Social Policy

America's Need for Immigration Reform Is on Display at a Graduation Ceremony Near You

Yesterday when my wife, son and I were driving back from Lubbock, the news on my tablet told me that Phyllis Schlafly, president of the Eagle Forum, Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation, and Tea Party leaders in 25 states had released an open letter urging congress to dump its immigration re ... More >>

Ralph Isenberg is on a Wild Crusade Against Domingo Garcia over May 5 Immigration March

Ralph Isenberg and Domingo Garcia haven't always been enemies. Back in 2010, in fact, they were all set to dine together at a fundraiser with President Obama, until Isenberg was unceremoniously disinvited by the White House. Their relationship has since gone south, reaching its nadir this month wit ... More >>

Texas Politicians Use Gosnell Verdict to Remind You How Much They Want to Outlaw Abortion

If there's one thing everyone in America can agree on this morning, it's that Kermit Gosnell is disgusting and belongs in an especially dank and fetid section of some sort of subterranean prison. In a case that millions of talking heads have been shouting at you about from your TV, the Philadelphia ... More >>

The Daily Show Teaches Dallas Immigration Marchers How to Really Celebrate Cinco de Mayo

On Sunday, The Daily Show's Jessica Williams donned a novelty sombrero and festive pink dress and came to Dallas in search of an authentic Cinco de Mayo fiesta. What she found instead was a few thousand disappointingly sober people gathered downtown to march for immigration rights. Instead of drunk ... More >>

Mosquitoes Are Already Testing Positive for West Nile

The West Nile virus is officially back. Public health officials got their first confirmation of that last week when mosquito pools in Richardson tested positive for the disease. Today, Highland Park announced a positive test of its own. Dallas County is already urging residents to use insect repella ... 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 >>

Feds Bypass State, Give $13 Million for Family Planning Directly to Women's Health Coalition

Maybe you're not a Yiddish speaker, but you need a handy illustration of the concept of "chutzpah." In Spanish: cojones. Or in English, if you insist: king-sized brass balls. If you need a real-world demonstration of this cross-cultural concept, you have only to look at how your state-level bureaucr ... More >>

Texas Right to Life Pushes More Bunk Science on "Preborn Pain," Calls Observer "Anti-Life"

Over the past couple months, we've brought you periodic updates on Texas Right to Life's quest to help pass a bill banning all abortions after 20 weeks. They've finally found a sponsor to carry that bill: State Representative Jodie Laubenberg filed the "Preborn Pain Act" this time last week. Texas R ... 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 >>

Now Texas Wants its Women's Health Program to Ban Doctors from Talking about Abortion

As Governor Rick Perry vows not to take any of that filthy federal money to expand Medicaid in Texas, state lawmakers may also have to find another $39 million next year to keep the Medicaid Women's Health Program alive. These days, the WHP has been going through some prolonged death throes. Texa ... More >>

GOP Arguments Against Obamacare Leave Me Empty-Handed

So I'm doing a this-hand versus that-hand thing in my head on Obamacare. Everybody says the Republicans are going to make this year's presidential election a referendum on the Affordable Care Act. I just want to be ready. On the one hand, Affordable Care will encourage tons of poor people and young ... More >>

Who Are All the White Guys Running Mexico?

Federal Medicaid Agency Lays Out Just How The Women's Health Program Will End

What prompted Governor Rick Perry's frenzied bout of outraged tweeting about the Women's Health Program yesterday? As much as we'd like to speculate that it was a bad batch of PCP (and will continue to do so privately, purely for our own amusement, not because it's at all true), it was actually one ... More >>

In Dallas As in Miami, It's Time to Build Low-Income Housing Where the Jobs Are

​Who's a liberal these days, and who are the conservatives? I look in the mirror, I don't even know. I look in The New York Times this morning, I'm even more confused. The Times has a story out of Miami about major cuts in federal housing subsidies. The story calls them "some of the deepest c ... More >>

Hispanics Not Thrilled With Obama, But They Still Won't Vote For Rick Perry, Study Says

