Texas announces takeover of Houston schools, stirring anger
Juan A Lozano and Paul J. Weber – March 15, 2023
People hold up signs at a news conference on Friday, March 3, 2023, in Houston while protesting the proposed takeover of the city’s school district by the Texas Education Agency. Local and federal officials say state leaders are preparing to take over the Houston Independent School District over allegations of misconduct by district board members and the yearslong failing performance of one campus. ( Juan A. Lozano/AP Photo) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
HOUSTON (AP) — Texas officials on Wednesday announced a state takeover of Houston’s nearly 200,000-student public school district, the eighth-largest in the country, acting on years of threats and angering Democrats who assailed the move as political.
The announcement, made by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s education commissioner, amounts to one of the largest school takeovers ever in the U.S.
It also deepens a high-stakes rift between Texas’ largest city, where Democrats wield control locally and state Republican leaders have sought increasing authority in the wake of election fumbles and pandemic restrictions.
Other big cities including Philadelphia, New Orleans and Detroit in recent decades have gone through state takeovers, which are generally viewed as last resorts for underperforming schools and are often met with community backlash. Critics argue that past outcomes show little improvement following state interventions.
The state began making moves toward a takeover of the Houston Independent School District in 2019, following allegations of misconduct by school trustees, including inappropriate influencing of vendor contracts, and chronically low academic scores at one of its roughly 50 high schools.
The district sued to block a takeover, but new education laws subsequently passed by the GOP-controlled state Legislature and a January ruling from the Texas Supreme Court cleared the way for the state to seize control.
Schools in Houston are not under mayoral control, unlike in cities such as New York or Chicago, but as expectations of a takeover mounted, the city’s Democratic leaders unified in opposition.
Most of Houston’s school board members have been replaced since 2019. District officials also say the state is ignoring academic strides made across city schools.
Race is also an issue because the overwhelming majority of students in Houston schools are Hispanic or Black. Domingo Morel, a professor of political science and public services at New York University, has studied school takeovers nationwide and said the political dynamics in Texas are similar to where states have intervened elsewhere.
The demographics in Houston, Morel said, are also similar.
“If we just focus on taking over school districts because they underperform, we would have a lot more takeovers,” Morel said. “But that’s not what happens.”
Big, stinky blob of algae takes aim at Florida beaches. What’s causing it? Is it climate change?
Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAY – March 15, 2023
Beachgoers in Florida and the Caribbean could be greeted by heavy blankets of smelly seaweed in the weeks ahead as a 5,000-mile swath of sargassum drifts westward and piles onto white sandy beaches.
Sargassum, a naturally occurring type of macroalgae, has grown at an alarming rate this winter. The belt stretches across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa to Florida and the Yucatan Peninsula and is as much as 200 to 300 miles wide.
“This year could be the biggest year yet,” even bigger than previous growths, said Brian Lapointe, an algae specialist and research professor at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute.
The belt is already beginning to wash up in the Florida Keys and Barbados and elsewhere in the region, but researchers don’t know where the bulk of it could wind up.
The monstrous seaweed bloom is just one more example of a growing global invasion of macro and microscopic algal blooms thriving on an increasing supply of nutrients such as nitrogen in freshwater and marine ecosystems.
This image based on satellite photos shows the massive belt of sargassum seaweed blooming across the Atlantic Ocean and drifting onto beaches in Florida and the Caribbean.
What is causing the algal blooms?
In addition to the unsightly piles of sargassum along the coast, some species produce toxins that affect the food chain or deplete the oxygen in the water when they start to decay, causing fish kills and the die-off of other marine species.
Key quote: “These nutrients are the common thread that ties all the algal blooms together,” whether it’s sargassum, red tide, or blue green algae, Lapointe said. It’s also linked to the “brown tide” bloom in Florida’s Indian River Lagoon that has been blamed for killing thousands of acres of seagrass, leading to the starving deaths of hundreds of manatees.
Beachgoers make their way through mounds of seaweed along the shoreline in Ormond Beach, Tuesday, May 25, 2021.
Isn’t sargassum naturally occurring?
Yes. Christopher Columbus wrote about floating mats of it in the Atlantic Ocean.
“It’s not a bad thing to have the sargassum in the ocean,” said Brian Barnes, an assistant research professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Sea turtle hatchlings swim from Florida beaches to the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic, where they spend their early lives floating and foraging in the grass.
“If it all stays offshore, we wouldn’t really have a problem,” Barnes said. But the macroalgae has mushroomed in size over the past 12 years or so, which makes it more likely to see large piles of seaweed that make it difficult to walk, sit or play on beaches.
The trend was first documented on satellite in 2011.
In some cases, there’s so much seaweed that local governments must use heavy equipment and dump trucks to haul it away, LaPointe said.
He has linked the surge in sargassum to flow from the Mississippi River, extreme flooding in the Amazon basin, and the mouth of the Congo, where upwelling and vertical mixing of the ocean can bring up nutrients that feed the blooms. He said deforestation and burning also may contribute.
Phytoplankton blooms increasing in size and frequency
Blooms of much smaller algae – a microscopic species known as phytoplankton – increased in size and frequency around the world from 2003 to 2020, the researchers concluded in the Nature study.
