So, if you’ve got a child in the Dallas Independent School District, as I do, and he or she comes home this afternoon with the wowee-zowee good news that their campus has been ranked, oh, let’s just say exemplary by the Texas Education Agency, don’t get too excited just yet…
Friend of Unfair Park Kyle Rains was kind enough to send us this photo he took of the great Burton Gilliam last night at the Woodrow Wilson High School Senior Dinner, which was held at the Lakewood Theater. The co-star of, among others, Blazing Saddles, Back to the Future III,…
Surely you’re aware that down in Austin at this very moment, the State Board of Education is getting ready to vote on changes to the social studies curriculum taught in public schools. And if a few members of the SBOE get their way (S’up, Cynthia Dunbar? How’s it hangin’, Don…
Speaking of the city’s $131.1-million shortfall …That very subject came up last night at the first DISD Budget Town Hall Meeting held at Walnut Hill Elementary, where school district staffers, principals and board members far outnumbered parents. (There were, maybe, 10 people in the audience not employed by the district.)…
Last we mentioned Uplift Education’s planned “museum” school, the growing charter school network already had the name and start date all picked out, and was even inviting students to apply online. Only one big question mark left to sort out before Laureate Preparatory’s Fall 2010 debut: where to put the…
A Friend of Unfair Park asks that we take a long look at this item posted a few days ago to the legal-eagle blog Above the Law: “SMU Will Pay You To Hire Their Graduates.” You read that right: The SMU Dedman School of Law has started a program called…
Last night, the Dallas Independent School District played host more than 150 folks in a heated — though comfortably air-conditioned — town hall meeting at the century-old O.M. Roberts Elementary School building meant to bring the Jubilee Park neighborhood together to discuss the “past, present and future” of the elementary…
Maybe, maybe not. OK, probably not. But while I was on PACER this afternoon hunting down something unrelated, I thought I’d see if there’d been any resolution in the ongoing legal brouhaha involving Royal Lane-based Institute for Creation Research and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. For those in need…
Whenever we’ve needed to speak to someone rational on the State Board of Education, we’ve always called District 13’s Mavis Knight, who reps parts of Dallas and Tarrant Counties. Very nice; very thoughtful. Also: very tactful — like that time we talked to her about fellow SBOE board member Cynthia…
After reading yesterday’s editorial in The Dallas Morning News about the Dallas Independent School District’s use of eminent domain to shore up land for a new O.M. Roberts Elementary School in the southeast Dallas neighborhood of Jubilee Park, we fired off about a half dozen questions to district spokesperson Jon…
Back in March, you may recall, the University of North Texas told 38 faculty members at the school’s current Dallas campus that, so sorry, but if they want to work at UNT’s new standalone Dallas campus — scheduled to open in 110 days — they’d have to reapply … for…
I just went over to the Dallas Independent School District’s Web site to look for something relating to tomorrow’s school board briefing when I found this: the proposed 2010-2011 budget. I asked DISD spokesman Jon Dahlander if this is the first time the district has posted its would-be budget in…
It looks like all the hubbub the Jubilee Park residents and and business owners have raised in recent weeks concerning their on-going fight to keep the Dallas Independent School District from seizing their land under eminent domain may be starting to pay off. We finally heard back from DISD spokesperson…
On April 1 the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation announced the five finalists for the $2 million 2010 Broad Prize, which goes to urban schools that have made the “greatest progress in America in raising student achievement,” and the Dallas Independent School District was not among them. This, despite the…
SMU sends word that David Meltzer, the university’s anthropology chair, is among the 255 members of the National Academy Science not amused at all with those who’ve been trying to dismiss climate change as a … what did D’s Trey Garrison call it? Oh, right: “Man-Made Climate Change Hoax.” To…
A few Friday follow-ups, beginning with:ABC News has picked up on Gilbert Leal’s mission to bring paddling back to the Dallas Independent School District — despite the fact that the school board and the super ain’t too interested in handing out swats, sorry. Besides, says the exec director of the…
Daniel’s at Dallas City Hall at this very moment, where he’s been sitting through a City Plan Commission meeting way longer than he’d expected. A little while ago they finally got ’round to discussing the six-years-in-the-making Bishop Davis Land Use & Zoning Study, but Daniel sends back word that proceedings…
Superintendent Michael Hinojosa drew a roomful of huzzahs two weeks ago when he announced that DISD was getting involved in a new effort for school reform in West Dallas. A handful of DISD trustees were among the cheering crowd, including Lew Blackburn and board president Adam Medrano, but not Carla…
Gilbert Leal, who (… fondly?) remembers getting swats back at W.H. Gaston Middle School back in the day, wants to bring the paddle back to Dallas Independent School District, just like they’ve done down in Temple. Writes the recent DISD tutor on his Web site, Bring Back Licks:It’s time for…
As expected at 9 this morning, nearly 20 folks assembled in a briefing room at Dallas Independent School District’s Ross Avenue HQ to hear what — if anything — District 9 school board trustee Bernadette Nutall would have to say about DISD’s plans to exercise eminent domain to acquire property…
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 effort in West Dallas — have only succeeded in separating top students in charter schools from lower-performing students…
I can tell you one person who won’t be at that Jubilee Park meeting at DISD HQ taking place right now: DISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa, who’s testifying right now in Washington, D.C., in front of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee about the reauthorization of the Elementary and…
