Categories
Education Policy

The “Other” Tragedy in Public School Funding

  We’re all aware of the beating public education took this past legislative session. A total of $5.3 billion was cut, representing the first time Texas deliberately underfunded its schools. As a result, thousands of teachers lost their jobs and hundreds of innovative programs were ended. However, a less familiar, but equally unfortunate reality of […]

Categories
Education Policy

Texas’ Charter School Movement Shows Growing Pains

  Charter schools are quickly becoming an important piece of both national and state-level education reform efforts. They’ve been praised in movies like “Waiting For Superman” as one of the few hopes for improving inner-city education. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan made boosting charter school enrollment on criteria for the Race to the Top grant […]

Preparing Public Affairs Graduates to Lead

  Public affairs and public policy graduate programs prepare their students for professional careers in public service. Many graduates eventually become managers or executives; a few of these lead organizations. Yet some programs such as the one at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs do not require core courses in ethics or in […]

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Education Policy

To Truly Fix U.S. Education, Start Outside the Classroom

  Frustrated by rising costs and stagnant achievement levels on standardized tests, American politicians and media-savvy education reformers have over the past several years pushed for a complete overhaul of this country’s public school system. The ways their frustration has been vented – from demonizing teacher unions to implementing punitive policies that look to evaluate […]

Categories
Education Policy

Keeping Schools Out of the OR

  As Texas legislators and education officials are scrambling to find ways to reduce school spending, a few of the politically savvy ones are spinning the budget crisis as a means to “reinvent public education in Texas.” However, the cost-saving measures they are proposing are simply more strongly-worded versions of the same complaints we’ve heard […]

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