1. A former DISD employee was arrested for conspiracy to commit mail fraud. It involved funneling $160k to someone else from 2009 to 1011, which was under Michael Hinojosa’s watch. You know who I’m blaming? Mike Miles.
2. Now here are specific charges of financial malfeasance that should resonate in North Texas: charter schools in D.C. and Chicago getting spanked for funny-money problems. I love that this post is tagged “Department of Two Things Are True at Once.” We can believe reformers aren’t after your money in every case, while still acknowledging that there need to be transparency rules in place to make sure that’s true in every case.
3. Fantastic essay by a black educator looking for a racially and ethnically diverse (kids, teachers, staff) pre-K program for his children. It examines nationally how difficult this is, but also in the particular why it’s so important. I was just going over some numbers showing how crucial pre-K programs are, how easy it is to get them wrong, and this just adds an extra layer of complexity into that equation. DISD will be rolling out some new pre-K programs next year, and I’ll be writing more about that next week and in the months to come; I felt like this essay gave me great information with which to evaluate diversity aspects of these programs.
