Education

In the end, everything about Hollywood is basically absurd, so the same is true for the prosecution of two actresses, Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, on charges they paid bribes to get their kids into college. But a story based right here in Dallas reminds us that stupid Hollywood tricks…

The Dallas ISD board of trustees voted Thursday night to close a struggling alternative high school and replace it with satellite programs at three campuses. Patton Academic Center, in Oak Cliff, is an alternative school for students who either are over-age or behind in class credits needed to graduate. It’s…

Nearly everyone involved, including Dallas ISD officials, trustees, parents and students, agrees that something needs to be done about John Leslie Patton Jr. Academic Center. Exactly what should be done is another matter. District officials want to shutter the school and move its students and the services it offers them…

A former Baylor University economics professor is suing the university, accusing officials there of mishandling sexual misconduct claims against him. The professor, who is identified in court documents as John Doe, resigned from the university last year amid an investigation into the professor’s relationship with a student. In the lawsuit,…

For the last eight years, a group of Baylor University students has been trying to persuade the school to allow them to form an LGBTQ student group. Earlier this month, the group got an official answer from the university. It wasn’t the one they’d hoped for. Baylor officials notified members…

Among dozens of changes included in a school finance reform bill Gov. Greg Abbott signed earlier this year, lawmakers included a provision that sends new money to school districts across the state and requires them to use it to expand their half-day prekindergarten classes to full-day. But weeks into the…

In 2017, Texas lawmakers passed a bill barring school districts across the state from placing their youngest students in out-of-school suspension. But the following year, a handful of North Texas schools continued suspending those students, according to a new report from Texans Care for Children, a nonpartisan policy organization. Fort…

Two years ago, when Texas lawmakers reworked the way the state’s colleges and universities handle remedial courses, they hoped to find a solution that would help students who weren’t college-ready get up to speed in a way that wouldn’t derail their academic careers. One year after the new model went…

Dallas school leaders are confident they know how to pull the district’s lowest-performing schools up in next year’s school assessments, they told members of the school board Thursday afternoon. The Dallas ISD board discussed the district’s performance on the Texas Education Agency’s A-F ratings at a board workshop Thursday. Dallas…

Dallas ISD continued to perform above average in a new round of state A-F district ratings released Thursday. The district scored a B rating for the 2018-2019 school year, the same grade it received the year before. But twice as many schools in the district received failing marks in this…

Beginning this fall, Texas students will learn a fact that’s as true today as it was in 1861: Texas and the 10 other states that made up the Confederacy seceded from the Union over the issue of slavery. New state social studies standards for fifth and seventh grades require students…

Five years after it began, Dallas ISD’s revamping of its early learning strategy appears to be paying dividends, according to a report given Thursday to the district’s board of trustees. Derek Little, the district’s assistant superintendent of early learning, told the board that Dallas students who enroll in pre-K programs are…

Beginning next year, Texas will require nearly all high school seniors to apply for federal financial aid before they graduate, whether they plan on going to college or not. One state to the east, education officials in Louisiana created a similar requirement three years ago. Nearly all high school students…

Researchers at two Texas universities are launching a project to document investigations into teacher misconduct in the state for the last two decades. David Thompson, a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and Catherine Robert, a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, are building a…

When the Texas Legislature wrapped up its session in May, lawmakers sent a series of bills to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk designed to put pressure on the state’s colleges and universities to do something about sexual misconduct on their campuses. The new requirements outlined in those bills come at a…

When Texas rolled out its Top 10% Rule in 1997, supporters said it would promote diversity on the state’s college campuses and expand access to students at high schools that don’t typically send students to the state’s top institutions. Two decades later, it appears the program has done none of…

Calls for change are continuing at Texas A&M University a little over a week after a video surfaced online of a student using a series of racist slurs while delivering a fake biology lecture. In the video, the student, who is white, stands in front of a chalkboard, holding a…

Colleges and universities nationwide, including in Texas, are seeing a growing number of instances of white supremacist groups recruiting on their campuses, according to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League. The 2018-19 academic year marked the third consecutive year of growth in white supremacist campus recruiting across the country,…

For the last two years, colleges and universities nationwide, including in North Texas, have seen fewer international students applying to graduate degree programs. But officials at some North Texas universities say they’re seeing signs that international grad students are beginning to come back. Higher-education officials say a healthy population of international…

With state funding in place, school districts across Texas are now looking at the prospect of expanding their half-day prekindergarten programs to full-day. Dallas ISD made the same change about five years ago. The district offers an example both of what other districts should keep in mind when they expand…

Dallas school officials offered the first glimpse Thursday of a plan to offer raises to teachers in the district. At a budget workshop, officials proposed spending $30.1 million on salary increases for certain teachers and raising the salary for new hires. The proposal calls for increasing the number of distinguished…