Education

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…

The $11.5 billion public education bill passed by the Texas House and Senate last week is proof that Texans are getting smarter, especially those who thought they were already smart, like education reformers. Intently focused for the last two decades on clearing the sludge out of the state’s public school…

A bill that would overhaul Texas’ college credit transfer system is on its way to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. Senate Bill 25 seeks to help students avoid losing course credits when they transfer from community colleges to four-year colleges and universities. Both houses of the Legislature approved the bill last…

Texas’ big three — Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dennis Bonnen — effectively ended the state’s 2019 legislative session Thursday, announcing that the Legislature had reached a deal on school finance reform. With the agreement, the Legislature has settled its three biggest priorities for 2019:…

When the University of Texas at Arlington announced last month that it would prohibit its fraternities and sororities from holding social events on campus, it joined a growing list of colleges and universities that are taking action against their Greek organizations. Over the last several years, a number of colleges…

As lawmakers in Austin work out details of a plan to fix the state’s college transfer process, two North Texas institutions are looking to ease that process between their schools. The University of Texas at Arlington and the Dallas County Community College District signed an agreement Friday that they say…

The Texas Senate unanimously approved a bill Wednesday that is designed to make sure college students lose fewer credits when they transfer from one school to another. Senate Bill 25 reorganizes lower-division courses that many students take at community colleges, making it easier for them to predict which ones will…

This week, the Texas House of Representatives is expected to take up its version of a plan to slow the growth of property tax rates statewide. School officials worry that, depending on what version of that plan makes its way to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk, it could mean a major…

Texas is lagging behind other states in the education it offers to its youngest learners, according to a study released Wednesday. But a plan lawmakers are considering to fund full-day prekindergarten statewide could help turn the state’s early learning program in the right direction, one of that study’s authors said…

Texas Tech University’s medical school will no longer consider race as a factor in admissions, as part of an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education. Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center officials signed the agreement in February, but it was first reported this week by the Wall Street Journal…

The Texas Senate on Tuesday unanimously approved its version of a “landmark” budget bill that includes $9 billion in new money for education and property tax relief. That figure mirrors the one put forward in a budget passed last month by the House of Representatives. But the two houses differ…

Josh Pippins expected to be out of college and a few years into his career by now. Instead, he’s just wrapping up his junior year at the University of Texas at Arlington. When he came to UTA three years ago, Pippins, of Arlington, had taken two years of classes at…

By the time he began teaching Japanese at Skyline High School last year, Stephen Arnquist had allegedly been posting his white supremacist views online for years. School districts routinely conduct background checks on prospective teachers and school staff before hiring them. But how likely is it that one of those…

Lawmakers in both houses of the Texas Legislature agree that the state should invest an additional $9 billion into its public school system. Now, they need to reach an agreement on how to spend that money. At a meeting Wednesday morning, the Senate Finance Committee unanimously approved its version of…

The Texas Senate moved the state one step closer to teachers having guns on their hips in class, voting 28-3 Wednesday to end a requirement that all guns belonging to members of the state’s school marshal program be kept in a locked box. Sen. Brian Birdwell, a Republican who represents…

The University of Texas at Arlington is suspending all social activities at its fraternities and sororities, university officials said Wednesday. University officials didn’t make the move in response to a single incident, but because of “concerns regarding the culture of the fraternal community,” said university spokesman Joe Carpenter. Although the…

Thousands of students in the Dallas Independent School District show up to school each morning not knowing where they’ll sleep that night. Under a bill in the Texas Senate, districts wouldn’t be allowed to suspend such students if they misbehave. Senate Bill 1001 would bar school districts from suspending students…

The Texas House of Representatives’ Public Education Committee unanimously signed off on the chamber’s education package Tuesday, but not before stripping a Dallas ISD-supported provision that would have allowed school districts to give teachers raises based on student performance. Teachers unions have lobbied hard against the merit-pay portion of the proposed…

With just 15 weeks of development time, limited personnel and only the vaguest sense of an idea, the cohort of SMU Guildhall students known as Think Arcade weren’t planning on much past hitting deadlines. They certainly didn’t expect to create a video game, FrostRunner, that would set university records and…

We don’t even yet know how much of it is true, but the $25 million college admissions bribery scandal described in a federal indictment in Massachusetts last week has already ignited a firestorm of blame-laying, which should fill my heart with joy. The blame game, after all, is my personal…