Texas Education Agency

North Forest ISD's Hopes To Avoid HISD Merger Vanishing Quickly

The likelihood of North Forest Independent School District being annexed into Houston Independent School District seems imminently probable, even though North Forest promises at least one more appeal of the decision. North Forest, which has been in disarray for almost two decades now, threw a Hail ... More >>

North Forest ISD Makes One More Appeal To State To Stay Alive

The flagging and beleaguered North Forest Independent School District argued for one more reprieve before the Texas Education Agency on Friday morning, naming a non-profit educational management organization led by KIPP founder Mike Feinberg as the new savior for the failing district. As is typical ... More >>

North Forest Ordered To Close, Be Annexed By HISD

In the latest trip on a seesaw of decisions, the state's commissioner of education has ordered the chronically underachieving North Forest school district to merge into the Houston school district. Texas Education Agency head Michael Williams said the state will proceed with a previous order to clo ... More >>

Texas Public School Bible Courses Sparsely Offered, Poorly Taught

Six years after lawmakers agreed Bible courses could be offered in Texas schools, the Texas Freedom Network finds that course offerings are neither "legally appropriate nor academically sound," according to a report released today. Lawmakers, after much wrangling that included input from Jewish Hou ... More >>

Rick Perry Has Message For Schools: Tea Party Favorite Michael WIlliams To Head TEA

Governor Rick Perry didn't go safe and sound when picking a new commissioner of the Texas Education Agency -- instead he's installed bomb-throwing Tea Party favorite Michael Williams. The former Railroad Commission chair has been nosing around a few political options in the past couple of years -- ... More >>

Will HISD Thumb Its Nose at Rick Perry & Go for the Race to the Top?

The deadline is looming for the next round of the Race to the Top, a program federal education department officials all but admit was drafted for Houston Independent School District after Texas refused to compete for federal grants. When Education Secretary Arne Duncan hinted such a district-based ... More >>

HISD Deals With The STAAR Results

If there's anything that can fix public education, it's yet another standardized test with a bizarre acronym. Forget TAAS and TAKS -- get used to hearing about STAAR. (The State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, of course.) The Houston school district says STAAR is "much more rigorous" t ... More >>

The TEA's New Standardized Testing Performance Standards: As Clear As Mud

The Texas Education Agency has released its new performance standards for the STAAR test, the newest statewide exam whose acronym we can't be bothered to decipher. The new standards will be phased in, which is good because it may take a while to understand them. They're as clear as anything could b ... More >>

HISD Won't Be Merging With North Forest ISD, For Now

The Texas Education Agency's plan to have the Houston school district absorb the chronically troubled North Forest district has been shelved, for now at least. TEA commissioner Robert Scott informed HISD by letter today that merging with NFISD "is no longer an option," HISD spokesman Jason Spencer ... More >>

Lowering the Boom

Dekaney High School's motto is "Whatever It Takes." So far, district administrators haven't figured out quite what that needs to be.

HISD Takes Over North Forest ISD

North Forest is now part of HISD.​The Houston school district, which like every district in Texas these days has enough on its plate, got a new problem handed to it today -- the state ordered it to annex the troubled North Forest ISD. North Forest has struggled for years with poor performance ... 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 >>

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 >>

Useless Report

Study of Teach For America's worth says little.

Are Teach For America Teachers Better? $39K Later, We Still Don't Know

Teach for America: Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. Now pay us​Anyone who's been holding his breath waiting for the Texas Education Agency to release its evaluation of the Teach For America program in the state can let it out now -- along with a sigh of disappointment. Tasked by the Texas Le ... More >>

Theaola Robinson: Longtime Charter School Head Sues KTRK for Libel

A diabolical plot, attorneys say​Theaola Robinson was, for decades, the head of Benji's, a Fifth Ward facility for special-ed kids that eventually became a charter school. Last year she retired amid controversy from the Texas Education Agency over its finances; when the TEA tried to close it ... 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 >>

HISD & No Child Left Behind: Still Not There, But Making Progress, District Says

Some being left behind​Another week, another bunch of statistics and reports on public school district performance.Today it's a report on how districts are doing in making progress towards a 2014 deadline to meet standards in the No Child Left Behind Act.For two years, the Houston school district ... More >>

Texas Education Agency's Rankings Come Out

Stats and numbers that say anything you want​The Texas Education Agency has released its latest set of accountability rankings, and you know what that means -- the results can be spun any way you want, depending on your agenda.The Houston school district professed satisfaction: The state acco ... 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 Trustees Give Grier a History Lesson

Photo by Margaret Downing​Sounding a bit like a past-the-honeymoon-stage couple whose partners are starting to feel misunderstood and underappreciated, Superintendent Terry Grier and the Houston ISD trustees got through Thursday's board workshop with a patina of camaraderie, occasionally interrupt ... More >>

It's A Workout Deciphering TEA's Latest Instructions On Its "Fitnessgram"

