The latest Texas Education Agency news from The Texas Tribune.
As chairman of the Select Committee of Public Education in the '80s, Ross Perot took on high school athletics hammer and tongs: “If the people of Texas want Friday night entertainment instead of education," he said, "let’s find out about it." An excerpt from the forthcoming How Things Really Work: Lessons from a Life in Politics. Full Story
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Five years after Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana exiles have fundamentally changed Houston, and vice-versa. The uneasy arrangement was a shotgun marriage: Many evacuees had no choice in whether or where they went, and Houstonians had no choice, for humanity's sake, but to take them in. Full Story
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Students are heading back to school this week, and some of them will begin learning about the birds and the bees. The Texas Education Code requires that abstinence be the focus of any sex education curriculum — but as Nathan Bernier of KUT News reports, there are some changes this year to how sex ed is being taught. Full Story
Galbraith on grass, federal money and efforts to prevent another dust bowl, Ergenbright on school suspensions and who gets punished; Aguilar's interview with Alan Bersin, whose job is to keep the U.S./Mexico border secure, M. Smith on why it would be harder than you think to ditch the 14th Amendment, Adler and me on whether controversy is politically contagious, Ramshaw on the flap over funding for the state's institutions for the disabled (it's not about the money), my meditation on the state's fiscal woes (including a $1.3 billion deficit in the current budget), Philpott on proposed cuts to the state's food stamp program, Grissom on the push by Hidalgo County officials for a special election that might not be legal; Hamilton on the seven Texas universities that are making a play for Tier One status and Stiles on the mid-year cash-on-hand numbers reported by campaigns and political action committees: The best of our best from August 16 to 23, 2010. Full Story
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Special education students in Texas are nearly twice as likely to be suspended as students in the general population, according to the Texas Education Agency — and though they make up just 10 percent of the overall enrollment, they account for 21 percent of expulsions. Full Story
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The state's GOP leaders say the strings attached to $800 million in federal education funding by U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, are not only too restrictive — they could be unconstitutional. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune has this report. Full Story
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Ben, Ross, Evan and Matt talk about President Obama's visit to Texas and who didn't want to be seen with him, the battle over strings attached to federal education money, Bill White's donor-appointees and the legal and political definitions of residency. Full Story
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After a decade in which Texas has seen a 400 percent increase in the number of children with autism, lawmakers are wrestling with how best to educate the afflicted — and how to pay for it. Full Story
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Despite just-released ratings that show huge improvements, a Texas Tribune analysis finds that the performance of the state's public schools — when decoupled from the controversial Texas Projection Measure — is little changed from 2008, the year before the accountability formula took effect. Full Story
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In new public school ratings released this afternoon, three-fourths of the state's public schools — graded under a controversial formula called the Texas Projection Measure — now rank "exemplary" or "recognized," the highest two of four categories of performance. Less than two percent of schools are ranked "unacceptable." Full Story
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The Texas Education agency plans to release school accountability ratings for every campus in the state on Friday. For the second year, the rankings will be filtered through the controversial Texas Projection Measure, which critics fault for inflating the school scores. Full Story
A new study suggests that while the state's English curriculum is among the best in the nation, our math curriculum doesn't measure up to a set of new national standards. Matt Largey of KUT News reports. Full Story
In this week's TribCast, Ross, Elise, Ben and Brandi discuss the issues framing Texas politics this week — education, immigration and campaign finance numbers. Full Story
Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott has been taking heat for ducking questions from reporters and a legislator regarding the Texas Projection Measure, the magic formula that last year suddenly moved thousands of Texas schools into higher state rating categories with little underlying achievement gain by students. He finally took questions from the Tribune, walking a fine line between defending the formula’s much-maligned statistical validity and saying it wasn’t his idea in the first place and, as he put it, “I’m happy to scrap it” if legislators and other critics have a big problem with it. Full Story
Last school year, the Texas Education Agency implemented a new “growth measure” purported to reward schools for improving student performance — even if they still fail state tests. The effect on state accountability ratings was immediate and dramatic: The number of campuses considered “exemplary” by the state doubled, to 2,158. But a new analysis shows the projections of future student success may be wrong as much as half the time. Full Story
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Less than a third of the state's 3rd-to-12th-grade students can pass a physical fitness test — and that’s an improvement. Full Story
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The Senate Committee on Education got a painful preview today of the problems in special education that they’ll have to tackle during the 2011 legislative session. Full Story
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Texas' participation in the federally funded summer food service program is dismally low compared to the national average — meaning only a small percentage of the state's 2.5 million low-income kids are getting free meals. Full Story
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A published report Tuesday highlighted concerns over whether the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test, the standardized exam for the state's public school students, is rigorous enough. Nathan Bernier of KUT News talked to Houston Chronicle reporter Ericka Mellon, whose analysis of Texas Education Agency data found that the TEA lowered its passing standards more this year than it did at least over the last two years. Full Story
Efforts to contain the oil still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico finally seem to be making headway, but the government is now warning that the remaining slick may have a mind of its own. Full Story
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