Joanne Jacobs is a former education-beat reporter at the San Jose Mercury News who left the paper to write the 2005 book Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea, and the School That Beat the Odds, about a charter school in San Jose hellbent on educating…
On this slow news day, just a little Patriots-proud heads-up for, oh, I dunno, Meat Loaf, Olympic silver-medalist Michael Carter, former State District Judge Ron Chapman, Tupinamba main man Eddie Dominguez, former city manager Jan Hart-Black, Monkee Mike Nesmith, smoky-throated actress Brenda Vaccaro, WFAA-Channel 8 morning-show anchor Cynthia Izaguirre and…
Temoc Back in May, Merritt noted the University of Texas at Dallas’s search for a new mascot, one that would replace the rather lazily named Temoc — which, yes, is “Comet” backwards. News of the quest makes the latest issue of The Chronicle of Higher Edcucation’s subscription-only “Mascot Watch,” which…
Only a couple of days ago the Dallas Independent School District Board of Trustees didn’t seem to think the whole furor over the name “Hamon Arts Magnet” was all that big a deal; Edwin Flores told Unfair Park earlier this week he wasn’t even sure why Booker T. Washington High…
So, looks like the Dallas Independent School District’s Board of Trustees meeting tomorrow — a specially called get-together, as they don’t normally meet in July — should be an especially interesting one. Because only a few hours after we posted the item about Joyce Foreman’s displeasure over the Booker T…
Over on her blog, former Dallas Area Rapid Transit board member Joyce Foreman directs our attention to the agenda for Thursday’s meeting of the Dallas Independent School District board. Among the items on the agenda: a reopening of the August 25, 2005, discussion concerning proposed names for new and existing…
After the jump, courtesy the Texas Freedom Network, is SMU associate professor and chair of the school’s Department of Religious Studies Mark Chancey’s statement concerning the Texas State Board of Education’s decision today to adopt vague standards when it comes to teaching elective Bible course in public high school classrooms…
Thomas Urquidez and his wife, with some of the T.J. Patriots who’ve achieved Academic Success Sure, fine — you can “T.J. Who?” me all you want. Won’t make a difference. Not today, as Friend of Unfair Park and Dallas Independent School District yeasayer Louisa Meyer sends word that 21 kids…
So, the Dallas Independent School District audit is done — and posted to the district’s Web site, even, for those who can make heads or tails of the 133-page report that comes down on the district for its poor accounting and inability or unwillingness to track how it spends money,…
H. Grady Spruce High School, for now No doubt you’re aware that some time after 5:30 today, the Dallas Independent School District Board will take up the issue of what to do with H. Grady Spruce High School, as the school on Old Seagoville Road is considered “academically unacceptable” and…
Which is: by laying off 50 central staffers come September 1. That’s according to a memo the Dallas Independent School District just posted to its Web site. The district’s making the move to cover the $4 million budget shortfall, of course; there’s still the matter of the missing audit; and…
Why is this man smiling? No, seriously. Over on The Dallas Morning News’ DISD Blog, Kent Fischer has posted a memo sent today from Kimberly Olson, the district’s chief human development officer, to its executive leadership team and all district principals. In short, the district has instituted a hiring freeze,…
Dallas had but four high schools listed among Newsweek’s list of the top public high schools in the U.S. and A. in 2003 — and back then, the highest-rated among the locals was Highland Park High School, which sat at No. 15 on the list, followed by W.T. White (at…
We began the week with news of Bryan Adams High School outfitting chronic truants with Global Positioning System monitors, which lead to a heated, inevitable debate over their use. And it hasn’t ended: Yesterday, National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation ran a lengthy segment on the devices’ use at…
If the name Becky Beck rings a bell, it’s because she was the whistleblower who, two years ago, notified the feds that a $316,000 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant intended to go toward HIV prevention education efforts was being used by the district on everything but HIV prevention…
Was reading this the other day. Then this. And this. When it struck me: For all its greats and glories, the University of Texas spits out some real goofballs. To be fair, Cedric Benson may prove to be innocent and Roger Clemens may not have taken steroids and Tom Hicks…
This “Comet-like character” is among the proposed mascots for the University of Texas at Dallas. As a former University of Texas at Dallas co-ed, I can safely say it was never clear exactly what we were. Allow me to clarify: For some sports, we were the Comets, local and proud…
DISD school board trustee Carla Ranger As mentioned below, at last night’s meeting of the Dallas Independent School District’s board of trustees, Carla Ranger delivered a speech in which she questioned the ethics of board president Jack Lowe, whose company, it was revealed last weekend, has received some $10 million…
Outside the Dallas Independent School District board of trustees meeting last night, more than a dozen protesters carried signs decrying the $1.35-billion bond proposal and DISD leadership. “F! The sign speaks for itself,” said Pete Peterson, pictured above. “The audit doesn’t look good for the district, and that doesn’t look…
Action figure … or study aid? Shaun Treat’s a Visiting Professor of Rhetoric at the University of North Texas — and, no, I have no idea what that means, not exactly. But just in time for the onslaught of super-hero movies crashing into multiplexii this summer, UNT today has announced…
A D.C.-based nonprofit called Project on Fair Representation today filed a 35-page federal lawsuit against the University of Texas at Austin. The suit claims that the school’s admissions policies kept out a white 18-year-old high-schooler named Abigail Noel Fisher, who, says the very detailed legal docs, is sorta near the…
The nonprofit America’s Promise Alliance of which Colin Powell is the founding chair, this morning released a report titled Cities in Crisis: A Special Analytic Report on High School Graduation, which disputes the notion that 85 percent of all high school students get their diplomas. Says the study, it’s more…
