Texas Education Agency: Black students more likely to be kicked out of classrooms for incidents not warranting removal

 Black students in Texas are much more likely to be kicked out of their regular classrooms than children of other races when the decision is left up to school administrators, according to state data from the last three years.

Hobbs: http://dallasne.ws/hUvWO5

TEA: Rich districts kept their money

HALLSVILLE, Texas – Dozens of wealthy Texas school districts held on to more than $40 million in tax money that should have gone to poorer districts under the state's "Robin Hood" law until the state demanded they pay up this year, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.

Danny Robbins, The Associated Press  http://dallasne.ws/aaNJzJ

School districts freed of deseg reporting requirements

Most Texas school districts will no longer have to report information on student transfers or have student and staff assignments monitored by the Texas Education Agency for desegregation purposes. Under an order issued this week by a federal judge in Tyler, all but nine rural school districts will be freed of certain restrictions involving student transfers that have been in place since 1971 under a federal court ruling issued that year.
Stutz: http://dallasne.ws/dtcCV5

Proposed cuts at Texas Education Agency include $48 million for English textbooks

Stutz:

AUSTIN – English textbooks and new science labs for Texas students would be on the chopping block under a proposal to trim some education spending by 10 percent in the next two-year budget. The Texas Education Agency's budget reduction plan, requested by Gov. Rick Perry and other state leaders in anticipation of a revenue shortfall that could reach $18 billion, also would scale back the state's merit pay program for teachers and reduce funding for a steroid testing program for high school athletes.
http://dallasne.ws/d6s4Kz

Stutz:
AUSTIN – Texas high school students have a year before they must begin to pass a battery of 12 end-of-course tests to graduate, but results for hundreds of thousands of students already taking some of the exams portend a rocky start for the new testing program. Of the nearly 102,000 students who took the Algebra I test in May, for example, just 57 percent met the passing standard on the 50-question exam. Only 12 percent achieved "commended performance" for correctly answering most of the items.
http://dallasne.ws/9GIE03

TEA may suspend 'Texas Projection Measure'

AUSTIN — State Education Commissioner Robert Scott is considering elimination of a policy that allowed hundreds of schools to boost performance ratings last year by factoring in projections of students’ future performance on tets.
http://dallasne.ws/a4c6X0

Texas Education Agency rips Fox News reports

Stutz reports on unusual move by TEA:


"The Texas Education Agency issued an unusual press release Wednesday taking the Fox Network to task for what the agency said were "highly inaccurate" news reports about the State Board of Education and its current work on new curriculum standards for social studies."