News

AAS: "Texas’ economy seems to have turned a corner, but the improvement won’t be enough to avoid a significant shortfall next year, top budget officials said Monday."

NY Times: "States and companies have started investing very differently when it comes to the billions of dollars they are safeguarding for workers’ retirement."

FW Star-Telegram: "Crucial funding for pregnant and parenting teens will be re-examined for cuts after concerns were raised during a legislative committee hearing Monday in Austin."

Washington Post: "Education Secretary Arne Duncan plans to announce Monday that his agency is ramping up enforcement of civil rights laws in schools and colleges, a move that seeks to draw a contrast with the policies of his Republican predecessors."

TX Tribune: "The most prominent symbol of Christian conservative power on the State Board of Education, former chair Don McLeroy, lost his seat Tuesday by a razor-thin margin, and with the loss, the board likely won't be quite as much of a Christian Conservative flash point any more."

NY Times: "Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is presiding over the rollout of the largest competitive grant program in his department’s history, a vast expansion of the government’s direct loan program for college students and sweeping new expenditures on failing schools, teacher quality and other big initiatives."

Reporter News: "Tuesday’s election results suggest a political shift on the State Board of Education as some of the most socially conservative members won’t return, including some who supported teaching concepts like intelligent design in science class."

WSJ: "Education and publishing company Pearson PLC reported a 46% jump in 2009 net profit to £425 million ($648 million) Monday, boosted by an education business that CEO Marjorie Scardino says could be helped further by U.S. President Barack Obama's push for common state standards in math and reading."

Click here to read more about the USDE announcement.

Governor's Press Release: "Texas is the first, and so far only, state to meet all the American Diploma Project’s five key college and career readiness measures, Achieve, a national bipartisan organization, announced today."

Philadelphia Inquirer: "President Obama yesterday addressed the nation's school-dropout epidemic, proposing $900 million to states and school districts that agree to drastically change or even shutter their worst-performing schools."

New West: "U.S. teachers are more interested in school reform and student achievement than their paychecks, according to a massive new survey."

AAS: "Thomas Ratliff upset State Board of Education member Don McLeroy in a Republican primary nail-biter."

TX Tribune: "Texas students could lose more than $47 million in financial aid under proposed budget cuts from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board."

KXAN News: "Where does your child spend the biggest part of their day? At school? School employees spend more time with our kids than just about anyone else. So shouldn't parents have the right to know if these people have a criminal background?"

News West: "The entire staff of teachers fired in a radical attempt to improve one of the worst performing high schools in Rhode Island will appeal their dismissals to school authorities, the head of the teachers union said Thursday."

Abilene Reporter News: "Texas school district superintendents are facing increasing burdens at a time when the economy is slumping and the state is enacting sweeping changes to accountability and curriculum, according to school leadership consultants."

NY Times: "The Obama administration plans to significantly expand the flow of federal aid to charter schools, money that has driven a 15-year expansion of their numbers, from just a few dozen in the early 1990s to some 5,000 today."

NY Times: "President Obama kicked off a drive Monday to upgrade American education, unveiling a plan requiring states to adopt new reading and mathematics standards and committing his administration to “breaking down some of the barriers to reform.”

Chron.com: "More than a decade into Texas' charter school movement, some politicians want to expand the nontraditional campuses to tap into an underserved market: children with special needs."

TX Tribune: "Following a pattern that started with the Race to the Top federal school grant program, the Obama administration may soon require states to adopt yet-to-be-finished national curriculum standards to tap billions in federal Title I funds, according to a report today in Education Week."

The Courier: "Texas’ English and mathematics college and career readiness standards meet and, in many cases, exceed national standards, a new analysis released Tuesday found, according to a Texas Education Agency press release."

Longview News-Journal: "Local athletes won't be tested for steroids with state money, and several instructional programs will be eliminated as part the Texas Education Agency's plan to cut more than $135 million from its budget."

NY Times: "Dozens of public high schools in eight states will introduce a program next year allowing 10th graders who pass a battery of tests to get a diploma two years early and immediately enroll in community college."

Inside Higher Ed: "Step by step, an infrastructure is emerging that would make it possible for dozens of states to share data about the students in their K-12 and postsecondary education systems, creating the equivalent of a national system of data on students' educational progress."

