Texas Education Agency

9/11 Idiocy, To Go

Toan Quoc Nguyen: Science Teacher's Steamy Sexts To 16-Year-Old Lead To Charges

The texts are NSFW, if you're wondering​Here's what you don't want to come home to as a parent: Your 16-year-old daughter "lying on her own bed" with a 26-year-old dude. That's what court documents show happened to one local mother, and a Cy-Fair science teacher from Tomball has been charged ... More >>

HISD Test Scores Arrive With a Big But

Let the spin begin​The news that Houston ISD's number of exemplary schools dropped from 101 in 2010 to 59 in 2011, according to the Texas Education Agency's figures just released at 1 p.m. today, could only add more fuel to the fire of critics who are certain Superintendent Terry Grier is dest ... More >>

Administrator Not Surprised to See North Forest ISD Shuttered by State

North Forest ISD will be shutting down for good soon.​George McShan, who spent two years guiding the North Forest Independent School District toward stability, is not shocked to see the state seek its closure. Last week, Commissioner Robert Scott ordered the beleaguered school district be shu ... More >>

Comment of the Day: Mario Gallegos, Champion of Ethical Behavior

​We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it's time we paid some damn attention to them. So we'll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning, from the previous day's work. Maybe two comments, even. This will all be determined by a highly rigorous scientific formula involv ... 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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

Apollo 20 Picks Up 11 Elementaries, But Not Without a Fight

Board reluctantly endorses Grier's plan​It took three sets of votes, but in the end Houston ISD trustees in a 5-4 vote gave Superintendent Terry Grier the go-ahead on his proposal to expand the Apollo 20 program to 11 elementary schools next year. The debate was long, with passionate argument ... More >>

UPDATED: More Than 4,000 Students Leave the Tougher Apollo 20 Schools

Apollo 20: Not everyone's on board​What's not to like about a longer school year, longer school day, more rigor in the classroom and having your parents more involved in your education?Well, it may be coincidence or it may not be everyone's idea of heaven because more than 4,000 students hav ... More >>

HISD Lures Teens With Twilight

Note: School may still suck​Not to be too damned cute about it, but as everyone knows, it isn't only vampires who come out at twilight.The Houston ISD is more than aware that it has a healthy cohort of high school kids who just can't seem to make it to early morning classes. Last year, it tried a ... More >>

Terry Grier Sticks HISD Principals With $19 Million Bill (Updated)

UPDATE: News flash from Houston ISD: Summer School will go on, just maybe not in the way it previously operated. And the $19 million shortfall may not be quite that high. See end of post. Photo by Margaret Downing Terry Grier: you're on your own, principals​Houston ISD principals are going ... More >>

CEP Paid For The Glowing Report HISD Used To Review It

You get what you pay for?​Houston's League of United Latin Americans chapter is slamming a glowing evaluation of the two Community Education Partners schools conducted by two A&M professors.The professors' report, which according to an HISD spokesperson was financed by CEP, found tha ... More >>

Mario Gallegos Continues His Anti-Terry Grier Letter Writing Campaign

Gallegos is writing, but he's not hearing back from Grier​State Senator Mario Gallegos has continued to dictate letters since calling for Houston ISD superintendent Terry Grier to leave in an earlier letter, saying Grier was going to ruin the lives of students here.In his latest set of letters -- ... 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 >>

Dean Denies (Knowledge Of) TAKS Cheating At Key Middle School

​In today's latest revelations concerning the alleged standardized cheating, employee theft, and other massive problems at Key Middle School (and involving Kashmere High),  Dean of Instruction, Dolores Westmoreland insists she didn't know of any cheating going on involving the TAKS test at K ... More >>

The Key/Kashmere Case That May Vanish Into the Void

​Investigations are essentially complete into the Key Middle School/Kashmere High School fiasco Superintendent Terry Grier said Tuesday. All except for the part that HISD investigators have discovered that at least one other person and perhaps two were also involved in the multitude of alleged pr ... 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 Investigating Charges Of TAKS Cheating At Key Middle School

The Houston ISD is investigating current and former employees at Key Middle School for alleged cheating on the TAKS test at Key. Some of those former employees ended up at Kashmere High School which the district is also investigating in regard to unathorized removal of computer equipment ... More >>