Hair Balls believes intensely and fully in the physical fitness benefits of wind sprints, pumping iron and teamwork camaraderie. But even we took pause at an end-of-the-month missive sent out to school districts around the state from the Texas Education Agency, passed on to us by a Friend of Hair Ba ... More >>

Pre-K In Danger, Tax Rolls Down, HISD Looks For The Rabbit In The Hat

​Houston ISD's tax rolls look to be down 4.32 percent in the next year, with a loss of almost $5 billion in assessed values for 2011 over 2010. Most of the lost money is coming from lowered commercial property values, with the least decrease among residential property owners.Things could be even w ... More >>

Magna Charter

Right in the middle of the Gulfton Ghetto, one school is putting on a grand experiment.

HISD's Gets On The Rankings Roller Coaster

​Oh, HISD. You didn't get to enjoy your "We Got Great Rankings!!" moment for long.Just a week after crowing about their improvement in the state's assessment of schools, the district got slammed by the feds for failing to make the grade in No Child Left Behind rankings.The dispute comes down to st ... More >>

HISD's Rankings Improve, As Promised Yesterday

​HISD announced yesterday they had set a record for the percentage of its schools ranked "exemplary" or "recognized" by the state, and the official release of the information today backed up the claim.Last year 57 percent of the district's schools were included in those two categories; this year i ... More >>

TEA Releases Further Details On School Rankings

​The Texas Education Agency has released the 2009 school rankings -- let the talk of how schools are gaming the system begin!!Results are searchable by district, by category, by all kinds of things.The 12 HISd schools that have been ranked "unacceptable":High Schools -- Jones, Kashmere, Lee, Sterl ... More >>

School Districts Don't Need To Close To Protect Funding, TEA Says

When the Fort Worth school district made the seemingly bizarre decision to close down for a week even though they hadn't experienced a single confirmed case of swine flu, there were some rumblings that FWISD officials were more concerned about budgets than parents.Parents might have to spend a week ... More >>

White-Washing Those Black Rodeo Gala Tickets

Well, Warner Ervin, superintendent of the Houston Independent School District's south region, must be feeling pretty good today. He's the administrator being reluctantly investigated by the Texas Education Agency -- after a lot of urging from citizen and former HISD high school teacher Del Murphy -- ... More >>

What A Relief: You Don't Have To Pee Your Pants To Pass A TAKS Test

Photo by cliff1066Last week saw the first volley of TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) testing for public high schoolers. Crucial to the success of the mission was a ruling from State Education Commissioner Robert Scott that yes, bathroom breaks are allowed during the testing. The Texas ... More >>

Cost Cutting: Dan Patrick Says Drop Those Caps On Elementary Class Size

Just in time for the 25th anniversary of the landmark Texas House Bill 72, Senator Dan Patrick has pre-filed a bill to amend it in several ways -- no, he's not touching No Pass, No Play -- but he is fiddling with the cap in place on the number of kids that schools can cram into their K-4th grade cla ... More >>

And Now We Turn Our Attention to the 2009 Texas State Legislature and the Texas Education Agency

By now, most everyone has heard something of the off-the-mike November conversation between Texas Education Agency Deputy Comissioner Lizzette Reynolds and Associate Deputy Commissioner Gina Day that was made public last week. After a very brief meeting, someone forgot to turn off her microphone and ... More >>

You Can Ignore Evolutionary Theory In Texas

TEA Releases Ratings, Houston ISD Has Some Hits, Some Misses

School Board Gets The Boot In North Forest ISD

Coming Up: Which Schools Are Horrible?

Report Card for All HISD Schools

These Kids Go to the Best Public High School in Houston

This week: Our first- through fifth-place finishers

Houston's Best Public High Schools

Counting down: Our sixth- through tenth-place finishers

Johnnie and Dilbert

Plus: Taking ExCEPtion

Million-Dollar Babies

Some CEP students have been locked in for years

The Big Deal

Vending machines are leaving Texas school cafeterias. But the mother lode of "minimal nutritional value" has hardly gone away.

But Who's Counting?

Thousands of students disappear from our schools yearly, but the TEA insists they're not dropouts

180 Days in the Hole

HISD insists that kids sent to its alternative school should spend an entire year there, no matter what. What a crock.

Learning Curves

Charter school scandals are teaching Texas a hard lesson -- one the state should have known fouryears and $77 million ago

News Hostage

Triumph of the Spirit

Adding It All Up

What does it really mean to pass the TAAS?

The Fix Is In

Are educators cheating on TAAS? Is anyone going to stop them?

Basic Ballard

Donna Ballard and her Christian conservative cohorts have transformed the State Board of Education. But will they transform the way Texas teaches its kids?

Bitter Lesson

For 27 years, math teacher Phyllis Landes had a spotless record. Then the Texas Education Agency accused her of making racist remarks, and nearly ruined her school and her life.