TX Tribune: "Thousands of people aren’t getting counted in some of Texas’ largest counties, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report, and it could mean financial and political trouble for the state as the decennial national count heads this way next month."

AAS: "The Teacher Retirement System of Texas has offered up a way to protect their retiree health care fund even while meeting the mandate from state leaders to propose budget cuts totaling 5 percent of the agency’s budget paid for by general revenue."

FW Star-Telegram: "The Texas Education Agency is proposing $135.5 million in cuts -- including science lab grants and funding for steroid testing -- as part of the state's across-the-board plan to reduce spending."

TEA has posted a proposed 2010-2011 budget to reflect the 5% reductions requested by the Governor. Please view the full article for more information.

The Senate Education Committee is scheduled to meet on February 22 and on March 22. Please see the full article for more information.

AAS: "Texas’ sales tax collections in January fell 14.2 percent over the same month last year, the 12th-consecutive month of sales tax declines, Comptroller Susan Combs reported Friday."

NY Times: "This week, Georgia officials said they had found evidence that cheating might have occurred on standardized tests at one in five public elementary and middle schools around the state."

Boston Globe: "The nation’s public schools are falling under severe financial stress as states slash education spending and drain federal stimulus money that staved off deep classroom cuts and widespread job losses."

San Antonio Express: "Four in 10 Texas school districts are using “rainy day” reserve funds to balance their current budgets. More than half the districts are expected to do so next year."

TX Tribune: "Texas lawmakers are expecting to find a hole in the state budget — anywhere from $11 billion to $17 billion, maybe even more — when they return to Austin a year from now."

The Senate Education Committee posted information about its first interim hearing scheduled for February 22. Charges #4 and #8 will be discussed at the hearing.

Chron.com: "Houston-area school districts spend tens of millions of dollars a year on teachers with advanced degrees that studies show don't produce better student achievement."

Chron.com: "Before being ordered by Gov. Rick Perry not to compete for a chunk of the $4.3 billion “Race to the Top” federal grants for public schools, staffers at the Texas Education Agency had put in more than 800 hours preparing an application."

Corpus Christi Caller: "The state test students pass to advance to another grade level will have a different name, but essentially it will be the same concept, education officials believe, with the same pressure and high stakes for students and educators."

NY Times: "Federal stimulus money has helped avoid drastic cuts at public schools in most parts of the nation, at least so far."

TX Tribune: "Edward Conger, the principal of Thomas Jefferson High School, one of the Dallas Indepenent School District’s toughest high schools, came to public education after two decades in the U.S. Marine Corps."

Today the Agency posted correspondence describing the new vision for Texas' student data systems, with system roll out to take place over a 5-year period. A schedule for obtaining stakeholder input is provided, as well.

USDE Press Release: "President Obama's 2011 education budget signals a bold new direction for federal K-12 education policy with more competitive funding, more flexibility and a focus on the reforms likely to have the greatest impact on student success."

NY Times: "The Obama administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of President Bush’s signature education law, No Child Left Behind, and will call for broad changes in how schools are judged to be succeeding or failing, as well as for the elimination of the law’s 2014 deadline for bringing every American child to academic proficiency."

Commissioner Robert Scott spoke Tuesday, January 26 at the TASA Midwinter Conference to provide several TEA updates. Please view the full article to access the Commissioner's presentation.

TX Tribune: "At some charter schools in Texas, it’s the teachers who can’t wait to clear out at the end of the school year."

Politico.com: "Education Secretary Arne Duncan says President Barack Obama made “tough choices” on school programs in his budget due next Monday, as part of reforms aimed at weeding out bad teachers, rewarding good ones and leveling with parents."

AAS: "From an announcement from the Texas Education Agency: Commissioner of Education Robert Scott announced today that the next generation of student tests will be called the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness or STAAR."

UTexas: "In response to low principal retention rates in Texas, The University of Texas at Austin's College of Education will be offering a master's degree in education on site in select urban Texas school districts. The degree will be designed to address each district's unique needs."

Houston Chronicle: "Texas school districts might have a shot at the federal Race to the Top grant money after all."