Subject: Foundation for Community Empowerment

• A Broad Gap for DISD to Clear

  January 16, 2007

• Spreading the Blame

  August 18, 2006

• D? Well, Maybe D-.

  Look, let me take one specific portion of the D special issue about the Dallas Independent School District that came out this week and use it to explain why I don’t think much of this stuff is worth reading. This was a sidebar under the byline of our former colleague, Mark Stuertz, who was famous around here for being a meticulous investigative reporter (and erudite food critic). I mean, he is robot metal-detector, Geiger counter kind of fact-digger. Stuertz just doesn’t miss stuff. Bu

  November 13, 2008

• To Be Honest, DISD Board Prez Jack Lowe Doesn't Care What You Think

  Last month, while working on this profile of Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa, I met DISD board of trustees president Jack Lowe for coffee at the La Madeline by SMU. Lowe, as you may recall, said upon the revelation of the district's initial $64-million budget shortfall in September that he was, ya know, "very embarrassed." But two months later, Lowe, who is pictured at right, orchestrated the vote to suspend next year's elections and keep his pro-Hinojosa bloc

  December 15, 2008

• Slumdog Millionaires

  If the Morning News considers itself the "conscience" of southern Dallas, it has a lot of explaining to do.

  January 22, 2009

• Congresswoman Calls Out John Wiley Price for Shaking Down Development Deal

  Local pols back off a master plan that would have put the squeeze on a major southern Dallas development

  December 18, 2008

• 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

  November 20, 2008

• Change Is Gonna Come

  With some help from his friends, Don Williams intends to save South Dallas one block at a time

  August 17, 2006

• Vox Populi

  Wait a minute...There's democracy in Dallas?

  April 5, 2007

• From the Ground Up

  Central Dallas Ministries helps the poor find their own bootstraps

  January 4, 2007

• Forget Why

  Knowing where crime happens is enough to do something about it

  November 2, 2006

• The One That Got Away

  In a Lancaster gym, Greg Hatley is raising boxing champions, but the best fighter he ever saw isn't among them

  July 7, 2005

• By the Book

  A socially conscious collection of bookworms look for more than words

  June 17, 2004

• Look, It Has Always Paid to Be Royce West

  Sam MertenState Sen. Royce West and friendsFormer Dallas Observer ace reporter (and sometime-Unfair Park contributor) Matt Pulle has a great piece up today on the Texas Watchdog Web site revealing that in 2008 alone, state Sen. Royce West's 10-person law firm billed the City of Dallas, Dallas Area Rapid Transit, the Dallas Independent School District, the Dallas County Community College District and various suburban entities a total of $1 million in legal fees. And, as Sam noted in January, from

  May 22, 2009

• DISD's Getting a Grant to Help Kids With Science and Math. And It's from Outer Space!

  ​Speaking of the Dallas Independent School District and grant money ...I was poking around the briefing agenda for this week's meeting of the board of trustees and noticed this intriguing item: NASA -- yes, that NASA, not this NASA -- is giving the DISD, via the Foundation for Community Empowerment, $1.45 million to help students with science and math ... and to promote NASA. Per the briefing docs, half the money will go toward a "science-focused website and a computer lab in the designated ar

  November 3, 2009