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Kiah Collier was a reporter for the ProPublica-Texas Tribune investigative initiative from 2020 through 2023. She previously worked at the Tribune as a reporter and associate editor, covering energy and the environment through the lens of state government and politics. Kiah has reported for numerous other publications across Texas since 2010, including the Austin American-Statesman and the Houston Chronicle. Her beats also have included government and politics, public education and business. Kiah’s work has been honored with numerous prizes, including a George Foster Peabody Award, a Gerald Loeb Award, the Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism, the National Edward R. Murrow Award for best investigation and the AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award. A seventh-generation Texan, she grew up in the Austin area and graduated with high honors from the University of Texas at Austin with degrees in journalism and philosophy.
A federal judge in Fort Worth has blocked Obama administration guidelines directing the nation’s public schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms and other facilities that align with their gender identity. Full Story
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After five years of landing on the state’s list of low-performing schools, a tiny South Texas district that drew national headlines for cutting its sports program to ward off closure is now meeting state academic standards. Full Story
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At an education committee hearing Tuesday, Republican state senators debated whether a $118 million pre-K initiative championed by Gov. Greg Abbott is worth the money. Full Story
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Education Commissioner Mike Morath on Tuesday outlined plans to crack down harder on chronically low-performing schools, saying he wants to cut in half the number of them that end up on the state’s failing list over the next five years. Full Story
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More Texas school districts and charter schools are failing in 2016, though the number of individual campuses that received that label decreased. Full Story
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The fault lines that will define efforts to improve the state's system of funding education came into sharp focus Wednesday as a Senate panel began studying how to improve the "efficiency" of public schools in Texas. Full Story
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Should Texas fund public schools based on their academic performance rather than just giving them a certain amount of money per student? State lawmakers are beginning to explore that idea. Full Story
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A special panel recommending changes to the state’s public school testing and accountability system has stopped short of proposing that Texas scrap the controversial assessment regime known as STAAR. Full Story
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An ambitious new player has emerged in the controversial effort to use taxpayer dollars to help Texas parents send their kids to private or religious schools. Full Story
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The strained relationship between the state’s higher and public education leaders were on full display Wednesday as Texas Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes told the State Board of Education it isn't doing enough to prepare students for college. Full Story
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