Education Issues

Now Southern Dallas Businessmen Are Lining Up Against Mike Miles. But Why?

Three prominent Dallas business leaders have written a caustic public letter to Dallas ISD Superintendent Mike Miles, taking him to task generally for not conferring with them personally on school reform and specifically for threatening the job of a particular high school principal popular in South ... More >>

The TEA Will Begin Grading Schools on A-F Scale, Just as Soon as Lawmakers Let It

The Texas Education Agency will go ahead with a new performance rating system, Education Commissioner Michael Williams announced on Tuesday. The new system will score schools on an A to F scale in hopes of closing the achievement gap between white and minority students. "I have heard the criticism ... More >>

Vouchers Suffered a Blow in the Texas House, but "Vouchers" Definitely Are Still in Play

Yesterday the State House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 1, a new state budget of $193.8 billion, by a lop-sided vote of 135-12. One of the more surprising parts of the bill's passage is the approval of an anti-private school voucher amendment, passed by a vote of 103-43. The amendment, spo ... More >>

Bernadette Nutall Raises the Stakes in the War Over Protecting Favored DISD Principals

On March 22, I penned a story for this page in which I portrayed school district trustee Bernadette Nutall as appearing to be "neutral" on school reform. Her apparent neutrality made her a very singular exception to the rule at a heated community meeting the night before at Madison High School, wh ... More >>

Arlington High Suspends Student for Tweeting STAAR Test Photo, Inspires Predictable Backlash

Texas has never played around when it comes to its standardized tests, and the STAAR exam, the new assessment whose rigor is currently the center of debate in the state legislature, is no different. As one of the primary ways the state evaluates educational outcomes, and thus ensures accountability, ... More >>

It's Hard to Teach Kids to Read if They Only Want to Burn Down the School

Somewhere somehow we just got on the wrong track, folks. All these issues like the public schools, crime, unemployment: We're still trying to rearrange the furniture when the house is already on fire. For example, as I said here yesterday, that bright shiny new superintendent of schools we just hir ... More >>

Dallas ISD and Race to the Top: Everything You Need to Know* About That $40 Million

There has been a lot of ink devoted over the past few days to Dallas ISD being named a finalist for $40 million in federal Race to the Top funds, which built to a crescendo yesterday when Education Secretary Arne Duncan came to town. That all sounds fantastic, but what does it mean? We decided to b ... More >>

Ask a Mexican: Discrimination, Lard and Beans, Straight From the Heart of Texas

Watch Deion Sanders' Entire Football Team Halt Traffic to Confront a WFAA Camerman

WFAA's Brett Shipp went out to the football practice yesterday of Prime Prep Academy, the charter school co-founded by former Cowboy Deion Sanders. What happened was dangerous, awkward, embarrassing, and yet another example of why Sanders shouldn't have a school, and why this state should spend a fe ... More >>

DISD Misses Adequate Yearly Progress Again

The Texas Education Agency released its Adequate Yearly Progress report for 2012 a bit ago, and DISD and about three-quarters of its individual campuses missed the mark, just as they did last year, and the year before, and the year before. Much of that can be attributed to tougher standards. As DIS ... More >>

A Prayer for Pinkston: SMU, DISD Team Up to Go Cradle-to-Career in West Dallas

By most measures, LG Pinkston High School is failing. The school, which neighbors Fish Trap Lake in a poor area of West Dallas, has higher dropout rates, lower graduation rates, and lower test scores than the rest of Dallas ISD. It is considered academically unacceptable by the state and has been fo ... More >>

Deion Sanders' Prime Prep High School Football Appears More Like Fantasy Football

In the months following Prime Prep Academy's February town hall information sessions, Deion Sanders and his business partner, D.L. Wallace, have been publicly silent about almost every aspect of their charter school, Prime Prep Academy, with campuses in Dallas (grades 6-12) and Fort Worth (K-5). I ... More >>

Mike Miles, In First Official Day As DISD Superintendent, Likes Graduation-Rate Trend, Was a Little Embarrassed By Those Billboards

Given his high profile over the past few months and some much-publicized decisions, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Mike Miles has actually been DISD's superintendent. Which he has, of course, but not officially and not full-time until Monday, when he took the reins in earnest. It was a busy da ... More >>

Deion Sanders' Charter School Doesn't Have -- and May Have Trouble Getting -- City Approval to Open Its Dallas Campus

