According its recent budget proposal, The Houston Independent School District will eliminate local magnet funding for its Vanguard schools that serve gifted and talented students in the district. The $3 million will be redistributed among zoned non-magnet schools to expand programming. “There are some schools that don’t receive any fundingRead More

This year’s graduation might be an especially good time to get your child a new car, especially one that runs on batteries. The 83rd Texas Legislature has passed Senate Bill 1727, which will provide up to a $2500 rebate for the purchase or lease of a plug-in, electric vehicle. ForRead More

The Spanish Embassy has honored Wharton Elementary School’s Dual Language Program as its School of the Year for the United States and Canada in 2013. The award for academic excellence in Spanish is given by the Education Office for the U.S. and Canada, which is a technical body of theRead More

A cheating scandal at two Houston Independent School District Elementary School deepened on Thursday, May 8, as the HISD Board of Education terminated five teachers from Jefferson Elementary School accused of “improperly assisting” students on statewide standardized tests, including the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness. The five dismissalsRead More

It’s more difficult to get into Houston ISD’s (HISD) most selective schools than it is to get into Harvard; HISD’s top ten most selective schools accepted fewer than 5% of applicants. Nearly 48,000 applications were submitted to Houston Independent School District (HISD)’s 96 magnet schools by the December 20, 2013Read More

The nation’s public high school graduation rate hit its highest level in 40 years, according to the latest version of an annual report from the magazine Education Week. The magazine’s annual study of graduation rates, Diploma Count, reported that 74.7 of students in the United States graduated with a highRead More

Sequestration cuts from the Budget Control Act of 2011 will continue to bite students and parents borrowing to pay for college, according to a report from Clare McCann at Forbes Magazine. The Federal Department for Education announced today that student loan origination fees will slightly increase for all loans takenRead More

Seven district teachers and the Houston Federation of Teachers have sued the Houston Independent School District in Federal District Court, charging that the district inappropriately uses standardized test scores in teacher evaluations. The lawsuit has national implications as federal education policy encourages districts to increase their use of standardized evaluations.Read More

A recent study has added to the research challenging the widely accepted use of homework as an education tool, this time specifically focusing on the effects of large amounts of homework on the well-being of affluent students. The article, entitled “Nonacademic Effects of Homework in Privileged, High-Performing High Schools” wasRead More

Eleven schools in the Houston Independent School District were ranked in U.S. News and World Reports prestigious list of Best High Schools in the United States.  The rankings include more than 4,700 of the top high schools in the country. Carnegie Vanguard, the district’s flagship high school for gifted andRead More

Word on the net is that Apple is planning to update its Macbook Air laptops this week with new Intel processors and possibly new hard drive options. The Air line of super thin and light notebooks hasn’t seen an update since the Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference in June of 2013.Read More

Students interested in enrolling in a specialized program for the 2014-2015 school year and their parents can examine the offerings at the Houston Independent School District Choice Fair this weekend. The fair will take place this Saturday, April 26 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Northwest Mall, 9500Read More

The process to reconstruct Lamar and Bellaire high schools with proceeds from the Houston Public School District’s 2012 Bond Issue is proceeding smoothly. “Plans are currently on schedule,” HISD Spokesperson Sheleah Reed wrote in an e-mail to Thesis on April 17. Project Advisory Teams (PATs), made up of students, parents,Read More

Update: This article describes the graduation requirements applicable to students graduating in 2017 or before. For more information on the new Foundation High School graduation requirements, which are applicable to all students matriculating after 2014 and available on an opt-in basis to students graduating in 2015-2017, see our comprehensive guideRead More

As of April 1, Berry Elementary School became the latest campus of the Houston Independent School District to attain coveted LEED silver status for the environmentally friendly features in the school, which was reconstructed using $14.9 million from the district’s 2007 bond issue. Berry, which opened in 2011, is aRead More

Can you feel the heat? Spring Break is over, Summer is coming, and your teenager needs to make a plan about how to make the summer productive and avoid bum status. In lieu of summer studies, working, interning, or volunteering are great ways for your teen to mature and stayRead More