Friends, View here. So happy to share this Instagram video by youth organization, Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT) headed by Cameron Samuels and his outstanding team...Da'Taeveyon Daniels, Christianna, Angel Huang, Haydn, and the rest of them who came from as far as El Paso and Beaumont.  Specifically, I highlight here Saturday evening's anti-book-banning event at Book People this weekend here in Austin, Texas. It was livestreamed on Instagram. You can view the video here.  It was awesome hanging out with Children's Defense Fund Texas Program ..read more

  Friends, Happy to share this podcast Interview that took place during the pandemic on Ethnic Studies, CRT, and where we should be headed in education with Dr. Abdín Noboa-Rios and Dr. Tony Baez. You can link directly to this interview below or view it here on Youtube. I listened to it recently and happened to like my responses to Drs. Noboa-Rios and Baez' questions.  As I think about Ethnic Studies and Critical Race Theory (CRT), my biggest concern is not solely with the mischaracterizations but also with the anti-intellectual agenda of not wanting to know minoritized or s ..read more

Ok, so were UT cuts more aimed at gaining politicians' trust more than SB17 compliance? That's what's suggested here. An obvious question that lots of folks are asking is where is this freed-up money going to go? Ideally, it would go back to student services and staff that work with those students instead of to "teaching and research," as Hartzell has expressed (see April 2, 2024, Hartzel letter posted to this blog).  Geez, there is no university without students or the staff that serve them. Faculty and Teaching Assistants cannot assume this onerous responsibility. There are professiona ..read more

 Friends, As you can view for yourselves here, I am very pleased to announce that my blog is ranked number 5 among the top education blogs in Texas. Glad I checked. When I shared this yesterday with my students, one of them expressed, "You got flex!" Cool, so "I got flex"—a new expression for me. This blog got going 20 years ago. Before that, I ran a listserv for 7 years. If you want to know why I blog, I invite you to read this Nov. 10, 2021 message titled, "A Personal Message on Why I Blog and a Word of Thanks by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D." Although I don't—and have n ..read more

 Friends, I'm thrilled to announce that Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT) is here in Austin, Texas on Friday, April 20, and Sunday, April 21st to demand a seat at the table in decisions that directly affect them. I know there are a lot of great things happening among our youth in Texas, but this is tops! Plus, it makes enormous sense to me for young people to be accomplish this via a focus on policy. Long overdue. Follow and friend them on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/studentsengagedtx/ Saturday, April 20, 2024— "Building Bridges Amid Book Bans," at BookPeop ..read more

Friends,  As promised in my previous blog post, here is a chronology or timeline of recent events at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) that highlights public statements. on Senate Bill 17 and its implementation. Understanding that the timeline is listed out by date of publications, it's not a strict timeline. That said, what I am seeing is that the publications do track closely to the playing out of events at UT Austin. The struggle began much earlier, of course, during the 88th (2023) Texas legislative session, much of which I have already captured on this blog. This is most defi ..read more

These are the big news from Tuesday, April 2, 2024. I've been out of pocket, so still catching up myself. I was in New Mexico at the New Mexico Association for Bilingual Education keynoting at this year's conference. Folks came up to me expressing concerns about Texas and where it's headed politically. Everyone already knew about the dismantling of diversity offices and initiatives at the University of Texas at Austin. This was because it made national headlines. See, for example, Katherine Mangan's article in the Chronicle of Higher Education posted below. There are concerns that SB ..read more

This morning I heard the news of a severe weather event impacting various states, including Texas after having just read this story of the looming crisis involving Antartica (also read: Severe weather to roar from Texas to Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland) and thought about how frivolous it is for our legislators to be hyper-focused on trans youth, opposing diversity, banning books, and so on when we are very well within the bounds of climate tipping points that place humanity on an already disastrous trajectory (Tandon, 2023; also see Global Tipping Points report). The ..read more

This story in The Nation on how Senate Bill 17 is impacting youth represents a sad state of affairs. Our youth here in Texas are clearly impacted. And negatively so. All I can say is that policy is made by people and not Jesus. Plus, Jesus, I am confident, would never author or support policies that hurt people. What can you do? Remain informed and get involved. You do have a legislator that represents you. If you don't know who they are, you can find out here.  After doing so, reach out to them or their staff to express your sentiments to them. The more that legislators hear from their c ..read more

 [en español aqui]  Friends, Sharing here the timeline of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) Takeover of HISD (2015-2023) authored by Houston Community Voices for Public Education (HCVPE), a group that has taken TEA and the installed Superintendent Mike Miles to task. How did the HISD state takeover happen? Here you go. As you can see from the photo, HCVPE is a large community-based organization that is fighting the brave and noble fight against the de-democratization of public education. What's playing out in Houston is a travesty, a calculated harm by those that want to seed public d ..read more