Tuesday, the state of Texas’ heaviest hitters, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Gov. Greg Abbott, put their weight firmly behind an issue both have identified as a priority for the 2017 legislative session, school choice. Both leaders are pushing for the legislature to pass a bill that would create education…
The bitter joke at both the national level and here in Texas is the way our so-called populist, Tea Party-era politicians behave when their own oxen are in danger of taking a scratch. Then, watch out! Forget tea. The people be damned. Immediate case in point: feverish last-minute maneuvering in…
When do we start calling the anti-accountability lobby in public education by its true name — the mediocrity lobby? When do we begin to talk about the fact that poor and minority children are not held down half so much by mean rich people as by glad-handing mediocrats who earn…
Apparently not content to quietly leave Baylor University, Art Briles, the school’s deposed head football coach, sued university regents and a school vice president Thursday for defamation and conspiracy. Briles’ suit centers on the claim that he did not, contrary to statements made by regents and the university, know about…
Last week, when Texas state Senator Konni Burton filed Senate Bill 242, she made it clear that the bill was about fixing a specific problem. It was wrong, she said, when Fort Worth Independent School District created regulations to protect transgender kids this year but allowed school personnel to not…
Mexican American Heritage was dead on arrival. Just as they promised in September, members of the Texas State Board of Education rejected the book, labeled as “racist,” “inaccurate” and “embarrassing” by opponents. Wednesday’s preliminary vote was 14-0 against adopting the book as a text approved for use in Texas’ classrooms. The…
SMU confirmed Tuesday that racist fliers encouraging white women not to date black men were posted in two residence hall stairways over the weekend. The flier, titled “Why White Women Shouldn’t Date Black Men” was originally published on unamusementpark.com, a white supremacist blog popular with the so-called “alt-right” movement. The…
A Dallas school trustee suggests that maybe the public schools should not help seal their own doom by aiding unilateral exclusive gentrification.
Bullies beware: There is an app coming to Dallas Independent School District. And taxpayers beware, officials there say they know it works because students aren’t using it. The app is called Safetips, and it’s been the focus of a three-year test run at a single school in Arlington, Carter Jr. High School…
A story in yesterday’s Dallas Morning News about a slow-down in turnover among public school principals in Dallas contained this unattributed wisdom: “Experts say a principal needs five years at the same school to make real improvement. When the principals keep changing, so does the teaching staff. Student test scores…
It was impossible Tuesday, at the first Texas State Board of Education meeting discussing a proposed new Mexican-American Studies textbook, to find anyone willing to say they believed the text was fit for Texas classrooms. Attendees called book in question, Mexican American Heritage, racist, inaccurate and embarrassing for the state…
Donald Trump has a point. When he asks black voters what the hell they have to lose, he misses nuances and conflates things that shouldn’t be conflated. But he has a point. And we are the living proof of his point here in Dallas. Last week the three African-American members…
Let’s back off 10 feet and look at both the nose and the tail of this rat now gnawing at the city’s new downtown law school. The University of North Texas Dallas College of Law (DCL), about to begin its third year of operation, is threatened with non-accreditation by the…
Monday, Texas public universities ushered in the first day of a new reality. Anyone on campus licensed to carry a handgun is now legally allowed to do so on portions of state owned, four-year college campuses, thanks to a bill passed during the 2015 legislative session. On Tuesday, Texas Attorney…
On a sunny morning in early May, a wayward DART bus pulled to a stop in front of Paul Laurence Dunbar Learning Center in South Dallas. From the porches of tumbledown homes, neighbors glanced with mild curiosity as the school’s principal, Dionel Waters, stepped aboard. Waiting for him on the…
Oh, happy day. Under a recent edict, Dallas school kids now will have to take fewer tests. And, as we all know, testing is a form of child abuse invented by testophiles. Why else would any decent adult ever make a kid take a test? Why, indeed? I thought we might…
Reality check. That’s all. I just thought you might like to know that Texas now leads the nation in spending more on prisons than schools. To be sure, we spend more on public education in Texas than we used to. State and local expenditures for pre-K thorugh 12th grade increased…
When the Texas Legislature decided to allow the licensed, concealed carry of handguns on the state’s public university campuses, it gave the state’s schools until the beginning of the 2016-2017 academic year to get things figured out. On Wednesday, the University of Texas at Austin finalized what campus carry will…
When grief and profound mistrust swirl together in a threatening cloud above our heads as they have this past week, we should be forgiven the occasional lapse into fear and even despair. But even one moment of fear and despair may mask a more important reality: There are specific pragmatic…
Late Wednesday, former Baylor University Head Football Coach Art Briles asked a federal court to remove him as a defendant in a lawsuit brought against the school by a former student who claimed she was raped by a player. That player, Tevin Elliot, who has been convicted and sent to prison…
Huge news just happened at the Dallas Independent School District. It’s a story that solves the riddle of school reform and ought to end the debate about former Superintendent Mike Miles, at least among people with any intellectual honesty. But it’s about to slide by us virtually unnoticed. First, a…
Ester Zapata’s sister and brother attended Mount Auburn Elementary. Zapata’s two eldest children, now 24 and 18, went there as well. So when it came time for her youngest, Emily, to enter kindergarten, there was no question that she’d follow in the footsteps of her aunt and uncle and brother…
