Students in the halls of McKinney North High School were placed on lockdown at about 11 a.m. Friday after a student died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in an empty classroom. Two days later, in a parking lot next to the school’s sports building, hundreds gathered to sort out their…
There are things in the news these days to make us all cry inside. I’m thinking of the Roseanne story and what it really says about us. So I had to share this local story. This is the opposite kind of story. It actually gave me a lump in the…
Gov. Greg Abbott’s new school safety plan, unveiled at Dallas ISD headquarters, is voluminous, if not at all unexpected. The governor, seemingly chastened by the murder of 10 students and teachers at a high school in Santa Fe earlier this month, told reporters Wednesday morning that Texas schools need better…
The outrage that came to Southern Methodist University last week after news stories heralded a “racist survey” conducted by the university, is precisely the kind of outrage that led SMU to conduct the survey in the first place. The survey is only one leg of a seven-year project at SMU…
Charter schools in North Texas ranked lower overall in quality than traditional public schools in the state, according to a recent report by Children At Risk, and charter schools serving primarily black or Latino students did worst of all in terms of achievement. When a Texas school falls short of…
University of North Texas communications student Chelsea Shaw wants a campus restaurant to close after a student employee typed a racial slur on her receipt Tuesday afternoon. The student employee, who was later identified as the chef, typed the N-word on Shaw’s receipt instead of asking for her name. Both…
Activists in Austin got something Wednesday for which they’ve pushed for almost five years. The Texas State Board of Education gave preliminary approval to a Mexican-American studies elective for high school students, closing out a debate that began with an unsuccessful attempt in 2014. They couldn’t do so, however, without…
I don’t make ’em up, folks. I just try to keep up. Sometimes I need to just tell you about a thing — just put it out there on the table and say, “Go figure.” Last week, President Donald Trump’s secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, came through town as the…
Thursday afternoon’s conversation, like a lot of things involving Betsy DeVos, teetered among the surreal, the confusing and the merely frustrating. The secretary of education and private school choice advocate was in the midst of a hostile crowd but did her best to seem engaged without out actually engaging. DeVos…
Former Dallas County Schools Superintendent Rick Sorrells faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty Monday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud during his time at the school bus service between 2011 and 2016. Sorrells took more than $3 million in cash and other assets from a company…
An op-ed piece in yesterday’s New York Times reminded me that somebody needs to write a book — maybe I’ll do it — called What White People Think Black People Think. The essay by David Leonhardt was headlined “A winning political issue hiding in plain sight.” It said political research…
A Plano City Council member is under fire after posting a video to Facebook calling on President Donald Trump to “ban Islam in American schools.” The video, posted Tuesday night by Tom Harrison, first elected to an at-large spot on the council in 2015, rotates through several photos of happy…
Dallas ISD wants its students and employees to be prepared in the event that the federal government allows protections provided by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to expire later this year, district Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said Thursday at event unveiling his district’s new website for DACA recipients and their…
The 2017-18 flu season, according to both experts and rising death tolls around North Texas, is one of the worst of the last two decades. In Dallas County alone, 54 people have died from the flu. As the flu season continues to take its toll on DFW, schools around the…
Dallas County Commissioners Court refused a request for cash from Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings on Tuesday, turning down the mayor’s plea for $1.2 million to help the city make up the costs of the school crossing guard program that fell into Dallas’ lap after voters decided to disband Dallas County…
Mike Morath inherited one of the toughest jobs in Texas when Gov. Greg Abbott appointed him Texas education commissioner in 2015. At the time, he was a Dallas ISD trustee known for his reform work. Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick praised Morath’s ability to lead…
Less than a month after U.S. Rep. Pete Session voted for the GOP’s sweeping overhaul of the federal tax system, the Dallas congressman pushed back Thursday on one of the bill’s most controversial provisions, asking his colleagues in the House to dump a provision that could cost U.S. university students…
If a former FBI agent now working as an investigator completes a months-long probe of a local unit of government and says in his final report that Larry Duncan, the top elected official and a well-known political figure in the city, may be guilty of bribery, is that not a…
Here’s a decent little window on the wars within our sprawling urban school district right now. The big news is stunning. The small news is infuriating. A couple of weeks ago Dallas school district executives gave the board of trustees a full hard-numbers briefing on outcomes from the district’s 3-year-old…
The University of Texas at Arlington is one bout away from scoring its first major championship in front of a roaring crowd in a Las Vegas stadium. The only things standing in its way are the best and the brightest from Louisiana State University and their offensive line of deadly assassins…
Dallas County voters cast ballots Tuesday to kill a school district — kill a school district — by a margin of almost 17 percentage points. What does that mean? All right, you and I know the backstory on this particular so-called school district — not a real school district, quarter-million-dollar…
Wednesday’s cold, rainy morning was busy as usual for Dallas ISD and all of its students who take buses to get to school. But the nine school districts that receive bus service from Dallas County Schools will have to find new transportation after voters’ Tuesday night decision to shut down…
