I’ve been getting all kinds of e-mails in recent days concerning tomorrow’s meeting of the Dallas Independent School District’s board of trustees, which will discuss changing the way students are admitted into vanguards, academies and magnets. Last week word was there’d be a lottery system of some kind included in…
Way back in June we mentioned that a federal judge told the Royal Lane-based Institute for Creation Research that its lawsuit against the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board didn’t stand a holy ghost of a chance — mostly because, well, it didn’t make a lick of sense. Which is to…
Reggie Bush is a liar. Should Vince Young be a Heisman winner? That’s the contention of Texas coach Mack Brown, who says – if – the Heisman Trophy Trust yanks back its 2005 award from the Southern Cal running back it should be handed over to former Longhorns’ quarterback Vince…
About two months back, Dallas Independent School District trustee Carla Ranger blasted the district’s no-grade-lower-than-a-50 policy (again), this time by insisting it violated state law. Ranger’s comments followed a ruling by State District Judge Gisela Triana-Doyal, who slapped down 11 Houston-area districts’ similar min-grade requirements. Three years after the district…
We’ve all been hearing for months that upon Dallas Independent School District students’ return to school next week, they’d find among their lunchtime offerings considerably healthier dishes than the slim pickings of yore. But with first bell but days away, and not much time before that ol’ game of “Bring…
Countless times, Dallas Independent School District spokesman Jon Dahlander has said: The district has no plans to raze W.H. Adamson High School, due for an expansion sooner than later. But the district also doesn’t want the historic Oak Cliff school designated as a city landmark — which, after tonight’s meeting…
At this late date, there are enough caveats accompanying U.S. News and World Report’s annual college rankings that no one would confuse this with science. Buried within the fine print, this is how the magazine answers the why-even-bother question: “You wouldn’t go out and buy a computer or a car…
Not sure I get all the hype over Texas this year. I know the Big 12 media picked Oklahoma to win the South, but Texas is ranked No. 4 by Sports Illustrated and – uh-oh – on the cover this week. Last time I checked UT lost a quarterback named…
One week ago today the Texas Education Agency sent word: With significant help from the state, the Dallas Independent School District racked up 63 exemplary schools, while several high schools long on the academically unacceptable list finally get a reprieve. Not all was well, as dropout and completion rates knocked…
The Dallas Independent School District’s spent the summer break spending 2008 bond money renovating 79 campuses. Says Superintendent Michael Hinojosa, “When teachers, staff and students return to many of their campuses next month, they will begin to see how these improvements will positively impact the learning environment.” To celebrate this…
We warned you in early June, when the Dallas Independent School District crunched some TAKS test scores and released its list of exemplary and recognized schools well ahead of the Texas Education Agency’s official date of, well, today: Those numbers were very preliminary. As TEA spokesperson DeEtta Culbertson reminded in…
The headline reads “4 in 10 Texas teachers moonlight to make ends meet.” But based upon the results of a survey of Texas teachers by Sam Houston State University, commissioned and released today by the Texas State Teachers Association, it could just as likely read, “Only 28.8 percent of Texas…
Five weeks ago the fate of Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa’s proposed over-age high school was in question, as trustee Bernadette Nutall took the $2-mil proposal from the fast track to the benches for a little look-see. But trustees finally gave it the okee-doke, and this morning the…
Beginning at 9 Sunday morning, three students from W.T. White High School will drive to Colorado in that very ride you see above: a $30,000, corporate-sponsor paid-for experiment nicknamed Quetzalcoatl. (Kids today — what’s wrong with a ’66 Chevelle SS 396 with a a 360 hp, 396 cubic inch engine?)…
Late yesterday afternoon, John McCall Jr. — the former president of the Old Oak Cliff Conservation League and its current attorney — sent word that the future of the old Oak Cliff Christian Church is looking bleaker than ever. Not that the building’s fate has been anything but bleak as…
Not together, mind you — this isn’t a joint project between Ewing Oil and the Hilltop. But both Larry Hagman, now positioning himself as the Anti-Palin, and Southern Methodist are making a singular push for solar power — the former Dallas star in a highly publicized ad for a German…
The football field’s already given way to a Pepsi-sponsored urban farm at Paul Quinn College, and today the school began clearing room for a few new additions to the South Dallas campus: lacrosse and soccer fields, new student dorms and a botanical garden.To clear up the space, the school’s tearing…
In May 2009, Highland Park High School grad Wendy Kopp’s Teach for America — which gives recent college grads a five-week crash course in teaching before dropping them in low-income urban and rural schools — sent close to 100 rookies to Dallas. DISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa celebrated their arrival in…
A Friend of Unfair Park points out that William M. Tsutsui started his new gig yesterday as the dean of SMU’s Dedman College. OK, then. But then I read the release and discovered that the Princeton-, Harvard- and Oxford-educated Tsutsui is “a specialist in the business, environmental and cultural history…
Three years ago, or shortly before the Dallas Independent School District introduced its “effort-based” grading policy, the school board reminded teachers: They were not to give students a grade lower than a 50 for any one grading period. As the great Kent Fischer noted, “The reason given was that students…
Since March, Brett Ferdinand — till days ago, a senior at Cedar Park High School outside of Austin — has been among six students blogging for The New York Times about their efforts to get into college. Most of the stories aren’t especially extraordinary — most, in fact, are about…
At this late date is there really any reason to go back and retell the tale of the Ghost of War on Christmas Past? You remember this, right? Kids at Plano Independent School District elementary schools pass out “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” pencils and Christian-flavored candy canes…
