Latest Stories

• 
  Texas House Drops Dallas ISD-Backed Merit-Pay Plan for Teachers

  March 20 at 4 a.m.

  The Texas House of Representatives’ Public Education Committee unanimously signed off on the chamber’s education package Tuesday, but not before stripping a Dallas ISD-supported provision that would have allowed school districts to give teachers raises based on student performance. Teachers unions have lobbied hard against the merit-pay portion of the proposed...

• 
  Student Game Makers at SMU's Guildhall Score a Surprise Hit With a Class Assignment, Frostrunner

  March 19 at 4 a.m.

  With just 15 weeks of development time, limited personnel and only the vaguest sense of an idea, the cohort of SMU Guildhall students known as Think Arcade weren't planning on much past hitting deadlines. They certainly didn't expect to create a video game, FrostRunner, that would set university records and...

• 
  In Texas, We Try to Indict Whoever Finds the College Admissions Cheating

  March 18 at 4 a.m.

  We don’t even yet know how much of it is true, but the $25 million college admissions bribery scandal described in a federal indictment in Massachusetts last week has already ignited a firestorm of blame-laying, which should fill my heart with joy. The blame game, after all, is my personal...

• 
  Texas Democrats' School Finance Plan Would Save Dallasites Some Coin

  February 22 at 4 a.m.

  Texas House Democrats want full-day pre-kindergarten for every public school student in the state, raises for all school personnel and property tax cuts for Texas homeowners as part of their school finance reform package, they announced Thursday in Austin. The proposals would come at a big cost, some $16.2 billion...

• 
  New Student Loan Data Highlights Dallas Gen Xers' Precarious Spot

  January 21 at 4 a.m.

  Frequently, when we write about Dallas' lack of affordable apartments, stagnating median wage or unattainable mortgages, we're talking about those costs in reference to Dallas' quickest growing demographic — millennials. They're the generational cohort, roughly ages 23 to 38, that can't afford their student loans, can't buy a house and...

• 
  Texas School Debate Could Make a Liberal Nostalgic for the Bathroom Bill

  January 21 at 4 a.m.

  I liked the previous session of the Texas Legislature a lot better. The Republicans concentrated on what I consider to be their innate concerns – dehumanizing women, disenfranchising minorities and putting Big Brother in the bathroom. I didn’t like what they did, but I did like that they wanted to...