George Washington Didn't Listen To No Rap Music

Photo courtesy Texas Freedom Network​ The State Board of Education is meeting today to approve history textbooks, and that usually brings with it some entertainment.Among the worries on the left: That conservative members will insist that history has "vindicated" loony Senator Joe McCarthy.Among t ... More >>

HISD Takes Back Some Of Its Objection To A Critic's Numbers

Last week when Hair Balls reported that LULAC (the League of United Latin American Citizens) had sent letters to the Texas Education Agency and the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts saying it should investigate Houston ISD for the amount of money it spends on two private alternative schools, we w ... More >>

The End Of The Road For J. Will Jones Elementary's Success Story

Photo courtesy savejwilljones.com At J. Will Jones Elementary, workers are busy retrofitting, and the staff is getting ready to leave for good. "It's sad to walk through the building and see all the rooms empty, the library stripped clean," Brian Flores, the former principal, tells Hair Ball ... More >>

School's Out For Summer: Travis Elementary Closes For Rest of School Year

Photo courtesy of WikipediaTravis Elementary, the school where one kid after another was coming down with or thinking he was coming down with swine flu, was supposed to open next Tuesday to finish out the year in some sort of style. That's not going to happen now, Norm Uhl, spokesman for the Houst ... More >>

Gift Giving at Soon-To-Be-Closed J. Will Jones Elementary

Thanks to some generous people in Houston and from as far away as New York State, J. Will Jones Elementary will celebrate its annual "Gift of Giving" celebration this Thursday, distributing "donated presents and hurricane relief supplies to students and their families," HISD announced today. St. Nic ... More >>

Building Entrepreneurship on the Backs of Toddlers Gets All Kinds of Notice

Thanks to some generous people in Houston and from as far away as New York State, J. Will Jones Elementary will celebrate its annual "Gift of Giving" celebration this Thursday, distributing "donated presents and hurricane relief supplies to students and their families," HISD announced today. St. Nic ... More >>

So Much for No Child Left Behind

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

Opt In, Opt Out

HISD continues to send students to CEP. Whether they go there, stay there or return successfully to their home school is anyone's guess.

The Also-Rans

The schools who could have been contenders

Another Bright Spot

Carver High School

KISD Off

Klein students are on a fast track to expulsion, thanks to a district that's figured a way to get someone else to pick up the tab for alternative education

Guest Column: HISD's Ethnic Gap

Stats show how district policies help whites with educational opportunities

Watching You

Katy ISD students better be really good, or there will be hell to pay

Letters, November 29

Piety or Pac-Man, At Any Rate, Bell View

Fostering Praise, Down on Westbury, TEA Trickery?

Letters from Novemeber 1

Mystery Code

Alvin ISD exempts conscientious objectors from dress code rules. But nobody can get that exemption.

TAASk-masters

Want an edge on that ultimate school exam? Have your $8 ready for this primer.

Learning Curves

A disabled Spanish-speaking student could define the limits for special education

Working the Rails, Part Two

A disabled Spanish-speaking student could define the limits for special education

Grade Charades?

After the cheating scandal, some HISD schools take a TAAS test dive

Why Johnny Might Someday Be Able to Read

When Eldo Bergman confronted his son's reading problems, he took the scientific approach. Now he is trying to convince schools to do the same.

Power to the Principal

At Madison High, Principal Warner Ervin's word is law. Teachers say that's the problem.

What Went Wrong at the Rice School?

The Rice School/La Escuela Rice was a much-touted experiment by HISDand Rice University. So far, the results haven't been encouraging.

Letters

The Rice School/La Escuela Rice was a much-touted experiment by HISDand Rice University. So far, the results haven't been encouraging.

Letters

The Rice School/La Escuela Rice was a much-touted experiment by HISDand Rice University. So far, the results haven't been encouraging.

A Question of Competence

State Comptroller John Sharp has suggested that HISD needs to fire more incompetent teachers. But as the case of Beverly Goodie shows, it's not that simple. Just how do you tell who's incompetent? And what happens when you try?

Maxwell's Demons

If you get crosswise with Larry Maxwell, beprepared to go to court