Local
East Texas Bishop Faces Investigation After Criticizing the Pope and Taking Political Stances
Strickland has taken political initiative by describing President Joe Biden as an “evil president.”
Baby Among 4 Found Dead in the Rio Grande
Texas Department of Public Safety officers recovered four dead from the Rio Grande over the holiday weekend.
Illegal Alien Sentenced in Houston for Trafficking Guns and Drugs to Cartels
He was found with a rocket launcher, two rocket-propelled grenades, heroin, and “lots” of cash.
Scandal-plagued La Joya ISD to Challenge Takeover by Texas Education Agency
An investigation by TEA found multiple violations among the board of trustees and other administrators.
Local Archive
Twenty-Two Town Halls
One upcoming legislator is going above and beyond to make sure all of his constituents have a chance to voice their opinions before session starts. State Rep. Drew Springer will be holding 22 townhalls over the next two days. No, that’s not a typo. State Rep. Elect...
“Feeling Heat” is Just Part of the Job Description
Lawmakers in the Texas House and the U.S. House of Representatives have something in common these days. Both bodies are facing serious decisions about who will lead them going into the new year, and both are hearing from constituents about this important decision....
Spending Money to Make Money in Northside ISD
If complicated equations are your thing, it's likely you'd enjoy the WADA - "weighted average daily attendance" - portion of how Texas does school finance. School districts are understandably less than fond of this calculation, given that it means their state funding...
Broke? Texas school chiefs doing well.
Many economists are warning that we are about to fall into yet another official contraction of the economy. But don’t worry about your almost-sainted it’s-all-for-the-children local public school superintendent. “The average salary for a Texas public school...
Be Careful What You Ask For
They’re baaack! The same crowd that gave us Scratch Offs is two-stepping again. Advocates for expanding gambling have been working behind the scenes with assorted RINOs and Democrats for years, formulating a grand strategy to expand, expand, expand. Unfortunately,...
“Superintendent” PAC’s Super Election
Read the headline one more time, with sarcasm dripping from each syllable, and you'll get a sense for how I feel about this. For six years, in every eligible election, the Texas Parent PAC has gone to the mattresses to defeat proponents of school choice. They repeat...
Margins Tax Repeal Emerges on First Day of Bill Filing
The Texas Legislature is set to convene on January 8, and today, incumbent legislators are able to begin pre-filing legislation. Right out of the gate, we've got our first bill to repeal the franchise (or "gross margins") tax, SB 113 by Senator Craig Estes (R-Wichita...
A Little Debt Context
Yesterday, Comptroller Susan Combs released another earth-shattering report, this one focused on education debt. The statistics within are just as incredible as you might imagine. Public school districts in Texas are responsible for 33% of Texas' local debt, the...
School Staffing Far Outpacing Classroom Growth
While numerous Texas school districts divert resources to suing the state over the current finance system, new information has come to light about just how much administrative growth there has been in the last twenty years in our school districts. The Friedman...