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.
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
Hidden Force
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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Public Education
TribBlog: Texas Sidelined in Race for the Top?
Texas will not adopt national school curriculum standards, risking its ability to get a $700 million federal grant.
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Demographics
Upwardly Mobile
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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Public Education
Soul Search: Race, religion and education in West Dallas
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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Public Education
TribBlog: State Board of Education and the ABCs
Two legislative ABCs — Anybody But Craddicks — back the Republican moderate challenging Christian conservative member Don McLeroy.
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Demographics
Soul Search: Dallas churches unite to right historic wrongs
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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Demographics
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
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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Public Education
State (Board) of Agitation
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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Public Education
TribBlog: Imagine the Controversy
A for-profit company hopes to get approval to start two charter schools in Texas. Thursday’s SBOE meeting will set the precedent for dealing with this murkier side of the charter school system.