Wait, Is Dallas About to Provide a Bright Spot for Texas Education?

In the late 1950s, my mother, a second-grade teacher, left her job in an affluent all-white suburb of Detroit to teach at an almost all-black school in Pontiac, Michigan. She believed that more cutting edge work was being done there in early education. Not long into her tenure at Bethune Elementary, she…

Texas House Follows Dallas By Banning School Suspensions for Youngest Kids

Picking up where the Dallas ISD school board left off earlier this year, the Texas House of Representatives voted Tuesday to ban the state’s public schools from suspending students attending pre-kindergarten through second grade. Like Dallas, the proposed state wide policy includes an exception for extreme behavioral issues like violent…

Dallas State Senator Rolls Out Bill to Kill Dallas County Schools

As he promised he would to the Observer’s Jim Schutze a couple of weeks ago, Dallas state Senator Don Huffines filed a bill Tuesday afternoon to get rid of Dallas County Schools, the school district that doesn’t operate any schools. Dallas County Schools, for the uninitiated or confused, runs the…

Texas Lt. Gov. Patrick Rolls Out Details of School Choice Plan

School vouchers, by another name, are apparently just as sweet to Texas’ Republican leadership and the state’s advocates for school choice. Monday afternoon at the Texas State Capitol, Dan Patrick joined with parents and state senators to announce Senate Bill 3, the 2017 legislative session’s biggest school choice bill. Rather than…

Dallas ISD Wary as Texas State Leaders Push School Choice

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…

Gov. Abbott Rushes to Cut Off Supreme Court on UT Admissions Scandal

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…

Art Briles Sues Baylor Regents for Defamation

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…

SMU Dorms Hit With Alt-Right Created Racist Fliers

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…