By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 1B Sometimes it takes an outsider. Something you’ve seen a thousand times may seem as normal as heat in a Texas summer – until someone new stops in and points out just how wrong it is. That’s how I felt when I read an academic paper by Jennifer Booher-Jennings, […]
Category: DMN | Education
Funds misspent, school audit finds; Money for kids used for love seat, locksmith
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 1B A baritone horn from a pawnshop. A $7,700 set of murals. A pizza crisper, cookie-dough scoops, and a Queen Anne love seat for the principal’s office. According to state auditors, those are some of the ways Wilmer-Hutchins officials spent more than $270,000 in federal education funds – money […]
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W-H board OKs bond plan, tax-rate vote; Action comes despite collapse of district, lack of students
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 4B Wilmer-Hutchins officials on Tuesday approved a $74 million bond program and a new tax election – despite having no students and a state-imposed death sentence looming. And at least one official plans to ask the federal government to, in effect, give it a stay of execution. “If we […]
Wilmer-Hutchins maintains sliver of hope; Board of troubled district might seek tax hike to build schools
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 4B Wilmer-Hutchins isn’t quite dead yet. At its meeting tonight, the district’s board of managers will consider asking voters to raise their taxes and spend millions on building new schools. That’s despite the fact that state officials have announced their intention to drive the school district out of legal […]
Poor scores for urban schools; Jonathan Kozol finds segregation persists, shortchanging kids
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 12G Jonathan Kozol knows full well that “apartheid” is a loaded word. It may literally mean “separateness” in Afrikaans, but it implies much more: a total governmental separation of the races, based on violence or the threat of violence. Which is why Mr. Kozol’s use of the word in […]
Baylor extends search for president; Interim leader removes his candidacy, delaying vote at regents’ meeting
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 7A Baylor University’s interim president has withdrawn his name from consideration for the permanent job. That delays the university’s efforts to fill its top spot and find a unifying leader for a divided campus. “Hopefully, one of these days we’ll bring you a permanent president,” Will Davis, chairman of […]
Wilmer-Hutchins High set to house evacuees; Superintendent says area near gym is in acceptable condition
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 8B Wilmer-Hutchins has lost its students, but that doesn’t mean its schools will sit empty. Some evacuees from Hurricane Katrina will be moved to the district’s high school in southern Dallas, according to Superintendent Eugene Young. The school would normally be housing students this time of year, but a […]
State to dissolve W-H district; Merger with DISD needs OK from Justice Department
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 1B The Wilmer-Hutchins school district is being put out of its misery. State Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley announced Friday that the long-troubled district will cease to exist July 1. Its boundaries will be merged into the Dallas school district – which is already educating Wilmer-Hutchins’ students, since Wilmer-Hutchins can’t […]
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A new twist on transfers; Districts waiving admission rules for displaced children
By Joshua Benton and Toya Lynn Stewart Staff Writer Page 1B Sunday morning, when Demetrice Nora fled New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward with her family, she only packed clothes for a few days. But on Wednesday – seeing the destruction back home – she enrolled her daughters at Larson Elementary in Grand Prairie. It’s the […]
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Column: Throngs of teachers retiring, and that’s not such a bad thing
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 1B You remember Miss Crabtree, don’t you? She was your third-grade teacher, and even back then she seemed impossibly old. She thought music had gone nowhere but downhill since Scott Joplin. Her reindeer sweater – the one she pulled out every December – was knit during the Rutherford Hayes […]
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