Education

In two days, DISD school board trustee elections will be upon us, and we of Unfair Park are way more stoked than we have any right to be. Obviously, we’re particularly excited about the District 9 race between the incumbent Bernadette Nutall and her 20-year-old challenger, Damarcus Offord. You can…

Is it any wonder that Prime Prep Academy, the charter school hyped by Deion Sanders, is accepting triple the number of students that most charter schools accept in their first year? Everything about the place has been propped up with hopeful grandeur. Sanders, the school’s co-founder and spokesperson (though he…

Two Dallas high schools — the School for the Talented and Gifted and the School of Science and Engineering Magnet — didn’t just survive the multi-stage culling process U.S. News and World Report used to arrive at a list of the country’s 97 cream-of-the-crop schools. They snagged two of the…

Early last week, before the start of his ongoing divorce hearing with dramatics suited for a soap opera, former Cowboy Deion Sanders tweeted the above photo. It looks like a boring portrait of three wide-smiling, well-dressed men. In fact, the photo is quite revealing of the tangle of lies behind…

We tuned in to the Dallas ISD’s District 9 school board trustee forum on KHVN 970 yesterday between incumbent Bernadette Nutall and her challenger, 20-year-old Damarcus Offord. Host Robert Ashley and his station, it turns out, moderated the best debate thus far. The two clearly don’t like each other (nothing…

Mike Miles named Dallas ISD Superintendent from Dallas Independent School Dist on Vimeo. Yesterday we raised some questions about how the Dallas Independent School District might handle the employment contract of Mike Miles, the district’s new superintendent. Those details emerged last night — you’ll find Miles’ address above — and…

The Dallas Independent School District is expected to officially hire Mike Miles, a former Army Ranger and U.S. Senate candidate and the superintendent of a small school district in Colorado, as its top official later today. Although Miles was named a “lone finalist” a few weeks back, his hiring was…

Elliot Monteverde-Torres’ teaching career is still on pause, nearly two months after he filed a complaint about goings-on inside Botello Elementary School — and he’s heard almost nothing from DISD about his “potential misconduct,” he says. Monteverde-Torres was placed on paid leave following his allegations of BB guns being brought…

So much happening on the education front these days. Earlier this week, Mayor Mike Rawlings broke with tradition and endorsed candidates for Dallas Independent School District’s board. Not in his capacity as mayor, of course. That would be against the city’s ethics rules. No, this was just good ol’ Mike…

Allow us to introduce Gail Spurlock, a Republican from Richardson seeking her party’s nom for the State Board of Education seat. She has some interesting things to say about history in this interview with the North Texas Council, a group “concerned with the direction our country is taking with regards…

We all remember the Kwik Stop protests, right? When some black civic leaders led some of their constituents in a picket against a South Dallas Korean storeowner named Tommy Pak, increasing racial tensions in the neighborhood until media braved the Trinity to report on the story and found that, actually,…

I got a call from Damarcus Offord yesterday. The 20-year-old school-board candidate sounded excited, energized. “Did you read the email I sent?” he asked. “Did you see the poll?” I did not, so then I did. “Damarcus Offord is a candidate running in the May 12 election for DISD School…

Only three out of every 100 black students in Dallas Independent School District graduate ready for college. Among black students entering DISD high schools as freshmen, 28 percent don’t graduate at all. Those are some of the findings in a report DISD District 9 trustee Bernadette Nutall passed on to…

In the spirit of last night’s D-slash-TED-slash-SMU DISD Education Forum at the Kessler — which asked each school board candidate one and only one randomly drawn question — here are some rapid-fire observations from an evening that, while admirably efficient, was over not long after it started. 1. School Board…

A week after a whistle-blowing teacher was suspended without explanation, parents at Botello Elementary in Oak Cliff say they are fed up with the lack of information about what they call the “illegal presence of firearms and drugs in school.” (See correction at bottom.) In a letter to district officials…

In a fiery town hall debate last night, held in Fair Park’s African-American Museum, Dallas ISD trustee Bernadette Nutall and 20-year-old upstart Damarcus Offord both tried their hardest to prove, for better or for worse, that they were nothing like their competitor. The majority of the 100 or so people…

Yesterday, Mike Miles, an Army Ranger turned education reformer, was named the lone finalist for Dallas Independent School District’s superintendent job. Today begins 21 days of tire-kicking, a mandatory waiting and vetting period before the district and Miles can officially wed. Plenty of people will do all that kicking, including…

Prediction: The next few weeks may not be a ton of fun for Mike Miles. Miles, the superintendent of Harrison School District Two in Colorado Springs, was named the lone finalist for the top job in Dallas ISD at a meeting this afternoon. The board, which voted 8-0 (with Carla…

On Monday, we told you the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had published a broad investigation concluding that hundreds of school districts, including Dallas Independent School District, displayed “troubling test patterns” that could indicate widespread cheating. That day, DISD spokesman Jon Dahlander said the district had been aggressively investigating suspicious test activity for…

Update, 3 p.m.: Elliot Monteverde-Torres, the teacher suspended after blowing the whistle on his principal, was denied a contract renewal for next school year in the weeks before he sent the complaint letter. See details after the original item. Original item: The News’ Matthew Haag has a story in this…

Alternative elementary schools used for discipline are a “pipeline to prison” and a drain on Dallas Independent School District’s budget that should be closed, a group of DISD parents and activists said today. Alternative school opponents waded across the unkempt lawn at NW Harllee Elementary school in southern Dallas to…