Reporting on Texas schools, universities, and education policy -- funding fights, school choice, and university governance.
The amount of local property-tax revenue Texas clawed back from property-wealthy school districts fell sharply in the 2025-26 school year, the first full accounting since lawmakers rewrote the school-finance formulas.
Governor Greg Abbott announced the launch of the Texas Classroom Commission, a new teacher-driven advisory body designed to put public school educators at the center of shaping state education policy.
Fort Worth ISD, the state's largest school district under a full Texas Education Agency takeover, is moving to close a campus and erase a tens-of-millions-dollar deficit as its appointed leadership tries to lift student outcomes fast enough to hand control back to an elected board.
Texas' first-year education savings account program is on track to fund nearly 96,000 students for 2026-27, roughly 23,000 more than began drawing money on July 1.
Texas will add exactly one new open-enrollment charter operator this year, after the State Board of Education signed off on Texas High School for Accelerated Learning, the single applicant the Texas Education Agency (TEA) advanced from a field of 18.
The Texas Education Agency has opened a second cycle of its Phone Free Schools Grant Program, offering roughly $2.
Texas is preparing to fund special education based on how much service a student needs rather than where that student sits, one of the largest structural changes in the state's school-finance system in years, as the Texas Education Agency rolls out implementation guidance for House Bill 2 ahead of the 2026-27 school year.
Texas began distributing its first Education Freedom Account payments on July 1, with nearly 73,000 families set to receive funds in the opening round, according to a news release from the state comptroller's office.
Texas school districts paid more than $2.
With the 2025-26 school year now complete, Texas has finished the first full year under House Bill 1481, the statewide prohibition on student use of personal communication devices during the school day, and the early assessments from educators, teacher groups, and researchers point in the same general direction: noticeably calmer campuses, with the harder questions about discipline and academic results still unresolved.