Education Programs Administration

At Last, the Complete Audit of the Dallas ISD's Adult Basic Education Department!

​Just got back to my desk to find a copy of the highly critical Adult Basic Education Department Audit about which we wrote yesterday. So, as always, the full document follows after the jump. And while there are a whole mess of figures to sort through, per the auditor's concerns that the Dallas In ... More >>

The TEA Hands DISD Its Report Card

Loose in the Lab​Here's a fun weekend activity: Scroll through the Texas Education Agency's accountability ratings for the Dallas Independent School District, which were released this afternoon. (You can go here for the full statewide breakdown by district, region, etc., while KTVT-Channel 11's St ... More >>

Wherein the DO and the DISD Have a Math-Off Concerning Per-Pupil Expenditures

On Tuesday of this week Dallas Independent School District spokesman Jon Dahlander responded to questions I had asked him last week for my column this week about per-pupil expenditures at high school campuses. Unfortunately, his response by e-mail reached me several days after my deadline had passed ... More >>

DISD's Attempt to Gut Magnets, Learning Centers Gets Uglier With Every Misstep

Patrick MichelsThe scene outside 3700 Ross Avenue last nightLast night's decision by the Dallas Independent School District's board of trustees to delay voting on budget cuts for the district's enhanced schools was more than just a stall. The debate leading up to that decision shed a little more lig ... More >>

Go Ahead DISD Trustees. Gut the Magnet Schools. If You Want a City That Aspires to Mediocrity.

Eddie Bernice Johnson Asks DISD Board to Delay Tonight's Staffing Vote

Eddie Bernice JohnsonThe headline says it all. But this missive, which we just received from Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson's office concerning the fight over funding at Dallas Independent School District's magnet schools and learning centers, says it better. Certainly, longer.Update at 5:15 p. ... More >>

Sooner Than Later, DISD Trustees Will Run Out of Legal Excuses They Can Hide Behind

Ben BarlowI spoke this morning with Ben Barlow, the Fort Worth attorney for the Dallas Independent School District system who had informed me yesterday that no waivers were available under existing law for Dallas's magnet schools facing severe budget cuts under federal Title I funding rules. The ... More >>

Eddie Bernice Johnson, Others Taking a Keen Interest In DISD Trustees' Efforts to Gut Magnet Schools and Learning Centers

Congresswoman Eddie Bernice JohnsonThings are popping a bit today on the Dallas Independent School District magnet schools front.Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson's office confirms that Johnson is talking to the U.S. Department of Education seeking "clarification" of its current position on Title ... More >>

Magnet Mayhem: DISD Trustees Seem Hell-Bent on Gutting the Crown Jewels of the District, and for No Good Reason

Allied Works ArchitectureThe Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual ArtsThe Dallas Independent School District is about to do massive damage to its magnet school and learning center programs. The magnets represent the best of the district's academic efforts. The learning cent ... More >>

Do You Have a Face Mask and Some Tamiflu I Can Borrow? Give 'Em Back, Swear.

An out-of-state colleague wondered late yesterday, "Is it true that the state of Texas has canceled all sports events till May 11? Does that include Astros and Rangers?" Um ... no. Alas, such was his reading of a breathless, since-vanished New York Times story concerning the University Interscholast ... More >>

As DISD Shuts Down its First Campus Due to Swine Flu, What Happens After That?

Just got off the phone with Dallas Independent School District spokesman Jon Dahlander, who, moments ago, announced that the district is closing Daniel Webster Elementary from tomorrow till May 11 due to one confirmed case of the swine flu at that campus. (It will remain open throughout today to acc ... More >>

Natural Selection Only a "Figure of Speech," Says State Education Board Chair

Don McLeroyDon McLeroy, a Republican dentist from Bryan, is the chair of the Texas State Board of Education. He's also a book critic: Over the weekend, an indie book publisher posted his recommendation of Robert Bowie Johnson Jr.'s new book Sowing Atheism: The National Academy Of Sciences' Sinister ... More >>

State Rep. Yvonne Davis Proposes Bill That Would Bust-Up Dallas School District

Till late last week, the formerly prolific Carla Ranger hadn't posted to her blog for most of 2009. But the Dallas Independent School District board member has returned, and today she points our attention to state Rep. Yvonne Davis's H.B. 3532 introduced late last week, which calls for "the abolitio ... More >>

Bully or Bodyguard? The WSJ Looks at Mayors Who Take Over Schools.

