Reporting on Texas schools, universities, and education policy -- funding fights, school choice, and university governance.
Gary VanDeaver, the former rural superintendent who fought private school vouchers in 2023 who was one of only two House Republicans to vote no when they passed in 2025, will take over the Texas Association of School Boards on Oct. 1.
Heights Elementary School in Texas City Independent School District has been designated a 2026 Texas Lone Star Ribbon School, one of just 25 public schools in the state to receive the honor this year, according to a Sept. 22 news release from the office of state Rep. Terri Leo Wilson.
The Texas Education Agency has removed its conservators from the Socorro Independent School District after the district completed established exit criteria and sustained its corrective actions, according to a Sept. 23 news release from the agency.
The nine-member board that invests $92.5 billion for Texas's public universities meets Sept. 24 in Austin, its first meeting since new rules took effect letting it borrow more, hold more assets it cannot sell quickly, and put more money with any single outside manager.
A Texas high school student who earns college credit in a welding, nursing or automotive class will see it add less to a grade point average than the same credit earned in a college history or calculus course, under the first statewide rule the state has ever adopted for how school districts must compute high school GPAs.
Beginning Sept. 23, a Texas school district that hosts a football game, a graduation or a prom drawing more than 1,000 people must put at least one uniformed peace officer on site.
Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a formal legal opinion Sept. 17 concluding that school district police departments do not qualify to receive reports of suspected child abuse or neglect under the Texas Family Code.
Gov. Greg Abbott has selected 13 members to serve on a Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board working group charged with developing a statewide framework for three-year bachelor's degree pathways, his office announced in a Sept. 16 news release.
The board that licenses Texas teachers votes Sept. 18 on rules that would give a failing teacher-preparation program an extra year before the clock starts on losing its accreditation.
Texas lawmakers have cut school property taxes in three straight sessions and committed roughly $51 billion of the current budget to keeping those cuts in place.
The board that runs the $226 billion Texas teacher pension fund opens a two-day meeting Sept. 17 with changes to the policy meant to keep the fund on course set for the second day — two months after staff told trustees that policy had been tripped.
Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Workforce Commission announced on Sept. 14 that four Jobs and Education for Texans grants totaling $1,327,075 have been awarded to four West Central Texas schools to expand career and technical education programs.
The Texas Workforce Commission is celebrating Adult Education and Family Literacy Week from Sept. 13 through Sept. 19, using the observance to highlight free programs that help adults build reading, writing, math and English skills, the agency said in a Sept. 14 news release.
The board of Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, the third-largest school system in Texas, is scheduled to decide Sept. 14 whether sixteen of its teachers quit without good cause — a finding that would send each of their names to the state agency that can suspend a teaching certificate.