Leading Off
1. DISD announces that the number of schools ranked “exemplary” or “recognized” by the state will double to nearly 100. (I know one proud papa with a thinning head of hair who will be glad to see Hexter Elementary on that list.) As well, the number of schools rated “academically unacceptable” will decrease more than 20 percent, to about 20. District officials made appropriately reserved remarks, saying these are steps in the right direction. Editors at Belo-owned companies vowed to redouble their efforts to find small instances of chicanery at DISD schools or within the administration and blow them out of proportion. “We won’t rest until this school system is brought down,” they said, “or we win some sort of mid-level journalism award for trying, whichever comes first.”
2. Texas Democratic Party Chairman Boyd Richie says he and his wife will endorse Barack Obama. This is important because Richie is a superdelegate, although why he would reveal his secret identity to the press is a mystery to me. That’s not the way crime-fighting superdelegates did it in my day. Maybe he’s seen Iron Man.
3. Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief has a bobblehead. Please, let’s get to work on one for Tom Leppert. Please.
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Gee–did Ft. Worth annex Arlington when we were sleeping?
Sorry. I was thinking about making No. 3 about the Cowboys stadium. Had Arlington on the brain. It’s fixed.
1. AMEN Brother Tim.
1. I mean Brother Eric. A – men, A – men, A- men!!
Suggestion: for Leppert, it shouldn’t be a bobblehead, but rather a bobblehand doll.
Bobblefingers, exactly.
Eric, I want to state for the record that my hair is NOT thinning
Let’s hope the hiring freeze and budget issues (see Observer blog) don’t stop the momentum that DISD generated by these results. It’ll also be interesting to see if schools drop in rankings when the final numbers come out (there are new dropout calculations – I’m guessing just a couple more schools drop into unacceptable). Of course, we won’t hear anything bad about DISD on this blog, since D counters Belo stories with nothing but rosy stories about DISD.
Sometimes you get the feeling that the DISD rankings are figured the same way the cops figure the crime rate. Throw out some categories until the result is what you want to see.
Leppert’s bobbleheads are the city council members who nodded/voted yes on the convention center hotel.
D has hardly praised Dallas schools over the years – cite a few stories, please..
But it is promising to see Tim Rogers (Hexter) and Eric Celeste (Booker T. but could still choose Woodrow) actually involved and writing about DISD first-hand and not from a dire and dour distance.
Hearty congratulations to DISD – this amount is nearly half the schools — and many of them are in our wonderful East Dallas, which is rapidly being discovered as an oasis in education.
I want the Richie Boyd bobblehead, to go with my Larry Craig bobblefeet.
But Leppert has two bobble-heads; Caraway and Neumann. Oh, you mean a bobble-head in his likeness.
Say East Dallas Eccentric, It might be private school ya ya land up here but we have great public schools in North Dallas. They are exemplary, recognized and nationally ranked as well. Those of us who invest in our public schools still have tuition funds available for the great colleges our children attend.
Huzzah, North Dallas! D hardly ever notes that the RISD is an excellent district. It won the 1007 HEB Excellence in Education Award for large districts in Texas — don’t recall that being mentioned in these parts. The RISD has the best bond ratings among public school districts in the state: Aa1 (Moody) and AA+ (S&P). So if you guys are going to promote excellence in education around here, RISD sure deserves more credit than you’ve been giving it. And certainly a ton more credit than DISD, despite the illuminating presence of D staffers in DISD schools.
Move out to the burbs where the education is pristine!
er, 2007 Excellence in Education Award. I didn’t attend RISD schools…
Well I think W.T. White and Hillcrest are good schools if you can’t go to Woodrow
Yes it’s idiotic what some people will pay for private schools. They don’t their own homework by crossing the threshold of their local public school to investigate. Now who is lacking there?
Besides the tuition money saved, many alums donate scholarships at our ’star in the east’. So it’s even more advantageous to avail yourself to the school.
Oh and your kids actually forge lifetime friendships with neighborhood kids instead of being transported to the transitory.
Wes, Richardson ISD is indeed worthy of high praise. The reason we Dallas parents fall over each other to laud our schools is to counter Belo’s efforts to “take us down.”
Speaking of HEB, Charles Butt said, regarding media treatment of our public schools, “We must make the beating stop.”
Amen Brother Charles!
No problem, Louisa. Didn’t mean to blow out DISD’s candle to make RISD’s brighter! A rising tide lifts all boats. If I try hard, I might be able to squeeze in one more hoary bromide…
While the popular media largely looks for failure in the public schools (even KERA did a longish piece this morning about DISD po-po anticipating large-scale fights on campus the day school lets out at several DISD high schools), we’ve got to triumph when our public schools excel.
I’d love to see a life-sized Leppert bobblehead. You could hold a lot of hotel pillow mints in those mitts of his.
Salad fingers has a bobblehead?
BTW, EDE: She was accepted to Booker T. (Wearing proud Dad hat.) And there are legitimate beefs with the way DISD has handled its audit and some large decisions. There’s also a lot of good work being done that is always ignored. That’s why we appear defensive.
I am disappointed in learning that 1/10 of the DISD transfers are teachers children and from out of district. Maybe this has something to do with enrollment falling. RISD won’t let East Dallas in their schools, why should they be allowed in DISD. (By the way I graduated from Richardson HS. It doesn’t have many of the barriers DISD does. To some extent, cannot be compared.
I also learned that at least one student from Spence got Accepted to Booker T., that not only had failing grades at the time of their audition, but were also a discipline problem. During the audition could not even do the required splits. This is a magnet school! BT teachers do tons of tutoring to get through TAKS. MAGNET…shouldn’t it say we deserve to be here cause we work harder, including ACADEMICS. After bringing up this situation, I am told they are looking into making a change. Situations like this are what seems to go around the criteria for others and turns other to Private. There are alot of good things beginning to happen, but it’s going to take another year. ACCOUNTABILITY FOR ALL.