Re: The Hinojosa Performance Review

So, I’m very confused about how this story was reported in the Dallas Morning News today. The headline in the paper said, “Hinojosa extension is denied.” This didn’t make DISD spokesman Jon Dahlander happy. He says the headline was “flat-out wrong”:

His contract wasn’t up for discussion and he didn’t seek an extension, as noted in the body of the article. It was a job evaluation. Period.

Okay, so there’s no way that headline was justified. (The online headline is different. I think it used to match the headline in the paper version, but I can’t be sure. Anyone remember?) You can’t deny something that wasn’t requested. But I can see how it was written given the lead of the story, which says that the takeaway from the three-hour closed-door evaluation was that “Hinojosa received no contract extension.” Now, is that justified?

In linking to the article today, Kent Fischer at the DMN says a contract extension is “perfunctory” in these instances. I have no idea if that is true. Kent would know before I would. And if that’s the case, then I can understand reporting it as though it’s important he didn’t receive an extension. (Although a contract through 2012 seems like a pretty solid show of support.) But I would have liked for that to have been made clear in the story. And it’s worth noting that WFAA and Channel 11 both reported the story as though the takeaway should have been that there were no changes to his contract and he wasn’t fired. That seems more even-handed to me. I’ll go ahead and turn comments on, so Kent can call me a DISD toady.