Intern Courtney’s at 3700 Ross Avenue this very moment, where district officials have indeed confirmed a sudden $64-million shortfall — in the 2007-’08 budget. How’d this happen? Well, see, it’s “complicated,” said superintendent Michael Hinojosa, the result of having more teachers and support staff in the schools. “The majority of…
Four days into the new school year we finally got to spend time with the boy’s terrific, beloved, 31-year-vet homeroom teacher — very exciting stuff, especially when I discovered I could still sit in a kindergartener’s plastic seat without collapsing it. Before that, though, the principal — an ebullient, sincere…
A troubling lead from this morning’s back-to-school report on KERA-FM (90.1): “About 30,000 students were no-shows in classrooms in the Dallas school district yesterday, the first day of the new school year.” And one mother of an H. Grady Spruce High School junior told B.J. Austin that her daughter, who’s…
Apologies for the delay this a.m., but there was a good reason: The boy’s first day as a Dallas Independent School District student. Heck of a moment: He was cool, calm, excited but not nervous. His father, slapped in the face by the familiar smell of DISD hallways on the…
That’s what U.S. News & World Report says, anyway, in its latest ranking of the best colleges in the country. Which puts Southern Methodist behind BaylorRice, the University of Texas and Texas A&M when it comes to the other Texas universities on the list. But don’t feel left out, TCU:…
Dalton Sherman, a a fifth-grader at the Charles Rice Learning Center, was quite the hit at the Dallas Independent School District’s Believe/Achieve Back-To-School Kickoff at the American Airlines Center earlier this week. But the kid’s no rookie at making The Big Speech: Megan Feldman was in awe of the young…
After getting some bad press for its new grading policies, the Dallas Independent School District has posted to its Web site myriad documents explaining them — including one titled “Concerns and Facts.” Of its new grading procedures, the district insists they will “better reflect the more rigorous and effort-based learning…
No matter how you parse it, the Dallas Independent School District’s new do-over (or don’t, whatever) policy when it comes to homework and tests doesn’t sound good — which is why it winds up on Page 2 of The Wall Street Journal this morning. The intention’s good — cutting dropout…
Here is the Texas Education Agency’s July 31 letter to the Dallas Independent School District, informing superintendent Michael Hinojosa and school board president Jack Lowe that the district now has a babysitter looking over its slumped shoulders. The letter, which district officials have kept hidden, warns the DISD that if…
The state’s Commission of Education, Robert Scott This morning, Dallas Independent School District spokesman Jon Dahlander confirmed for me that Texas Commissioner of Education Robert Scott has appointed a special monitor to straighten out the Dallas school district’s academically unacceptable high schools. Dahlander didn’t know about the Texas Education Agency’s…
Looks like Mr. Funny Guy’s done the serious business of clarifying Friday’s Dallas Morning News story about the Dallas Independent School District’s homework’s-for-suckers policy that isn’t, not really, kinda-sorta, maybe just a little? For now, then, a deep, though also deeply suspicious, sigh of relief amongst those of us with…
Joanne Jacobs is a former education-beat reporter at the San Jose Mercury News who left the paper to write the 2005 book Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea, and the School That Beat the Odds, about a charter school in San Jose hellbent on educating…
On this slow news day, just a little Patriots-proud heads-up for, oh, I dunno, Meat Loaf, Olympic silver-medalist Michael Carter, former State District Judge Ron Chapman, Tupinamba main man Eddie Dominguez, former city manager Jan Hart-Black, Monkee Mike Nesmith, smoky-throated actress Brenda Vaccaro, WFAA-Channel 8 morning-show anchor Cynthia Izaguirre and…
Temoc Back in May, Merritt noted the University of Texas at Dallas’s search for a new mascot, one that would replace the rather lazily named Temoc — which, yes, is “Comet” backwards. News of the quest makes the latest issue of The Chronicle of Higher Edcucation’s subscription-only “Mascot Watch,” which…
Only a couple of days ago the Dallas Independent School District Board of Trustees didn’t seem to think the whole furor over the name “Hamon Arts Magnet” was all that big a deal; Edwin Flores told Unfair Park earlier this week he wasn’t even sure why Booker T. Washington High…
So, looks like the Dallas Independent School District’s Board of Trustees meeting tomorrow — a specially called get-together, as they don’t normally meet in July — should be an especially interesting one. Because only a few hours after we posted the item about Joyce Foreman’s displeasure over the Booker T…
Over on her blog, former Dallas Area Rapid Transit board member Joyce Foreman directs our attention to the agenda for Thursday’s meeting of the Dallas Independent School District board. Among the items on the agenda: a reopening of the August 25, 2005, discussion concerning proposed names for new and existing…
After the jump, courtesy the Texas Freedom Network, is SMU associate professor and chair of the school’s Department of Religious Studies Mark Chancey’s statement concerning the Texas State Board of Education’s decision today to adopt vague standards when it comes to teaching elective Bible course in public high school classrooms…
Thomas Urquidez and his wife, with some of the T.J. Patriots who’ve achieved Academic Success Sure, fine — you can “T.J. Who?” me all you want. Won’t make a difference. Not today, as Friend of Unfair Park and Dallas Independent School District yeasayer Louisa Meyer sends word that 21 kids…
So, the Dallas Independent School District audit is done — and posted to the district’s Web site, even, for those who can make heads or tails of the 133-page report that comes down on the district for its poor accounting and inability or unwillingness to track how it spends money,…
H. Grady Spruce High School, for now No doubt you’re aware that some time after 5:30 today, the Dallas Independent School District Board will take up the issue of what to do with H. Grady Spruce High School, as the school on Old Seagoville Road is considered “academically unacceptable” and…
Which is: by laying off 50 central staffers come September 1. That’s according to a memo the Dallas Independent School District just posted to its Web site. The district’s making the move to cover the $4 million budget shortfall, of course; there’s still the matter of the missing audit; and…