Prime Prep Academy, the charter school co-founded by former Cowboy Deion Sanders, recently accepted more than 1,100 students for its inaugural school year, and hundreds of those students are slated to attend its campus in Oak Cliff. The question is whether that campus will even be available to the ... More >>

Meet F.R. Mays, the Fort Worth Bishop Who Swears He Knows "Nothing" About Deion Sanders' Charter School

Early last week, before the start of his ongoing divorce hearing with dramatics suited for a soap opera, former Cowboy Deion Sanders tweeted the above photo. It looks like a boring portrait of three wide-smiling, well-dressed men. In fact, the photo is quite revealing of the tangle of lies behind Pr ... More >>

Deion Sanders Is Having The Worst Week Ever (Updated)

Well, last week was pretty bad too, as he physically fought with his estranged wife in front of his kids and then tweeted a photo of his two boys filling out police reports. A picture speaks way more than 140 characters, and that tweet was one in a series of martyr-like messages, using the platform ... More >>

Ten Things We Learned from Last Night's Dallas ISD Forum at the Kessler Theater

In the spirit of last night's D-slash-TED-slash-SMU DISD Education Forum at the Kessler -- which asked each school board candidate one and only one randomly drawn question -- here are some rapid-fire observations from an evening that, while admirably efficient, was over not long after it started. 1 ... More >>

Five Questions for Mike Miles, DISD Superintendent (and Former Senate) Candidate

Yesterday, Mike Miles, an Army Ranger turned education reformer, was named the lone finalist for Dallas Independent School District's superintendent job. Today begins 21 days of tire-kicking, a mandatory waiting and vetting period before the district and Miles can officially wed. Plenty of people ... More >>

Ending "Political Catfight," Council Votes to Help Uplift Sell Cheaper Bonds For Expansion

​The Dallas City Council council didn't waste much time getting 'round to the most eagerly awaited showdown of the day: Item No. 53 on its agenda, which creates that nonprofit that would allow Uplift Education to some $85 million in low-interest-rate bonds. As city Chief Financial Officer Jeanne C ... More >>

Uplift, Deep Ellum Community Association Are Trying For a "Win-Win" With Planned School

At this very moment the city council members are discussing whether they'd like to get into the bond business to help Uplift Education with its plan to sell tax-exempt bonds to help open a new charter school in the former Baylor offices Deep Ellum. (Sounds, so far, like the item will be deferred, th ... More >>

Dallas City Hall Wants to Create Nonprofit to Help Uplift Education Sell Bonds for Expansion

​Speaking of Uplift Education and its planned expansion into Deep Ellum ...There's an intriguing item that just appeared on the Dallas City Council's consent addendum for next week's meeting, posted here. According to the doc, the city wants to create a nonprofit called the City of Dallas Educatio ... More >>

In Deion Sanders's Quest for a Charter School, the Whistleblower Turns it Up to 11

Lawrence Smith has what you might call a bit of a beef with Cowboys great Deion Sanders. And he just took that beef -- what's that phrase? Ah yes. Priiiime tiiiime. A few years back, Smith went into business with Sanders and a businessman named D.L. Wallace on a high-school recruiting directory cal ... More >>

Dallas ISD Trustees Blackburn, Nutall Have Had It With Dallas NAACP Prez's "Slander and Libel"

Via.Juanita Wallace​Ah, so this is why Dallas Independent School District board president Lew Blackburn and trustee Bernadette Nutall want to clamp down on public speakers at school board meetings -- comments made by Dallas NAACP President Juanita Wallace at the October 20 board meeting. Specifica ... More >>

Mazel Tov, Mesquite ISD, For Winning the Urban School Board Excellence Award

​Seriously, instead of trying to come up with cute names for teacher evaluations or asking the Dallas Regional Chamber for help, the Dallas Independent School District's higher-ups (the school board, especially) need to take the few-minute drive to Mesquite and ask Superintendent Dr. Linda Henrie ... More >>

At the Last Minute, Texas Spikes Federal Sex Education Funding ... Again

Condoms, birth control -- who needs 'em? Just don't have sex, Texas says to its horny teens. Just hobble that unbridled desire coupled with a limited understanding of consequences and say 'No, I'm saving myself for marriage.' That's pretty much the message, maybe paired with an infographic demonstr ... More >>

Or Maybe the Dallas Independent School District's Trustees Should Just Visit Mesquite

​Earlier today we revisited the Dallas Regional Chamber's plan, blessed by Mayor Mike and Lew Blackburn, to save the Dallas Independent School District. And while Commit! is still in its vague, unformed infancy, clearly this is Very Important to a few very important people. Which is why Blackburn ... More >>

