs — Anybody But Craddicks — back the Republican moderate challenging Christian conservative member Don McLeroy.

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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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The State Board of Education, which has showcased some intense philosophical fights, has drawn scrutiny for becoming a partisan battleground. For now, members are just trying to get along — but the rifts are as big as ever.

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