Why is this man smiling? No, seriously. Over on The Dallas Morning News’ DISD Blog, Kent Fischer has posted a memo sent today from Kimberly Olson, the district’s chief human development officer, to its executive leadership team and all district principals. In short, the district has instituted a hiring freeze,…
Dallas had but four high schools listed among Newsweek’s list of the top public high schools in the U.S. and A. in 2003 — and back then, the highest-rated among the locals was Highland Park High School, which sat at No. 15 on the list, followed by W.T. White (at…
We began the week with news of Bryan Adams High School outfitting chronic truants with Global Positioning System monitors, which lead to a heated, inevitable debate over their use. And it hasn’t ended: Yesterday, National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation ran a lengthy segment on the devices’ use at…
If the name Becky Beck rings a bell, it’s because she was the whistleblower who, two years ago, notified the feds that a $316,000 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant intended to go toward HIV prevention education efforts was being used by the district on everything but HIV prevention…
Was reading this the other day. Then this. And this. When it struck me: For all its greats and glories, the University of Texas spits out some real goofballs. To be fair, Cedric Benson may prove to be innocent and Roger Clemens may not have taken steroids and Tom Hicks…
This “Comet-like character” is among the proposed mascots for the University of Texas at Dallas. As a former University of Texas at Dallas co-ed, I can safely say it was never clear exactly what we were. Allow me to clarify: For some sports, we were the Comets, local and proud…
DISD school board trustee Carla Ranger As mentioned below, at last night’s meeting of the Dallas Independent School District’s board of trustees, Carla Ranger delivered a speech in which she questioned the ethics of board president Jack Lowe, whose company, it was revealed last weekend, has received some $10 million…
Outside the Dallas Independent School District board of trustees meeting last night, more than a dozen protesters carried signs decrying the $1.35-billion bond proposal and DISD leadership. “F! The sign speaks for itself,” said Pete Peterson, pictured above. “The audit doesn’t look good for the district, and that doesn’t look…
Action figure … or study aid? Shaun Treat’s a Visiting Professor of Rhetoric at the University of North Texas — and, no, I have no idea what that means, not exactly. But just in time for the onslaught of super-hero movies crashing into multiplexii this summer, UNT today has announced…
A D.C.-based nonprofit called Project on Fair Representation today filed a 35-page federal lawsuit against the University of Texas at Austin. The suit claims that the school’s admissions policies kept out a white 18-year-old high-schooler named Abigail Noel Fisher, who, says the very detailed legal docs, is sorta near the…
The nonprofit America’s Promise Alliance of which Colin Powell is the founding chair, this morning released a report titled Cities in Crisis: A Special Analytic Report on High School Graduation, which disputes the notion that 85 percent of all high school students get their diplomas. Says the study, it’s more…
John Wiley Price, namesake of a new African school Later this year, Masai children in rural Kenya will begin classes in a school named for “one of Texas’ greatest sons.” They — indeed their parents and just about everyone else in Kenya — might be a bit puzzled about the…
Last week came news that the Dallas Independent School District would be repaying federal grant money is was using rather inappropriately — like, $316,000 worth of federal grant money. That dough, provided by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant, was supposed to go to HIV prevention education efforts…
High-stakes testing doesn’t result in better education, at least not among minorities — it just leads to a disproportionate number of African-Americans, Latinos and ESL students dropping out of Texas schools. That’s one finding in a new report released today by Rice University and the University of Texas. The study…
Last year, Kiplinger listed the University of Texas at Dallas as the 69th-best deal for in-staters among public colleges. This year, the school formerly known as the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest moves way, way up to the No. 50 slot, after the personal-finance advisors factored in both academic…
Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, a supporter of Dallas-based Voyager Expanded Learning — but why, some wonder. On December 20, The Washington Post ran a lengthy piece questioning the relationship between Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, the ranking Democrat and chairwoman of the Senate’s D.C. appropriations subcommittee until a year ago, and…
I had no idea it paid so well to be a DISD student. That’s what it says in the new issue of U.S. News & World Report: In Dallas, high school students can pocket about $100 for every passing score on college-level examinations. The Advanced Placement Incentive Program “has created…
The Texas Freedom Network sends word that, at this very moment, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Committee on Academic Excellence and Research in Austin is discussing and considering a request from the Institute for Creation Research in Dallas for a certificate of authority to grant degrees in Texas. And…
Texas may suck at a lot of things relating to children — worst in teen birth rate, most uninsured kids in the nation, million-dollar high school football stadiums — but at least we feed our children. So says the Center for Public Policy Priorities, usually the bearer of gloom and…
Inside the hallways of the School for the Talented and Gifted at Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center, which is either the best or 14th-best high school in the nation, depending Thomas Jefferson High School’s the highest-ranked high school in the land, says the issue of U.S News and World Report…
Paul Quinn College president Michael Sorrell “We are embarking upon a journey to become one of America’s elite small colleges,” writes Paul Quinn College’s newly installed president, Michael J. Sorrell, on the school’s Web site. And he has a long, long way to go: As the Associated Press noted yesterday…
Tom Sawyer’s not terribly suitable for Richardson’s middle-school kids. Rush’s or Mark Twain’s, we’re guessing. The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Texas just released its 11th Annual Banned Books Report, titled Free People Read Freely. (That’s the slogan of the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week, which lasts from…
