Back to it after a weekend away.
- Texas Tribune: 1 in 5 Texas schools got a D or F rating under new performance standards. More on Dallas’ and Fort Worth’s scores below, but yeah, it’s not good. On the other hand, the Lege could help by giving schools more money.
- Dallas Morning News: Texas’ teacher recruitment and retention problem: See the data schools face. We have a lot of uncertified teachers and it’s because the job of teaching sucks and pays poorly.
- Star-Telegram: If Texas wants to bolster school choice, it needs fair funding for charters. Op-ed from the CEO of a charter network.
- KERA: North Texas voters to decide on billions in school bonds this election. A good description of what’s on the ballot for a number of local districts.
- DMN: Data: Gun threats prompt Texas students to stay home from school. The paper based its story on safety-related attendance waivers requested from the state.
- Fort Worth Report: Most AP exams will be digital this May. Here’s how a Fort Worth teacher is preparing students. The entirety of this story made me feel ancient, particularly the part where they had to teach kids to type on a keyboard because students are doing most of their work on phones or tablets.
- Arlington Report: Here’s how much Arlington ISD receives in funding from the federal government. $37.5 million in federal funds in 2024-25, which was $3.8 million less than the year before.
- The most recent in a series of stories about a shooting at Wilmer-Hutchins High School in Dallas ISD is this item from the DMN: A Dallas high school fortified its campus after a shooting. Then gunfire struck again. They’re doing all the things they’re supposed to do, but someone was let in a side door with a gun, bypassing the security systems.
- Dallas Observer: Dallas ISD Has The Worst Graduation Rate Of Major Texas Districts. They had a four-year graduation rate of 81.4%.
- Dallas Observer: Dallas ISD Gets ‘C’ Rating in Newly Released District Accountability Rating. Could be worse, but could be a lot better.
- A number of stories from the Fort Worth Report about Fort Worth ISD school closings: FWISD recommends closing 2 schools, rebuilding another to reshape Northside campuses; FWISD recommends three closures, consolidation of schools in Polytechnic area; Fort Worth ISD slates De Zavala Elementary for possible 2027 closure; Fort Worth ISD proposes closing Atwood McDonald Elementary in 2027. Also, from the Star-Telegram: Elementary closure in Fort Worth ISD leads to school attendance zone changes. This one is about the closure of S.S. Dillow Elementary because of foundational issues (the foundation of the building).
- Star-Telegram: New A-F ratings put Fort Worth ISD at risk of state takeover. What does it mean? One sixth-grade campus that is now closed got an F for five years running, which is the cue for a state takeover (like HISD). But since the school in question is closed, which is one of the ways to deal with a failing school, that means the risk of a takeover is low. Also in the Fort Worth Report: Here’s why Fort Worth ISD believes district is not at risk of state takeover.
- Star-Telegram: Keller plans to give teachers 1% pay raise next school year as district cuts budget.
- Star-Telegram: Heritage subpoenas Keller school board’s attorney for records over split scheme. Heritage is the HOA that’s suing Keller ISD over the plan to split the district that failed.
- DMN: Keller ISD’s controversial proposed split spurs debate over how Texas districts divide. HB 5089 is still in committee in the House.
- Star-Telegram: Was Keller ISD split racially motivated? A ‘backroom’ deal’? Trustees respond. Unsurprisingly, the school board VP and one of the trustees involved in the split plan deny everything. This was at the committee hearing in the DMN story above.
- Fort Worth Report: Debate over partisanship, culture wars in Mansfield ISD at center of school board race. Unsurprisingly, the candidate wanting partisanship is a Republican supported by the True Texas Project.
- DMN: State ethics panel to review allegations of ‘dark money’ in Prosper ISD trustee race. Two candidates got $50K from a PAC in Washington DC and nobody knows where the money came from.