Alexander FloresTill Mayor Tom Leppert decides to talk for himself about his thinking about maybe one day possibly taking over the Dallas Independent School District we'll see not sure for sure who knows, it's all one big guessing game. Which doesn't stop the Dallas mayor's name from appearing in th ... More >>

DISD's About to Get Very Stimulated

Library of CongressBy now, perhaps, you've read that some $104,070,000 of the nearly $800 billion stimulus package will wind up in the pockets of the Dallas Independent School District. (If your kids aren't in the DISD, you can see how your district fared in the sweepstakes by checking out this site ... More >>

Studying the Dallas School Board and the "Theory of Action for Change"

One of the more astounding discoveries I have made about the Dallas school board is that its recent behavior has been based on a so-called "theory of action for change" -- part of a program called The Reform Governance® Framework run by an outfit called the Center for Reform of School Systems (or ... More >>

DISD Trustees May Make Cutbacks in Democratic Process

DISD trustees may try to cancel next year's school board election to preserve the status quo and the superintendent

Yet Again, DISD Hires Paul Coggins to Look Into Its Bad Bidness

Paul Coggins After the jump, courtesy Dallas Independent School District spokesman Jon Dahlander, the district's announcement concerning the appointment of former U.S. Attorney Paul Coggins to look into the whole phony Social Security number mess. Coggins, now at Fish & Richardson, has a history ... More >>

The Road to Broad Runs Through Texas, Just Not the Dallas ISD

Unfair Park Exclusive: TEA Appoints Monitor For DISD's "Academically Unacceptable" Schools

Bible Schooled

Hitting Where It Hurts

Evolution Sunday Especially Important in Texas

A Degree in Creationism? Could Happen.

Suffer the Children

Carcinogen samples from local schools are off the charts

The Mighty Quinn (Well, Mightier)

Feds Set to Announce Public Corruption Indictment in Moments...

Re: Lancaster ISD's Way Late With Audit...

Lancaster ISD's Way Late With Audit, And People Are Starting to Notice

A Broad Gap for DISD to Clear

Teachers Wanna Get Paid

Don't Be a Fool. Stay in School. Or Not.

The Price is Wrong

Go Down Moses

Hope Chest

Before DISD goes marrying Wilmer-Hutchins, let's get a look at the dowry

Big Man on Campus

State representative wants legislation to target school bullies

They Blinded Buzz with Science

The Texas Freedom Network keeps a watch on the state's textbooks

A Miracle Waiting to Happen

With a little luck and a wise school superintendent, Dallas could do what Houston did

Go Down, Moses

When the new super gets to town, Dallas will decide whether it really wants accountability

Miracle Whipped

Fifty gets you 70 in the mysterious world of TAAS

They Walk by Night

Join us for a chilling tale of the (highly paid) un-dead at DISD headquarters

Flunking Out

Charter school scandals are teaching Texas a tough lesson -- one the state should have known four years and $77 million ago.

Pig in a poke

The DISD board doesn't do its homework before offering San Franciscan Bill Rojas the top job

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.

Gutless coup

Everybody's talking about a takeover at DISD, but nobody wants to do anything about it

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

Some Fly, Some Die

How DISD betrays children of color

Buzz

Rough waters

It hasn't been smooth sailing for the Voyager after-school program

Last in the Class

Why nobody will erase the board at Wilmer-Hutchins, the worst-run school district in Texas