In Dallas, the estimated number of homeless kids has been dismal recently. The Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance reports that the population of unaccompanied homeless kids is up 108 percent in just the last few years, and the number of homeless families is up 60 percent. And a recent Department of…
Highland Park High School announced it would be suspending seven books from the high school reading list, just in time for Banned Books Week. So what’s wrong with the books? Each of the seven, award-winning texts feature themes about sexuality or include passages that some parents find too racy. See…
Since allegations surfaced that NFL star Adrian Peterson abused multiple children at his Texas home, debate has swirled between pro- and anti-spanking parents. For the majority of North Texas schools, though, there’s no question: Spare the rod, spoil the child is official district disciplinary policy in all but a handful…
It’s been a rough week for State Board of Education members, who have upheld their loyalty to TEKS social studies requirements despite bipartisan opposition (although for different reasons, of course). On Tuesday, the board heard public commentary against proposed social studies textbooks. The publishers, required to conform outrageously biased state…
The internet has gone wild over the past few days with news that Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings is facing child abuse charges after disciplining his 4-year-old son with a switch, and was separately accused of leaving a scar on another 4-year-old son’s face. A native of Palestine, Texas,…
A kid who was suspended 10 days from high school is super awesome, according to a federal lawsuit filed by his parents. “He is currently taking honors classes and a higher level math class than most of his peers,” says a suit filed by his mother, Tiffany Macklin. The boy,…
As if Texas social studies textbooks haven’t been getting enough flack for pointed political and religious biases, a report released Monday by the National Center for Science Education highlights inaccuracies about climate change in proposed state textbooks. See also: SMU Academics Speak Out Against Political and Religious Bias in Texas…
Highland Park ISD plans to launch an elementary-level Spanish learning program next year. It’s a project that most in the district are embracing — after all, multilingualism is linked to dozens of developmental benefits. Bilingual individuals are often smarter, better listeners and in later life may see a delay in…
Social studies textbooks have been under increasing scrutiny this year, as the successor to the science textbook controversy last year. For the first time in 12 years, the State Board of Education will review social studies textbooks, this time under social studies standards put in place in 2010. This time,…
Congrats to the concerned parents of Lakewood Elementary. Seriously. You guys piled into a public meeting and shot down a Dallas ISD proposal to stick a Verizon cell tower on the school’s roof. That’s how democracy’s supposed to work. Good on DISD, too, which has the bureaucratic heft to plow…
In the 2013 legislative session, state Representative Roland Gutierrez from San Antonio amended an education bill to require the Texas Education Agency to find out whether bigger Texas school districts would be better. In a word, no. See also: State Rep. Jason Villalba Threatens to Split DISD if it Doesn’t…
Three years ago, the state rolled out the shiny new STAAR exam, the Cadillac of state tests as far as the State Board of Education was concerned. It came after decades of testing overhauls and cumbersome acronyms, from TEAMS to TAAS to TAKS, all based on TEKS curriculum requirements. Fill…
Redrawing school district lines is a controversial issue that has been getting plenty of attention this year from Baton Rouge to Salt Lake City. Now state Representative Jason Villalba says he might propose splitting Dallas ISD into separate districts during the next legislative session if smaller reforms fail to pass…
Last week’s ruling by a state judge in Austin reaffirming that Texas’ method of financing public schools is unconstitutional gives the Legislature a chance to repair a “resource gap” that’s failing a growing population of impoverished children, Dallas school Superintendent Mike Miles says. On Thursday, Judge John Dietz issued a…
Midlothian ISD Superintendent Jerome Stewart said Thursday that two overtly Christian plaques attached to elementary schools would remain uncovered for the time being. The plaques, which have adorned the schools for 17 without complaint, are the subject of a June 30 letter to the district from the Freedom from Religion…
Every year districts typically fall short of the number of kids expected on the first day. Between personal issues and confusion or simple failure to meet registration deadlines, it’s an annual problem most districts have to combat. Approximately 17,448 kids did not show up Monday for the first day of…
America is the best place ever. Everyone knows that except, it seems, our educators. The College Board is rolling out new guidelines this year for the Advanced Placement U.S. history exams that has some Texas School Board members crying foul. Ken Mercer, noted conservative school board member, says the new…
Denton ISD’s new grading policy rolls out today with the first day of school, to the delight of middle and high school students and the chagrin of their teachers. The district-wide policy veritably ensures that Denton students have to work harder to fail than to pass their classes. Their future…
This year marks the third year in a row that Texas Woman’s University in Denton will contract with a local Holiday Inn to provide housing for students. More than 100 students will be assigned to the off campus hotel that has been haphazardly labeled as campus housing. “Students who have…
Exactly one year ago, Dallas ISD’s Student Intake Center began taking responsibility for every immigrant student coming into the district. The Center focuses on processing the kids who have never attended American schools before, by checking immunization records and other documents, and evaluating their level of education. The Center is…
The Little Free Library project has established a national reputation for encouraging local literacy among kids. The Wisconsin-based group was founded in 2009 and encourages neighborhoods to set up small boxes of books for kids to read and return. The idea of the Little Free Library project is that people…
The Princeton Review on Monday released its annual package of mostly arbitrary lists about colleges that are fun to talk about but don’t really mean anything. The rankings feature categories such as “Birkenstock-Wearing, Tree-Hugging, Clove-Smoking Vegetarians,” “Stone-Cold-Sober Schools” and “Is It Food.” So, when local schools show up on the…
