Education Standards

So It's Govt' Money -- Don't Have a COW

Community Education Partners -- Why It’s No Better for Atlanta Than It’s Been for Houston

This Just In: Texas Education Commissioner Orders Sam Houston High School Closed

School Board Gets The Boot In North Forest ISD

Aldine Once Again A Finalist For Big Education Award

Educational Savior Seeks New Sinner

Ain't Nothing Wrong With A Texas Mathbook

Teachers in a California school district are up in arms over the fact that publisher McGraw-Hill mistakenly sent unedited copies of math textbooks riddled with errors. In addition to typos and problems with the answer-keys, the books, approved for California academic standards, came with covers for ... More >>

Obama's Education Pick Brings Back Memories Of HISD's Rod Paige

Barack Obama has truly broken the mold in picking a Secretary of Education -- he's chosen the superintendent of the largest school district in his home state.Wait -- that sounds familiar. George W. Bush did the same thing, of course, when he tapped HISD's Rod Paige to come to Washington in 2000.The ... More >>

Anatomy of an Intervention

HISD has a plan for reforming problem schools. But when it reached Bastian Elementary, not everything went smoothly.

Condoms! Homosexuals! Lesbian Adoption!

After a vicious campaign, the religious right is poised to push its agenda on the State Board of Education

Abe Saavedra Is Leaving The Building

Photo by Amina RiveraAbe Saavedra, HISD superintendent, announced his resignation this morning to pursue a "second career" at the ripe old age of 58.  Saavedra's leaving follows a big retreat the board had, where he just might have been told of some boardmembers' continuing frustration with wha ... More >>

The TAAS Buster

For years, Harriet Ball miraculously boosted the test scores of academically at-risk kids in Houston. Finally, educators across the country are taking note.

Obama Follows Yet Another Bush Policy: He Praises HISD

Photo courtesy White HouseThe Houston school district got a shout-out from President Obama this morning.In a major speech on education, Obama urged a raft of reforms "to finally make No Child Left Behind live up to its name."Among the reforms he urged districts to adopt: Houston's method of keeping ... More >>

Adding It All Up

What does it really mean to pass the TAAS?

Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti

Meet Maya Deren’s unusual circle of friends

No Child Left Behind?

Meet Maya Deren’s unusual circle of friends

So Much for No Child Left Behind

School test scores rise as more low-scoring students drop out.

Houston's Best Public High Schools

Counting down: Our sixth- through tenth-place finishers

The Passage of Paige

Rod Paige

Letters

Rod Paige

Guest Column: HISD's Ethnic Gap

Stats show how district policies help whites with educational opportunities

See George Educate

A Texas journalist gives George W. Bush his due

Aldine ISD -- The Waiting Was The Hardest Part

Aldine finally says "You like me!! You really like me!!"​Dewey Beats Truman, or something: Aldine ISD is no longer the perennial best loser in the prestigious Broad Prize for urban education.The Susan Lucci of school districts has been a finalist for the award three of the past six years without e ... More >>

Local Teachers' Union President Calls "Bullshit" On The HISD Superintendent, The New York Times And The Washington Post

​ Caught on her cell phone today, Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, said that many people are distorting what Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a Tuesday eight-page speech about overhauling teacher evaluations.The speech wa ... More >>

Divisive or Not, HISD Board Approves New Way to Target Failing Teachers

​This is the tale of two teachers. Each of them inherit fifth-graders who test out at the start of the school year, on average, at third grade, fifth month. The kids are from the same neighborhood. They have identical demographics: roughly the same number come from single-parent homes, live in ... More >>

HISD Mulls How to Best Save Its Schools, And Ex-Board President Larry Marshall Still Tries To Run Meetings

Photo by Margaret DowningHISD Superintendent Terry Grier​In a district where eight of its high schools and 11 of its middle schools don't even have a school counselor, the Houston Independent School District trustees got together for an agenda meeting early Thursday morning to talk "transformatio ... More >>

Latest Principal Shifts In HISD Bring Grumbling

​There's been a sudden round of mid-year principal shifts in the Houston school district, and it hasn't brought smiles.Energetic and popular Lee High School principal Steve Amstutz is moving on after failing to raise the troubled school's "unacceptable" Texas Education Agency status. His attempt t ... More >>

HISD's Terry Grier: Agent Provocateur

Photo by Margaret Downing​Prediction: In a year, Superintendent Terry Grier will either be a celebrated hero, or the scapegoat for pretty much of everything that goes wrong in the Houston Independent School District.As Hair Balls said before, there doesn't seem to be a go-slow switch in Grier's ar ... More >>

In HISD There Are No Unsatisfactory Teachers; Surprise: We Live in Lake Woebegone

Only 3.4 percent of HISD teachers are "below expectations" or "unsatisfactory"​"Of the 11 HISD schools rated 'Academically Unacceptable' by the Texas Education Agency in 2008-9, only two rated any teacher unsatisfactory" in any category of their evaluations. -- Source: HISD Human ResourcesIt was a ... More >>

