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Morgan Smith was a reporter at the Tribune from 2009 to 2018, covering politics, public education and inequality. In 2013, she received a National Education Writers Association award for “Death of a District,” a series on school closures. After earning a bachelor’s degree in English from Wellesley College, she moved to Austin in 2008 to enter law school at the University of Texas. A San Antonio native, her work has also appeared in Slate, where she spent a year as an editorial intern in Washington D.C.
A bill from state Rep. Rob Eissler modifying how end-of-course exams factor into graduation led House Republicans into a debate over how best to handle student testing during what one called "extraordinary times" in public education. Full Story
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On the heels of a newly approved House budget that leaves public schools $7.8 billion short of what they're entitled to under current funding formulas, the House Public Education Committee today considered a round of school finance bills. Full Story
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The Texas House started with a $164.5 billion budget and ended with the same total. But lawmakers spent the better part of a weekend making changes inside the budget for 2012-13 before giving it their approval, 98 to 49. Full Story
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We liveblogged the full debate over HB 1, the House version of the general appropriations bills for the next biennium, which passed late Sunday night 98 to 49. Full Story
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Numbers aren’t all that’s buried in the budget. Lawmakers have filed hundreds of amendments that are political in nature, from repealing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants to trying to push Planned Parenthood out of the family planning business. Full Story
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The Texas public school finance system, responsible for underwriting the education of the nation’s second-largest student population, is notoriously byzantine. Here’s our layman’s guide to figuring it out. Full Story
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A bill to improve how police conduct lineups to solve crimes tentatively passed the Texas House today without opposition. Full Story
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File this in the "this hasn't happened yet?" category: The Texas Legislature has taken one big step toward banishing the "R" word from state statutes. Full Story
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Beaumont's Carrol A. Thomas, who makes $347,834 annually, is the highest-paid superintendent in Texas, even though his district of about 20,000 students is considerably smaller than those in other Texas cities. Full Story
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Senators tried to improve the funding picture for public education on Thursday when the Senate Finance Committee voted 13-2 to add $5.7 billion to its initial proposal. But that's still about a $4 billion reduction from current levels. Full Story
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