These days it seems as though both political parties are doing everything they can to disenfranchise one of the fastest-growing demographics in the country: Hispanics. While the GOP ratchets up anti-immigrant rhetoric and champions Arizona-style immigration legislation, the Obama administration rac ... More >>

Interim Super: "The Annual Ratcheting Up of Standards is Catching Up With" Dallas ISD

Dave Goldfinger​And the hits just keep on coming: One week ago today the Texas Education Agency officially announced that the Dallas Independent School District had more campuses deemed academically unacceptable (33) than exemplary (30) -- a radical shift from last year's stats, thanks in large pa ... 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 >>

Mayoral Candidate David Kunkle Explains Why He's No Longer Fan of Verified Response After Advocating For It as Dallas Police Chief

Photo by Sam MertenDavid Kunkle​Repealing verified response quickly rose to the top of Tom Leppert's to-do list shortly after he become mayor in June 2007. The controversial program required business owners to have someone at the scene of a burglar alarm to verify that a break-in had actually ... More >>

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

Whose Dole Is It, Anyway?

When Operation Streamline Deters: One Immigrant's Story

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 >>

Today, "amnesty" is a dirty word. So what happened to the immigrants given a fresh start by Reagan in 1986?

Ronnie's Kids

Why Would the United States Want to Follow Mexico's Immigration Example?

State Rep. Debbie Riddle Wins Our Demagogue Sweepstakes By Proposing A Texas Version of Arizona's Controversial Immigration Law

Education Guru To Dallas Teachers: In School Reform, "There Are No Miracles"

Patrick MichelsDiane Ravitch speaking at the Dallas Institute's first annual Education Forum last night.​The big shakeups credited with turning around public schools in New York, New Orleans and Washington, D.C. -- which Mayor Tom Lepeprt and organizers cite as influences for a new school reform e ... 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 Spokesman Says District's Been Working to Fix Adult Basic Ed Since March

​We end the day where we began the day, if only because we've finally spoken with Dallas Independent School District spokesman Jon Dahlander concerning the critical internal audit of the Adult Basic Education Program, funded last year with $3.7 million in grant money. We were expecting to post the ... 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 >>

Today In Music News: Obama Still Loves Jackson and Kanye Becomes A Director

Your daily dose of national music news for Monday, July 6, 2009... Americans can sleep easier tonight: President Obama still has Michael Jackson songs on his iPod. Now, how about that universal health care, sir? Kanye West now has something else he's the best in the world at: being a music video di ... More >>

Whoa, Girlie

Seriously, Never Give an Employee the Company Credit Card. Like, Ever.

It's Dallas vs. Dallas, As ER Docs Assail McCain's Advisor's Health Care Claims

An Over-Wide Net

Latino Vote Is No Slam Dunk for Hillary Clinton, Not in Texas

The Revolution, One Slice at a Time

Farmers Branch Pulls in the Welcome Mat

New Immigration Rules Could Empty Local Kitchens

Tough rules leave restaurants looking for cooks with green cards

At Dallas City Hall Yesterday, Signs That the Fight in Farmers Branch Is Closer to Home

Some Unfair Park Readers Don't Only Dislike Immigrants, But the People Who Write About Them

Damn Right That's What America's About, Sister

"Un-American, un-Texan and un-Christian"

Toke This

Just Get Married!

Bells will be ringing as a new pro-marriage, anti-poverty plan takes root in Texas

Best Place to Continue Your Education

SMU-continuing education

Best immigration lawyer

Fernando Dubove

Victims in the shadows

A Rowlett murder shines a light on the practices of notarios who victimize illegal immigrants desperate for a chance to remain in the United States

Our Man in Saipan

Dick Armey thinks he's found a free-market paradise in the Marianas Islands, a U.S. territory where the workers never complain, the factories never quit, and wages are so low, even welfare mothers can hire a Filipino maid

Borderline case

An illegal immigrant mother battles against bureaucracy to stay near her ailing daughter

Couldn't Medicare less

Shady goings-on in the fight over health care