Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath

The U.S. Department of Education determined that a decline in special education services offered to Texas school children resulted from policies instituted by the Texas Education Agency. These policies prevented eligible students from having access to valuable educational programs.

The nation’s largest educational endowment, the Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF), hit a record high value, topping $41 billion, according to the State Board of Education (SBOE).

Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill into law Thursday that crack downs on the vexing epidemic of sexual misconduct by the state’s teachers with students.

Annual standardized testing begins in Texas this week and state education officials feel confident that the millions of dollars spent on system improvements and upgrades will prevent the many problems experienced last year when administering the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness also known as the STAAR.

The feds are touring Texas cities to give the public an opportunity to speak their minds over reports the State capped special education enrollment, allegedly shutting eligible students out of these services.

Texas’ rural schools got a boost from Education Commissioner Mike Morath, who announced the creation of a new task force that will focus on the needs and interests of these often remote and much smaller districts.

Texas House Speaker Joe Straus jumped into the ongoing controversy over whether public school children were denied special education services, penning a letter to the state’s top education official and urging temporary action.

A new state law is the fulfillment of one north Texas mother’s 10-year mission to mandate that public schools place surveillance cameras in special needs classrooms to protect students after her son was physically abused by a teacher.

Education Commissioner Mike Morath announced Tuesday that the Texas Education Agency (TEA) fined its beleaguered standardized testing vendor Education Testing Services (ETS) $20.7 million.

Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath announced Tuesday that 578 of the state’s 1,200-plus school districts and open enrollment public charters will receive funds from $116 million earmarked for Governor Greg Abbott’s “high-quality” Pre-Kindergarten (Pre-K) grant program.

Absolutely everything under the sun that could go wrong with this year’s State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) did. Failures ranged from online testing glitches and vanishing answers, to missing test score results. It added to the growing frustration many feel about standardized testing in Texas public education.