Articles tagged: Education
The Unlikely Demise of Texas’ Biggest Corporate Tax Break
After 20 years, the state’s most lucrative corporate welfare program comes to an end.
In 2001, state lawmakers and business leaders warned that the state’s high property tax rates were discouraging corporations from locating big projects in...Read More
Texas’ Largest Corporate Welfare Program Is Leaving Companies Flush and School Districts Broke
The state’s Chapter 313 program offers steep discounts on property taxes to attract big industrial projects that are supposed to pay off over the long term. But by the time these projects return to the tax rolls, much of that value has disappeared.
As the United States struggled to meet demands for fuel in the early 2000s, Motiva Enterprises decided to double the capacity of its oil refinery in the Gulf Co...Read More
‘I Felt Like They Were Demonizing My People’: Advocates and Families Point to Biases in Texas Curricula
In Allen ISD, a 9th grade student is pushing back against an anti-Palestinian lesson plan.
Dana, a Palestinian-American student at Lowery Freshman Center in Allen, Texas, was immediately taken aback by the multiple choice quiz question in her classroo...Read More
Texas Has the Widest Digital Divide in the Nation. What Does that Mean for the School Year?
As schools reopen, some families face potentially life-threatening options.
Before COVID-19, Jeanette Mathews was a single mother who relied on her son’s school schedule to help balance two jobs. In the mornings, the Mississippi trans...Read More
The New Ensemble
Texas’ best high school mariachi bands take the stage.
The New Ensemble Mariachi music is on the rise in Texas high schools. The state festival in Edinburg draws the best of the best. By Robyn Ross June 10, 2020 For...Read More
Tough Decisions Ahead for School Leaders in Rural Texas
With no edict from Governor Abbott, rural school officials must weigh the health of their students against the health of their communities.
Update: Governor Greg Abbott announced Thursday, March 19, that all Texas schools will be closed until April 3. If he’d arrived four hours sooner, he’d ha...Read More
‘Almost Akin to a Political Coup’: Houston Teachers Fight Back Against State Takeover of HISD
In a last-ditch effort to stop a state takeover of Texas’ largest school district, the Houston teachers union is suing the state for disenfranchising voters of color.
The fight over the future of Houston’s public school system escalated this week when the local teachers union joined a federal voting rights lawsuit against t...Read More
Texas Schools Suspended Students Between Pre-K and Second Grade More than 70,000 Times in a Year
Black boys, foster care kids, and special ed students were disproportionately suspended, according to a new report from Texans Care for Children.
While racial disparities are a hallmark of the criminal justice system, a growing body of research shows that bias and unequal punishment start as early as pre-...Read More
In Boerne, a Youth Suicide Prevention Effort that May Actually Work
Boerne ISD was once in the grips of a student suicide crisis, but now a prevention program has kept the district suicide-free for the last three years.
A decade ago, Boerne ISD — an 8,700-student district on the outskirts of San Antonio — was in crisis. Students were inexplicably killing themselves at the r...Read More