Categories
LBJ School

2013 GPAC Elections

Tomorrow morning promptly at 8:00 AM current GPAC President, Garry Davis, will be sending the LBJ student body a link to vote online in the 2013 GPAC elections. Polls will close on Friday, April 5th at 5:00 PM. This time frame should give LBJ students ample time to decide which candidate to vote for in […]

A Letter for Diversity

As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, the population of the United States is more diverse than ever. In the 2010 Census, Texas was 37.6 percent Hispanic/Latino, 11.8 percent African-American, and 3.8 percent Asian, which closely resembles the demographic makeup of the United States as a whole. However, the diversity of […]

Who Was Barbara Jordan?

  Who was Barbara Jordan? A basic Internet search will tell you that she was “an American politician and a leader of the Civil Rights movement.” Who was Barbara Jordan? If you dig a little deeper, you will find that she “was a lawyer and educator who was a congresswoman from 1972 to 1978 – the first […]

Exciting New Direction for the Baines Report

The past year has been a busy one for the Baines Report. We got a new website, revived the PolicyBriefs podcasts and published op-eds from 28 of our students, professors and alums. Thanks to our writers' excellent critique and analysis, several of these articles were featured on the UT-wide election blog and LBJ homepage, helping […]

“Red Scare” at LBJ

LBJ, is this the best you could come up with? The LBJ School is training us to be future leaders of non-profits, consultants for businesses and authors of government policy. The administration tells us we are the decision-makers of the future, but they apparently do not believe that students can be trusted with opaque red […]

Start Early and Be Creative in Your Internship Search

I spent the summer interning at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), an independent, non-partisan think tank in DC that conducts research on migration, immigration and demographic issues. MPI also publishes an online journal, the Migration Information Source, which provides up-to-date information on migration-related issues.    During my internship, I worked primarily with the Communications Team. […]

Categories
Education Policy

No Easy Answers in Education Policy Reform

This summer I worked for the non-profit organization The New Teacher Project (TNTP), which is in the middle of a five-year contract with the Houston Independent School District to reform the human capital system of HISD. The changes happening at HISD quietly place the district in the center of the most controversial debates in education […]

El Salvador’s Marbury Moment

This summer’s major constitutional news was the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of President Obama’s health care law. Millions of Americans disagreed with the decision, but all agreed that the decision was final—the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of constitutionality. But for six million people in a tiny nation in Central America, this summer […]

Summer in the Sahel

At this time last year, all I can remember is the fear and intimidation I felt about finding a summer internship.  The second years and career resources team provided us with encouraging facts like "you'll apply for 50 and hear back from one!" or "if you're not already looking, you're already behind!"  Undergrad was already […]

The LBJ School at 40

The LBJ School has changed almost beyond recognition since the first class graduated in 1972. Back then, students were individually selected and mentored. They came generously funded with full- tuition scholarships and stipends for living expenses. In many cases they were taught by faculty members who had, until recently, been senior members of the Johnson […]