By Sherry Jacobson Staff Writer Page 12M When it works the way it’s supposed to, re-entering Earth’s atmosphere is a quiet, even humbling experience for crew members aboard a U.S. space shuttle. The long work of a shuttle mission is behind them, their objectives have been accomplished, and it’s time to go home. Crew members […]
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 1A Thirty percent of Texas schools – more than 2,000 in all – will fail to meet tough new testing standards and could face federal sanctions if they don’t quickly improve, state officials said Thursday. “It will be a challenge for our schools,” said Debbie Graves Ratcliffe, spokeswoman for […]
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 1A When Kent Grusendorf first ran for the State Board of Education in 1982, he was an outsider, lobbing criticism into the education establishment. Now he is the establishment. The things he has pushed for ? a strong accountability system for schools, less power for teachers, more autonomy for […]
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 1A WEST LAKE HILLS, Texas – Begging doesn’t come easy to the men and women of the Eanes Independent School District. The people of Eanes are doctors, lawyers, business people. Within the district’s boundaries reside many of the Austin area’s power elite. It’s one of Texas’ wealthiest school districts. […]
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 1C A wise man once said it’s better to be insulted at the start of a date than the end. So we start our evening out at Goff’s, the famed burger joint on Lovers Lane. Proprietor Harvey Gough has made a decades-long shtick out of being nasty to his […]
Read More… from Cheap Date: This date serves up burgers, games
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 1A Texas’ universities believe there are plenty of parents who could afford to write bigger tuition checks every semester. Now they want the power to tap into that wealth. The state’s top education officials are asking the Legislature to give up its traditional power to set tuition rates at […]
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 19A Texas schools don’t deserve a spot on any honor roll, according to a new report that rates the state’s education system as downright average. As in previous years, the state got middling grades in the annual Quality Counts report, which attempts to judge the education policies of 50 […]
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 1A There is no Sabine River Shootout. No Battle for the Old Crawfish Tail, no Toledo Bend Tussle. Texas and Louisiana may share a 250-mile border, but their flagship universities haven’t shared much of a football rivalry. On Wednesday, Louisiana State and Texas will battle in the SBC Cotton […]
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 1A Seventeen area school districts would have had their state ratings lowered last year if the word “dropout” meant the same to Texas officials as it does to the federal government, according to a new data analysis. For the first time, the state has recalculated the dropout rates of […]
Page 35A David took down Goliath all right – but with a rook, not a slingshot. Freshman Nate Conrad pulled off a major upset last weekend in Atlanta to give St. Mark’s School of Texas ninth-graders the national team chess championship. The team – Nate, Christian Leppert and Jared Forbus – beat out 18 teams, […]