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…
At 9 this morning, many of those facing the loss of their property in the Jubilee Park land grab will meet with their Dallas Independent School District trustee, Bernadette Nutall, at DISD’s Ross Avenue HQ. We’re not exactly sure who else from DISD will be attending the meeting, though Superintendent…
Yesterday afternoon, before heading to the board meeting at Dallas Independent School District’s Ross Avenue HQ, we stopped by Vickery Wholesale Greenhouse — the lone business that DISD’s seeking to condemn as it moves ahead with plans for a new O.M. Roberts Elementary School building.While the majority of the protesters…
As promised, some 70 protesters marched the sidewalks around Dallas Independent School District’s Ross Avenue HQ in advance of last night’s board meeting. The group of men, women and children — most of whom donned white shirts in a show of solidarity — showed up to oppose the district’s plan…
Yesterday Patrick Michels brought back this report from Dallas City Hall, where Mayor Tom Leppert and Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa introduced the so-called the West Dallas “School Zone,” a public-private partnership involving charter schools and a “leadership academy.” But on her blog this morning, DISD school board…
This morning’s mayor’s breakfast at City Hall featured a parade of speakers covering the need for big-picture reforms in West Dallas education, the sort of shakeups that are remaking schools in such cities as Washington, D.C., New Orleans and New York.Dallas Faith Communities Coalition board president Phil Wise announced the…
Last week, while looking for something entirely unrelated on PACER, I stumbled across a federal lawsuit filed by Dr. Matilda Saenz, who, for the last five years, has been the vice president of instruction at Mountain View College. One week ago today I asked Dallas County Community College District reps…
1972 – The HERD – Side 2 : Track 4 – “Oye Como Va” from Carter Cowboy on Vimeo.My favorite doc in the about-to-wrap Dallas International Film Festival was Thunder Soul, about the Kashmere Stage Band straight outta Houston in the can-you-dig-it 1970s. Perhaps a sequel, then, about the David…
Over the weekend, New York Times personal finance writer Tara Siegel Bernard visited with Sunset High School’s Mathew Frost, an 11th and 12th grade American history and economics teacher giving his students a real-world look at how to balance the books. In other words, he’s teaching to the actual test…
Just went over to the Dallas Independent School District’s Web site to look at something else when I found this newly posted release: “Three schools launching a pilot program to give parents online access to their child’s academic progress.” It’s pretty self-explanatory: In May the DISD will let parents at…
UNT Dallas and the surrounding area from UNT Dallas on Vimeo.That video above was just posted to Vimeo by the University of North Texas at Dallas — but says here it was sent out a couple of weeks ago to “the Board of Regents, potential donors, the Texas legislature, and…
Perhaps you’ve seen the promotional materials — they’ve been everywhere during the past five years, as the Dallas Independent School District (and superintendent Michael Hinojosa, especially) eased on down that Road to Broad, so named for the $2 million award given to urban school districts who made “the greatest progress…
SMU sends words of a media and human rights symposium set for next week — which includes a tribute to director Rob Epstein, two-time Oscar winner for co-directing the docs The Times of Harvey Milk and Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt. And the April 6 night tribute-to and conversation-with…
It took a while for Patrick “Buzz” Williams to get State Board of Education candidate George Clayton on the phone before the GOP primary earlier this month, but he finally did — long enough to ask the North Dallas High School teacher, then considered a long shot to beat incumbent…
Thanks to Larry James, I just spent the better part of an hour getting better acquainted with the 8-year-old Process Access Dallas, a coalition of thousands of physicians and more than a dozen hospitals — and many, many more working under the auspices of the Dallas County Medical Society –…
Allen Gwinn over at www.dallas.org has posted a report from DISD’s Office of Professional Responsibility about its investigation of Maria C. Silva, former manager of the district’s Adult Basic Education Department. The typical journalese way to describe the report would be “scathing.” A more accurate description would probably be “holy-crap-I’m-glad-she’s-not-my-boss.”If…
Speaking of the Dallas Independent School District board of trustees…Only a few days ago, Tawnell Hobbs was noting how there seems to be very little interest in the forthcoming election for the Dallas Independent School District board of trustees, scheduled for May 8. In fact, till Tuesday, Lew Blackburn and…
I’ve got a copy of Diane Ravitch’s latest tome on my bedside table — just haven’t found the time or fortitude to plow through the Houston native and former secretary of education’s “intellectual crisis” and subsequent “U-turn,” as The New York Times put it a few days ago. Because, once…
After a couple of weeks playing phone tag, Unfair Park finally managed to connect with George M. Clayton, the District 12 State Board of Education candidate opposing incumbent Geraldine “Tincy” Miller in Tuesday’s GOP primary. Clayton has been something of a mystery man to the Republican Party folk and state…
My wife just dropped by our son’s Northwest Dallas DISD elementary school to do some volunteer work in the library. But as soon as she arrived, best I can tell, the principal put Everette Lee DeGolyer on lockdown. Why? I called the front office as soon as I got my…
