Public education

Grissom on the fall of Norma Chávez; M. Smith and Ramsey on the runoffs, the results, and the aftermath; Hu on the Tea Party's birthday party; Thevenot and Stiles on the path between schools and prisons; Ramshaw on prosecutors' reaction to helping hands from Austin; Hamilton on self-appointed lawyers; Galbraith on property rights and power lines; Aguilar and Grissom sit down with the mayor of Juárez to talk about his crime-ridden city; Kraft on telling the stories of Texans and other Americans who died in Vietnam; Ramsey on slots and horses and casinos; and Hamilton goes on a field trip with Jim Hightower to hear the history of populism. The best of our best from April 5 to 9, 2010.

Full Story 

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.

Full Story 

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.

Full Story 

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?

Full Story 

More than five years after Katrina, a long-term Texas Education Agency study finds that Louisiana students in Texas schools — many who came from among the nation’s worst campuses — have generally thrived here.

Full Story 

Lobbyists and lawmakers are fighting to preserve the terms of the contracts signed by parents who enrolled in the Texas Tomorrow Fund prepaid college tuition plan.

Full Story 

Despite all the handwringing about Texas' influence on the textbook market nationally, it's just not so, publishing insiders say. The state's clout has been on the wane and will diminish more as technological advances and political shifts transform the industry.

Full Story 

A Golden State senator says our State Board of Education can put its conservative spin on U.S. history where the sun don't shine.

Full Story 

“I was taught evolution, and it didn’t shake my faith in the Almighty whatsoever,” says George Clayton, who pulled off a stunning upset of incumbent Geraldine "Tincy" Miller, R-Dallas, in the GOP primary to win a seat on the State Board of Education. “Should creationism be taught as a counter to evolution? ... No, I don’t think so. I think evolution is in the science book. It should be taught as a science.”

Full Story 

Attorney General Greg Abbott is suing the feds for mandating that individuals buy health insurance. Some Texas political observers say Abbott did exactly that in 2009.

Full Story 

A 2008 federal court decision that ordered the state to restructure its bilingual and English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) programs was overturned by the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans today.

Full Story 

Where are their friends? Bill White wants Rick Perry to reject the State Board of Education's social studies amendments, while a state senator pushes to do away with the board altogether.

Full Story 

The State Board of Education accuses unnamed "media" of "erroneously" reporting its removal of Thomas Jefferson from state world history standards. Trouble is, the board statement is guilty of the same alleged lack of context, and it follows a pattern.

Full Story 

Grissom on the 1.2 million Texans who've lost their licenses under the Driver Responsibility Act and the impenetrable black box that is the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Ramshaw and Kraft on nurses with substance abuse problems and rehabilitation that can get them back to work, M. Smith finds it's not easy being Rick Green, Stiles on counting Texans (and everybody else), Rapoport on the State Board of Education's war with itself and the runoff in SBOE District 10, Thevenot's revealing interview with a big-city superintendent on closing bad schools, Aguilar on the tensions over water on the Texas-Mexico border, Hamilton on the new Coffee Party, Hu on Kesha Rogers and why her party doesn't want her, Philpott on the runoff in HD-47, Ramsey on Bill White and the politics of taxes, and E. Smith's conversation with Game Change authors Mark Halperin and John Heleimann: The best of our best from March 15 to 19.

Full Story 

One candidate touts her education policy expertise; the other, his conservative political credentials. This race for retiring incumbent Cynthia Dunbar's seat on the State Board of Education may come down to campaign money vs. Christian grassroots muscle.

Full Story 

"Don't mess with Texas ... textbooks," Norris orders liberals.

Full Story 

The Colbert Report joins the media fray over Texas history standards, joking "You see, Jefferson coined the term 'separation of church and state.' So Texas has coined the term, 'separation of Jefferson and history.'”

Full Story 

Austin ISD chief Meria Carstarphen talks bluntly about the poisonous politics between the state and the district over the bungled “repurposing” of Pearce Middle School (spoiler alert: she blames the state) and how it informs her efforts to reform the city's failing schools.

Full Story 

Members of the UT-Austin University Democrats said goodbye to a Spring Break filled with fun in the sun... and hello to the vacant stares of congressional staffers today.

Full Story 

When no one was paying attention to the State Board of Education, the theory goes, the reelection of incumbents was virtually assured, just as it is in any down-ballot races. Now that its controversial doings are the stuff of national headlines, change is in the air. Or is it?

Full Story