#texas-school-investigations

#texas-school-investigations

Supporters of the legislation argue that it is designed to protect prospective applicants for executive positions at universities by keeping private all application records until finalists are named. This confidentiality is crucial for individuals who wish to apply without alerting their current employers.

There's a lot of evidence that indicates that teacher morale has been declining nationwide and is at, by some measures, the lowest point in recent memory. California teachers scored 16 on the Teacher Morale Index, which is based on three questions from the Education Week survey. The morale score for U.S. teachers overall was 13.

The Palo Alto Unified School District is in the middle of at least 11 different lawsuits, including cases that allege unchecked bullying, racist attacks, injured students, inadequate special education and retaliation by district leadership.

We don't have any of the results because there was a lot of confusion today. We were able to keep the polls open, but I can tell you now that people have been disenfranchised.

When Jody Hughes' daughter asked Adobe Express for Education, graphic design software provided by her teacher, to generate an image of "long stockings a red headed girl with braids sticking straight out," it produced nothing resembling the Swedish children's book character she had accurately described. Instead, using recently-added artificial intelligence, it generated sexualized imagery of women in lingerie and bikinis.

Protecting students from immigration raids was a priority for state legislators this year, resulting in several new laws, including one prohibiting school staff from allowing immigration officers to enter campuses or providing student or family information. The most controversial of the new laws is one meant to target antisemitism, although amendments made during the legislative session resulted in a bill that defines discrimination more broadly.

The investigations will determine if LGBTQ+ content, which the department describes as 'sexual orientation and gender ideology (SOGI) content', is included in any classes for grades pre-K-12 and if the schools have notified parents of their right to opt their children out. Further to this, the DOJ investigation will assess whether the three school districts restrict access to single-sex spaces based on 'biological sex'.

Over the past several years, Texas has moved from griping about "woke campuses" to fundamentally restructuring the governance, curriculum, and tenure protections of its public universities. The cumulative effect is not reform. It's consolidation of power. And the target is the traditional independence of higher education. TL:DR - send your kids to Texas public universities, and it's like having the Texas legislature teach your kids.

Since the fall of abortion rights, no abortion provider has been convicted of violating a state ban. Proceedings underway in Texas might soon change that. Last March, Ken Paxton, Texas' Republican attorney general, filed civil and criminal charges against a Houston midwife, accusing her of performing illegal abortions and practicing medicine without a license. Texas law permits penalties of up to life in prison for performing abortions. The midwife, Maria Margarita Rojas, has responded that the state just can't prove their case.

Ontario's education minister placed a seventh school board under supervision Wednesday in order to prevent dozens of teachers from being laid off, he says, and he is planning to soon take control of another board over financial concerns. Paul Calandra announced that he has put Peel District School Board under supervision and is giving the York Catholic District School Board two weeks to make a case for avoiding the same fate.

On a chilly day before Christmas, Teresa Rivas helped a tween boy pick out a new winter coat. "Get the bigger one, the one with the waterproof layer, mijo," she said, before helping him pull it onto his string-bean frame. Rivas provides guidance counseling at Owen Goodnight Middle School in San Marcos, Texas. She talks with students about their goals and helps if they're struggling in class. She's also a trained navigator placed there by a nonprofit called Communities in Schools.

In a letter sent to faculty and staff obtained by KBTX, Provost and Executive Vice President Dr. Alan Sams said the decision was made "as part of the broader implementation of the recently updated Systems policy". He claimed that the Texas university "made the difficult decision to begin winding down the Women's and Gender Studies (WGST) academic programs, including the BA, BS, Graduate Certificate and the Minor", claiming it was due to "enrolment over the past several years".

The legal challenge centers on a 6 September letter Morath sent to school superintendents across Texas, instructing them to report educators who made what he termed reprehensible and inappropriate remarks about Kirk, who was shot and killed on 10 September while speaking at Utah Valley University. Public school teachers and other employees do not surrender their first amendment rights simply by virtue of their employment, the lawsuit reads.

These numbers look stark, but in context they reveal far more about the conditions California children are growing up in than the quality of classroom instruction. California educates a disproportionate share of children experiencing housing insecurity. A 2024 analysis found that 4% of California students were homeless, with some counties reaching 16%. The California Department of Education reports 230,443 homeless students statewide, a 26% increase over five years that mirrors broader trends in affordability, overcrowding and displacement.

Teachers have almost no authority over student behaviors or academic grading, and are given little, if any, respect from administrators, parents or even students. Instead, students have all the authority but no responsibility for their success. Students do (or don't do) whatever they wish, while empty-handed teachers are left to take the blame. Teachers no longer have the ultimate tool of flunking students.

I think that there is more than enough to impeach Donald Trump,

It's long overdue that we modernize the management of our educational system, Newsom said, and so in the budget I'll be submitting tomorrow, I'm proposing that we unify the policymaking by the State Board of Education and the Department of Education, allowing the State Superintendent of Public Instruction to align our education policies from early childhood through college. The budget's passage on this was longer, but still failed to explicitly say what Newsom had in mind.

Texas governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, ordered all state colleges and universities to freeze their applications for new H-1B visas, The Texas Tribune reported. The pause, announced Tuesday afternoon, will last until May 31, 2027, though some institutions may be able to proceed if granted written permission by the Texas Workforce Commission. "State government must lead by example and ensure that employment opportunities-particularly those funded with taxpayer dollars-are filled by Texans first," Abbott told the Tribune.