Dallas ISD Has the Best High School in the Country. Again.

For all the roiling arguments surrounding Dallas ISD — over governance and closing achievement gaps and teacher pay and whatever else two adults might possibly disagree on — there’s one topic over which there is little debate: Dallas ISD does magnet schools right. Just in case you needed a reminder,…

Dallas ISD Home-Rule Debate Has Been Great for Mike Miles

You know the debate over public schools in Dallas has gone squirrely when retired teacher and education activist advocate Bill Betzen stands before the City Council and offers implicit approval of Mike Miles’ tenure as DISD superintendent. Betzen, speaking in advance of a council discussion on the home-rule proposal for…

Texas Might Finally Approve a Mexican-American Studies Course Today

High school students in Texas can take, and get credit toward, electives like floral arrangement, team sport officiating, and turf-grass management. But not for Mexican-American studies, something activists, education groups, and several dozen state lawmakers are pushing to change. They came out in force for Tuesday’s State Board of Education…

SMU Students Aren’t Quite Ready For Increased LGBT Representation

Two years ago, SMU finally climbed off the Princeton Review’s list of the country’s most “LGBT-unfriendly” schools. The news was welcomed by administrators, who have worked hard to shed the university’s homophobic image, but it hardly meant that The Hilltop had suddenly become a bastion of progressive inclusiveness. Case in…

Texas Now Just Fifth to Last In Per-Student Education Spending

The Texas legislature’s decision to cut $5.4 billion from the public education budget three years ago had some rather predictable consequences: fewer teachers, larger class sizes and a sizable drop in the telling funding-per-pupil metric. Texas promptly dropped to 49th on the latter metric among states and Washington, D.C. This…

Dallas ISD Trustees Are Skeptical of Shadowy Home-Rule District Push

There are plenty of very good reasons to blow up Dallas ISD’s board of trustees. Its meetings are long, petty and often unproductive. In a district that’s more than two-thirds Hispanic, just one of its nine members is the same. Choosing trustees by geographic district discourages district-wide thinking and encourages…