Food For Thought, Young Dallas Lawyers' Food-Centric Benefit, Brings Out Big-Name Chefs This Weekend

Tiffany Derry​The Dallas Association of Young Lawyers hosts its third annual Food for Thought on Saturday at The Tower Club, where guests can buy goodies in the silent and live auctions and sample fare from a number of top-notch local chefs and restaurants. The event is a benefit for Big Thou ... More >>

It's Official: DISD Now Has More Academically Unacceptable Schools Than Exemplary Ones

This never gets old.​The Texas Education Agency won't officially release its based-on-TAKS-scores state accountability ratings till 'round 1 this afternoon (here, for those so interested), at which point Commissioner of Education Robert Scott will hold a press conference in Austin. But the Dallas ... More >>

Charter School "Streamlining" Proposal Yanked From Dallas ISD's Board Meeting Today

​Those tuning in to today's Dallas Independent School District board briefing expecting to hear what was sure to be a heated discussion about how to "streamline the process for implementing a charter school" are out of luck. The item's been pulled, as trustee Carla Ranger pointed out yesterday on ... More >>

In DISD Trustee News: Ranger Unhappy With Citizens Budget Review Commission Line-Up, While Cowan Offers a "Budget Bracket"

DISD via FacebookThe first Citizen Budget Review Commission meeting, held on Monday​On Friday we were introduced to the Dallas Independent School District's Citizens Budget Review Commission, a 10-member group selected by the school board and Superintendent Michael Hinojosa that's been tasked with ... More >>

The public school funding crisis is part of a bigger plan to suck all sense of community out of the country

Fixing the Schools, One Screening at a Time, with CDM's Waiting for Superman Soiree

​As the education policy call-to-arms doc Waiting for Superman has been released across the country, educators and would-be reformers everywhere have been doing the thing you do when a Davis Guggenheim documentary (or a Mel Gibson film in the original Aramaic) comes out: special screenings and pos ... More >>

DISD's Running Full-Speed to Reform Through New West Dallas "School Zone"

Patrick MichelsChartering a new course: Mayor Tom Leppert and DISD superintendent Michael Hinojosa this morning at Dallas City Hall​This morning's mayor's breakfast at City Hall featured a parade of speakers covering the need for big-picture reforms in West Dallas education, the sort of shakeups t ... More >>

Dallas ISD Board of Trustees to Vote on a New "Superintendent Evaluation Instrument"

​Far as the Dallas Independent School District board of trustees is concerned, there are three factors that go into determining how good a job the superintendent's doing: "student achievement," "sound financial management" and "stakeholder satisfaction." Those, say the board, "embody the core beli ... More >>

Bonus MP3: Analog Rebellion -- "Marla Singer Doesn't Take Standardized Tests (Disposable Smile)"

DianellyAnalog Rebellion's Daniel Hunter​We've spent plenty of time in recent weeks sharing our excitement for the artist formerly known as PlayRadioPlay!'s new disc under the Analog Rebellion moniker. And, every time we hear a new leak from Aledo native Daniel Hunter's new upcoming disc, Ancient ... More >>

Whoa, Girlie

A Man Thing

One answer to keeping black Dallas teens in school: more school

A Broad Gap for DISD to Clear

Wild Child

For Quinn Eaker, a son of the radical "unschooling" movement, school's out forever

Goy Gevalt

In Her Shoes is pretty but useless, a Prada with a broken heel

Just Say No...

To the Republican National Committee and DMN Web Logs

A Bag to Brag About

This mouse has more than cheese

Blowin' It

A resonant children's classic from E.B. White becomes a dismayingly dissonant movie

Little Schools That Could

Call off the air strike on DISD headquarters--there's some good stuff going on in the district

Planting SEEDs of hope

An innovative math program recalculates which students will succeed and which will fail at DISD

No place like home

Thousands of Texans say they can do a better job teaching their children at home. But some local truant officers claim parents are using a massive loophole in Texas law to skip school altogether.

Math wars

Plano parents lay siege to enthusiasts of the "New New Math" in a fight over how to fix the sorry state of math instruction in the public schools

Letters

The Learning Curve

Earnest eggheads came to Texas with an idea that for-profit schools can save public education. So far, it ain't working.

Dreamer 'n the 'hood

From a tiny food counter in South Dallas, Delvin Gray struggles to change the world