Dallas Public Schools: Required Reading for the Week

This weekend, the Mister, Tiny and I will be heading to the DISD Magnet Fair I mentioned last week, to get a bit of the lay of the land. Next week also means dropping by the Dealey open house as well – so keep your eyes peeled for what I’ve gleaned from those two treks next week.

This week I am working on defining some of the things we see talked about – but if you’re new to Texas, public schools or Dallas ISD, you might not know exactly what they are. It’ll be an ongoing feature that I hope will eventually be spurred by reader questions – so if there is something you’ve been wondering about but haven’t wanted to call yourself, email me – I’ll find out!

In the meantime, here are some stories and blog posts that I found interesting about Dallas public schools:

• At the Dallas Observer, Jim Schutze points out an interesting statistic – apparently DISD leads the nation in Advanced Placement scores by minority students.
• The Home Rule Commission met yesterday, and Eric Celeste has some suggestions for that body over at Learning Curve.
• If you have an hour a week to spare, DISD could use some literacy tutors, the Dallas Morning News said.
• Although not about Dallas ISD specifically, if you didn’t catch DISD executive director of news and information Jon Dahlander’s poignant piece about his late son, grab the Kleenex and settle in. It’s beautiful.
• Dallas ISD’s bond rating was upgraded for the second consecutive year by Fitch, and now stands at AAA.  It wasn’t a blink ago that the district was borrowing money, and now it has a steady surplus every year.
• And finally, if you haven’t read my piece about our decision to give Dallas public schools a chance, please head over and let me know what you think.