With all precincts reporting, State Board of Education member Geraldine “Tincy” Miller has lost her seat to challenger George Clayton in the GOP primary for District 12.
Public Education
Explore The Texas Tribune’s coverage of public education, from K-12 schools and funding to teachers, students, and policies shaping classrooms across Texas.
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Public Education
SBOE 5: Tuggey Concedes to Mercer
Tim Tuggey conceded the race for the GOP nomination to incumbent Ken Mercer in State Board of Education District 5.
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Public Education
SBOE 9: McLeroy Loses Seat to Ratliff
With all precincts reporting, State Board of Education incumbent Don McLeroy has lost to challenger Thomas Ratliff in the race for District 9 by a razor thin margin — less than 1,000 votes.
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Criminal Justice
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Ramshaw on the state’s quiet sharing of infant blood samples with the military and on the things Rick Perry’s opponents aren’t saying about him, Grissom on Farouk Shami’s surprising popularity in El Paso, Philpott on the political advantages of a job creation fund and how Debra Medina’s supporters are reacting to her “truther” comments, Hu on Debra Medina in the latest installment of Stump Interrupted, Thevenot on how the kids feel about the federal option of closing bad high schools, Rapoport on the newest mutation of the state’s pay-as-you-go transportation philosophy, and our roundup of party primaries in the last week before the election: Rapoport on HD-7, Ramsey on HD-11, Aguilar on HD-36 and HD-43, Philpott on HD-47, Thevenot on HD-52 and SD-5, Kreighbaum on HD-105 and one Supreme Court race, M. Smith on another, and Hamilton on the colorful Democratic candidates for Agriculture Commissioner. The best of our best from February 22 to 26, 2010.
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Public Education
Talking Back to the Feds
“Teachers should be chasing us around,” the Texas high school senior told the official from the U.S. Department of Education. “We shouldn’t be chasing them. But that doesn’t always happen here.”
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Public Education
TribBlog: More “Federal Takeover” of Texas Schools?
As Texas education officials predicted when objecting to federal Race to the Top grant rules, the feds may now be moving to tie billions more in federal funds to the adoption of national curriculum standards, according to an Education Week report.
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Higher Education
The Old College Try
Since 1999, the number of “dual-credit” students — those who take college courses while still in high school — across Texas has ballooned from fewer than 12,000 to more than 91,000. It’s a trend that’s likely to continue as state and local policymakers search for ways to better align curricula and to push more kids to continue their education. “Schools have started to look at it as great for kids who might not have thought they were college material,” says an official at the Higher Education Coordinating Board. “It’s both a gifted-and-talented program and a college-accessibility program.”
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Public Education
The Firing Line
After years of fiddling with merit-pay schemes, the Houston ISD is tying student test scores to the decision to ax teachers. Not surprisingly, the move — on the cutting edge of reforms nationally — has teachers howling in protest.
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Public Education
TribBlog: “Mayor, Dogcatcher, Whatever”
Whatever his job might be, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro says he would have applied for the federal government’s Race to the Top education grants, which could have been worth $700 million to the state’s schools.
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Health care
Day Care Danger
The Texas Workforce Commission spent nearly $50 million during the last two years on day care centers and in-home childcare providers with troubled track records — including sexual and physical abuse, kidnapping, and leaving infants to suffocate and die in their cribs. A Texas Tribune review found that at least 135 subsidized facilities had their licenses revoked or denied by the Department of Family and Protective Services in 2008 and 2009 and had their funding immediately suspended.