Texas Education Agency

Coming Up: Which Schools Are Horrible?

Report Card for All HISD Schools

School Board Gets The Boot In North Forest ISD

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

You Can Ignore Evolutionary Theory In Texas

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.

The Big Deal

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

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 >>

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.

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?

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 >>

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 >>

The Fix Is In

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

Adding It All Up

What does it really mean to pass the TAAS?

News Hostage

Triumph of the Spirit

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 >>

Methodology

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 >>

These Kids Go to the Best Public High School in Houston

This week: Our first- through fifth-place finishers

Methodology

This week: Our first- through fifth-place finishers

Another Bright Spot

Carver High School

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

But Who's Counting?

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

School's Out Forever

"Unschoolers" like Holly Furgason don't believe in public education. They don't even believe in teachers. They believe in the ability of their children to teach themselves. Will the law catch up with them?

Learning Curves

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

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

Magna Charter

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

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

The Whipping Boy

How did class size limits become the symbol of an unnecessary luxury in our schools?

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 >>

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 >>

Useless Report

Study of Teach For America's worth says little.

Casualties of War

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

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 Has More Grads, Fewer Dropouts

HISD​In a hurry-up afternoon press conference, Houston ISD Superintendent Terry Grier was able to say today that more of the district's students are graduating on time, fewer are dropping out -- and the improvements include every racial and ethnic student group. Grier was referring to data co ... More >>

State Senator Mario Gallegos Says HISD's Apollo 20 Contracts May Be Unethical

Mario Gallegos goes after Terry Grier again.​State Senator Mario Gallegos, a persistent critic of Houston school superintendent Terry Grier's Apollo 20 pilot program, has asked the Texas Education Agency to audit the contracts involved in it. He says there are ethical questions involving HISD ... 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 >>

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 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 >>