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…
Yesterday a good Friend of Unfair Park who fought to keep Adamson High School away from the Dallas Independent School District’s wrecking ball suggested it was time we take a closer look at the 107-year-old Davy Crockett School on Carroll Avenue, a designated city historic landmark. The school was given…
Well, who knew? The eyes of Texas have been focused on the GOP primary race between Governor Rick Perry and challenger Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison as the ultimate throwdown between far right and somewhat-less-than far right Republicans. In the meantime, while we weren’t looking, “moderates” may slip in the backdoor…
We’ll have more on this later today, when Uplift Education’s Rosemary Perlmeter has a moment to talk. But for months, we’d been hearing that the Science Place Building 2 — otherwise known as the space housing the Planetarium — might be getting a new tenant. And, sure enough, there it…
The Texas Tribune’s Brian Thevenot has been studying the U.S. Department of Education’s latest pile of funds slated for Texas schools — $390 million aimed at rescuing the lowest performers — and asks whether the program’s good intentions will wreak havoc on schools doing their best to do better. Take,…
DeSoto resident Pamela Bradley, who once worked for the city of Dallas, feels cheated by the education system. She was raised to believe that education leads to better jobs, so she got a master’s degree and started a Ph.D. program. But now Bradley finds herself in this disheartening position: Her annual…
This morning, The Wall Street Journal takes up the issue of newcomers filling up the Plano Independent School District — specifically, “a flood of poor, minority students” whose entry into the district prompted the contentious fight over redistricting. The district voted on a feeder alignment plan on December 15, which…
Friend of Unfair Park The Big Guy just shot us an e-mail with the subject header “Mary Kay > Christopher Columbus.” Also contained within his missive: a link to this Associated Press story about the brewing battle over State Board of Education’s new social studies curriculum standards, for which the…
As we mentioned Monday, the Dallas Independent School District board of trustees will discuss at tomorrow’s meeting its contingency plans for Kimball, Roosevelt, Pinkston and Seagoville high schools should the Texas Education Agency deem them academically unacceptable for a fifth straight year. As DISD spokesman Jon Dahlander pointed out, the…
This morning, during a speech at a Big Brothers Big Sisters benefit breakfast, Mayor Tom Leppert announced a few possible corporate relocations to Dallas — among them, he said, a Fortune 200 company to which he clearly sent an iPhone. But that wasn’t the breaking news that jumped out from…
On Thursday, the Dallas Independent School District’s board of trustees will have their “second reading” of contingency plans for four high schools at risk of being labeled academically unacceptable by the Texas Education Agency for a fifth straight year. The at-risk campuses are Kimball, Pinkston, Roosevelt and Seagoville, and, exactly…
And, speaking of Mark Birnbaum …When last I spoke with the Dallas-based doc maker, he was out and about filming Mayor Tom Leppert and other council members for a short promoting the new convention center hotel. He hasn’t seen the finished film yet — he was but a shooter on…
Right before Christmas, Dallas Independent School District board president Adam Medrano told Unfair Park he is “not sure what can be done at this point” to save the Oak Cliff Christian Church, which DISD purchased in the fall to make way for some piece of the new Adamson High School…
Texas Tech fires head football coach Mike Leach. Two words: Holy. Shit. A saddening, maddening day for Red Raider Nation. My take: It took two to tango, and both Leach and the James family are at fault. Both Texas Tech and Leach will ultimately regret letting this spark burn out of control…
An op-ed, co-written by SMU President R. Gerald Turner, has been circulating through the nation’s newspapers in recent days; here’s yesterday’s pit stop in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in which Turner and William Kirwan, chancellor of the University of Maryland system, argue that college athletics’ business model is “on a path…