Mario Gallegos Wants Terry Grier to Leave HISD

Mario Gallegos opens up with both barrels on Terry Grier​Texas State Senator Mario Gallegos, Jr. has gone on the attack against Houston ISD Superintendent Terry Grier and his reform efforts, sending out letters to the school board and state legislators, in which he says his office has been investi ... More >>

TEA Says Key, Kashmere "Academically Unacceptable"

Problems at two schools​The Texas Education Agency has declared Key Middle School and Kashmere High School "Academically Unacceptable" following an investigation into the standardized test cheating and other employee shenanigans at the schools.The TEA is reporting that "actions by some campu ... More >>

HISD Kicks Off Its Apollo 20 Program For Troubled Schools

Photos by Christopher Patronella, Jr.HISD's Terry Grier with a student at an Apollo 20 school​As if surrendering your long, lazy summer to the start of another tedious school year is not hard enough, students from five HISD middle schools and four high schools are making that plunge an entire week ... More >>

Oprah Gives $1 million To Houston's YES Charter School

Oprah shows some Houston love​That Oprah, she just can't stop with the giving.Today, in connection with a show on public education and the documentary Waiting for Superman, she announced a $1 million gift to the YES Preparatory charter schools here in Houston."We had no clue," Yes Prep CEO Chris B ... More >>

Teach For America: TEA Undertakes Audit

TFA: It's about to be audited​The Texas Education Agency has until January 31 to submit a report to the Texas Legislature that asks whether the much lauded Teach for America is doing much good for the low-income students in Texas. The Lege allocated TFA $8 million over last year and this year ... More >>

Casualties of War

Parents who bought into the TAKS hype dealt blow at HISD meeting.

HISD Trustees Prove They Can Go Hours Without Peeing

Margaret DowningTrustee Michael Lunceford and Superintendent Terry Grier wade through another marathon budget meeting​Houston ISD board members resolutely stayed anchored at the board room table for hours Monday, picking through programs, considering projections (What if there's a 3.3 percent ... More >>

Grier Calls 1st TAKS Tests for Apollo "Progress, Not Victory"

Spinning the TAKS results​Superintendent Terry Grier released Houston ISD's first-round state test scores for fifth and eighth graders on Thursday, acknowledging at the start of the press conference that the results for middle school students in the Apollo 20 pilot project were of the most int ... More >>

Number of HISD Exemplary and Recognized Schools Drops in Preliminary TAKS Results

HISD results go backwards​Houston ISD has fewer exemplary and recognized schools, stayed exactly the same in the number of acceptable schools and increased in the number of its unacceptable schools, according to state accountability ratings based on preliminary TAKS results. Houston ISD Super ... More >>

HISD Lesson for Today: Tutoring Works, Now What Do We Do?

Margaret DowningTerry Grier stays on TAKS. ​It was a masterful performance. At the start of his press conference Thursday in which he announced gains in math and science student test scores, Houston ISD Superintendent Terry Grier announced that "We're not going to talk about accountability rat ... More >>

HISD's Apollo 20 Dealing With Some Outbound Personnel

Changes at Terry Grier's signature turn-around program​In today's Examiner newpapers, editor Charlotte Aguilar breaks the news that Jeremy Beard, the school improvement officer assigned to oversee the turnaround project for the district's low-performing schools, is leaving Houston ISD. Instea ... More >>

TEA Applies the Hammer to North Forest (And HISD): Historically Terrible District Should Be Taken Over by Houston, It Says (Updated with HISD Response)

Welcome to HISD.​The Texas Education Agency has finally had enough of the North Forest ISD, a lower-income school district with chronic problems demonstrating proficiency on standardized tests. Today the TEA took the unusual step of ordering it to close, and suggesting it be taken over by HIS ... More >>

HISD: New STAAR Standardized Test Will Completely Change All Curriculum

HISD gets tested.​Texas public schools are trading the standardized test they currently use, TAKS, for a brand-new test -- one that's much harder. Said Superintendent Terry Grier, "This is probably the biggest thing that's happened in Texas education in a long, long time." This morning, five ... More >>

Terry Grier: He Flips, He Dips, He Does a 180 on Test Scores

Terry Grier on the high dive​In a startling reversal of previous statements and his own avowed philosophies, Houston ISD Superintendent Terry Grier today released a statement that he will recommend to the school board that teachers not be evaluated by their students' test scores this next scho ... More >>

Some HISD Schools Face Big Changes From No Child Left Behind

Some HISD schools are getting left behind.​Step aside, Apollo 20. A slew of Houston ISD high schools are going to have to undergo serious overhauls to satisfy requirements of No Child Left Behind. Federal school and district ratings were released this afternoon. In a subsequent press release, ... More >>

HISD Awards $35 Million to Schools for Student Achievements

​The Houston Independent School District on Tuesday handed out awards to teachers for student high scores on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test. The ASPIRE Award program is part of an ongoing effort to reward teachers for the success fo their students. According to an HI ... More >>

HISD Board Might Extend Terry Grier's Contract Tonight

Terry Grier's contract being discussed​Are you ready for some more Terry Grier? Five Houston school board members are, and they are looking to extend the superintendent's contract for another year, to 2014. The move may come as early as tonight, although some are questioning whether doing so ... More >>