
Gov. Greg Abbott tapped longtime Dallas Independent School District Board of Trustee Mike Morath as the state’s next Education Commissioner to oversee the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for the state’s 1,200 school districts and charters, a decision already receiving mixed reviews.
by Merrill Hope16 Dec 2015, 5:29 AM PST0

Top Texas officials named 11 of 15 appointees to the newly created public education Commission on Next Generation Assessments and Accountability, authorized through the passage of House Bill 2804 during the 84th legislative session. The short-term 15-member commission’s sole purpose is to write a report that develops and makes recommendations “for new systems of student assessment and public school accountability” which is due by September 1, 2016.
by Merrill Hope12 Nov 2015, 6:08 AM PST0

A Texas school district apologized in a letter late Tuesday to its junior high school community after a 7th grade student voiced concerns that a classroom activity questioned the existence of God.
by Merrill Hope28 Oct 2015, 3:21 AM PST0

The Dallas Independent School District (ISD) Board of Trustees approved Dr. Michael Hinojosa, 59, as superintendent of schools in a 6-to-1 vote on Tuesday night.
by Merrill Hope7 Oct 2015, 8:02 AM PST0

Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Dallas-Fort Worth director Alia Salem said that is Ahmed Mohamed’s name was “Jimmy,” school district officials in Irving, Texas, would not have jumped to the conclusion that his clock project was a bomb hoax.
by Merrill Hope18 Sep 2015, 6:05 AM PST0

A 14-year-old North Texas high school freshman says school officials overreacted when they called police after thinking his elaborate digital homemade clock invention was a hoax bomb but the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also stepped in with a little overreacting of their own, alleging the incident as Islamophobia.
by Merrill Hope16 Sep 2015, 9:03 AM PST0

Longtime Houston Independent School District (ISD) Superintendent, Dr. Terry Grier, unexpectedly announced his resignation effective March 1.
by Merrill Hope12 Sep 2015, 5:14 AM PST0

The latest high school girl cat fight broke out in a Texas high school on Wednesday and landed one of the girls in jail. The three-girl tussle came within a week of a four female fracas caught on cellphone, only this incident ended with one arrest and an injured school police officer.
by Merrill Hope10 Sep 2015, 10:08 AM PST0

A Texas high school brawl was captured on a cellphone. Back-to-school means back-to-brawling for some out-of- control Texas teenagers at one high school. On the second week of the new school year, double dramatic slugfests were caught on one student’s cellphone and even were called “just another fight.” Meanwhile, the violent video made local news coverage, got picked up by sister stations in other TV markets, and landed on Yahoo News!, but no arrests were made.
by Merrill Hope6 Sep 2015, 6:58 AM PST0

A West Texas biology teacher who was accused of being drunk at school and was subsequently arrested at school for public intoxication has now resigned from her post. School was barely back in session from the time the inebriated educator was taken into custody to when she turned in her resignation letter.
by Merrill Hope5 Sep 2015, 10:31 AM PST0

Three women believed to be drunk got on a Texas public school bus at a regular stop and rode with the students all the way to their middle school last Friday. No one, not even the bus driver, realized that three allegedly heavily intoxicated 20-something women were on the bus until they arrived at Harris Middle School in San Antonio.
by Merrill Hope3 Sep 2015, 6:17 AM PST0

The Texas Supreme Court heard opposing arguments in the much anticipated showdown between the state and 600-plus public school districts over public education finance reform on Monday.
by Merrill Hope2 Sep 2015, 9:15 AM PST0

The Texas law that decriminalizes truancy and changes how public school districts handle unexcused absences goes into effect on September 1. During the 2015 Legislative session, state lawmakers passed House Bill 2398, which redressed the Failure to Attend School (FTAS) from criminal status to a civil offense called “truant conduct” under the family code.
by Merrill Hope31 Aug 2015, 7:30 AM PST0

“On Wisconsin” replaced a Texas high school’s long-held”Dixie” fight song, a Southern favorite often associated with the Confederate South, but “Dixie” may come back when students vote on a new school spirit song.
by Merrill Hope30 Aug 2015, 12:51 PM PST0

A 7th grade Texas middle school assignment that went viral on social media this week was determined to be fake. The storyline generated about students taking an allegedly invasive student survey was not true — it did not happen.
by Merrill Hope28 Aug 2015, 7:11 AM PST0

Texas is faced with the dilemma of more teachers accused of sexual misconduct with their students. This casts a dark shadow over the classroom as kids head back-to-school.
by Merrill Hope20 Aug 2015, 7:04 AM PST0

A Dallas area school bus driver beaten by 7th and 8th grade students is finally speaking out. The assault was captured on surveillance a video that has surfaced from last February. The driver is now, asking officials to press criminal charges and he has hired an attorney.
by Merrill Hope18 Aug 2015, 1:34 PM PST0

The vote on a controversial proposed LGBT anti-discrimination policy change to a North Texas school district’s existing policy was postponed Thursday night.
by Merrill Hope14 Aug 2015, 7:23 AM PST0

Texas House leadership squashed education reform legislation that would have sped up the time to “repurpose” chronically failing public schools during the recent 84th Legislature. Instead, they aggressively pushed for progressive community schools.
by Merrill Hope13 Aug 2015, 8:22 AM PST0

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) announced its statewide public education accountability ratings. Although favorable, showing most school districts and charters fared well, these results were compiled using changed criteria and relying on less reported information.
by Merrill Hope11 Aug 2015, 5:55 AM PST0

The latest high school graduation rates for Texas tell a good story of record-breaking rates. However, they may not tell the future story given new graduation requirements.
by Merrill Hope8 Aug 2015, 7:22 AM PST0

Under a new “reverse transfer” program, two million students could be eligible to retroactively receive associate’s degrees. Community colleges are a pathway into four-year universities but it seems many students transfer from two-year to four-year institutions without first completing their associate’s degrees.
by Merrill Hope1 Aug 2015, 11:17 AM PST0

It was a huge blunder for the Houston Independent School District (ISD), the seventh largest district in the nation and the largest in Texas when an adminstrator’s letter threatened parents that their children would face summer school if they opted out of the annual state-mandated State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) exam. The next day, that threat was downgraded to an editing error.
by Merrill Hope27 Apr 2015, 6:17 AM PST0

Remember the poptart gun? The Nerf gun? The Lego gun? The pointed finger gun? In another time, these typical boy toys would have gotten as little notice as the old fashioned cap gun but in a world where the list of childhood offenses also includes possession of a novelty pen or a Hello Kitty bubble gun, it comes as little surprise that a Lord of the Rings “magic ring” got nine-year-old Aiden Steward suspended from his elementary school in Kermit, Texas.
by Merrill Hope8 Feb 2015, 7:47 AM PST0