“We’ve seen something pretty similar in a lot of the things we study,” Barnes said. “We’re seeing such massive blooms now.”
The coastal phytoplankton study, by Lian Feng at the Southern University of Science and Technology in China and other researchers, used images from NASA’s Aqua satellite. They found:
Blooms affected more than 8% of the global ocean area in 2020, a 13.2% increase from 2003.
Bloom frequency increased globally at a rate of nearly 60%.
Europe and North America had the largest bloom areas.
Africa and South America saw the most frequent blooms, more than 6.3 a year.
Australia had the lowest frequency and smallest affected area.
Is climate change affecting algae blooms?
Blooms have been at least indirectly linked to climate change in several ways, but especially to the warming temperatures that bring more extreme rainfall that washes silt and pollutants into waterways.
The authors of the coastal phytoplankton study, Lapointe and other researchers have found:
A correlation in some regions between changes in sea surface temperatures and ocean circulation.
Warmer temperatures coincided with blooms in high latitude regions such as Alaska and the Baltic Sea.
Climate change can affect ocean circulation and the movement of nutrients that feed phytoplankton blooms.
Global climate events, such as El Nino, also show connections to bloom frequency and movement.
Algal-bloom-favorable seasons in temperate seas have increased with warmer temperatures.
Where will the sargassum pile up this year?
“We can’t really say which particular beach at which particular time,” Barnes said. The university publishes a regular update on the status of the bloom.
“We can get an idea of when it will be fairly close,” he said. “In general, everything flows west. It will come across the Central Atlantic and into the Caribbean, and into the Gulf of Mexico through the straits of Florida.”
Winds, currents and even small storms can influence where the sargassum moves.
Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands could get hit hard, Barnes said. But the floating mats also wind up on beaches in Jamaica and all around the coast of Florida.
Russia is so cut off from the international financial system that the Kremlin thinks Western sanctions have ‘insured’ the country against the banking crisis
Huileng Tan – March 15, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin.Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images
The Kremlin said Russia will not be impacted by the US bank crisis.
Kremlin’s spokesperson said Russia is ‘insured’ against the fallout from Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse.
Sanctions over the Ukraine war have cut Russia off from the international financial system.
It’s been a rocky week for US banks. But the Kremlin’s looking at the bright side of things.
Russia is now so cut off from the global financial system that the Kremlin thinks it will face no impact from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
“Our banking system has certain connections with some segments of the international financial system, but it is mostly under illegal restrictions from the collective West,” the spokesperson for Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, said Tuesday, according to TASS state news agency. He was referring to sanctions against the country over its invasion of Ukraine one year ago.
“We are, to a certain extent, insured against the negative impact of the crisis that is now unfolding overseas,” Peskov said, per the media outlet.
In contrast, Russia — like much of the world — faced a credit crunch due to the fallout from the US subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, which ultimately led to the Global Financial Crisis.
International banks and accounting giants have pulled out of Russia or are working on their exits over the Ukraine war. Two days after the invasion, some Russian banks were also banned from SWIFT, the Belgium-based messaging service that lets banks around the world communicate about cross-border transactions. This ban has hampered cross-border transactions for Russia’s trade and financial systems, isolating the country economically and financially. The country is also facing restrictions on its key energy exports, including a $60 per barrel oil price cap.
Still, Russian President Vladimir Putin has touted the resilience of Russia’s economy and the country’s statistics service said its GDP contracted by just 2.1% in 2022 — although there are some questions over its numbers because it stopped publishing certain key economic statistics last year.
Russia wants to recover debris of US drone from Black Sea
Elena Becatoros and Darlene Superville – March 15, 2023
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, right, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, attend a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, Wednesday, March 15, 2023, at the Pentagon in Washington. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Pool via AP)A view of the town of Bakhmut, the site of the heaviest battles with the Russian troops, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Roman Chop)Curtains blow in a flat in the building damaged by shelling at the scene of the heaviest battles with Russian troops in Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Roman Chop)In this handout photo taken from video and released by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Wednesday, March 15, 2023, the Russian army’s 152-mm howitzer “Hyacinth-B” fires at Ukrainian troops at an undisclosed location. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia wants to recover the fragments of a U.S. surveillance drone that American forces brought down in the Black Sea after an encounter with a Russian fighter jet, a Russian security official said Wednesday.
Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, claimed in televised remarks that Tuesday’s incident was “another confirmation” of direct U.S. involvement in the conflict in Ukraine. He said Russia planned to search for the drone’s debris.
“I don’t know if we can recover them or not, but we will certainly have to do that, and we will deal with it,” Patrushev said. “I certainly hope for success.”
U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the drone was flying in international airspace and over international waters when a Russian fighter jet struck the propeller of the MQ-Reaper drone.
U.S. officials accused Russia of attempting to intercept the unmanned aerial vehicle, although its presence over the Black Sea was not an uncommon occurrence.
“It is also not uncommon for the Russians to try to intercept them,” Kirby said, adding that such an encounter “does increase the risk of miscalculations, misunderstandings.”
Kirby said the drone had not yet been recovered and it was unclear whether it would be, but the U.S. “took steps to protect the information and to protect, to minimize any effort by anybody else to exploit that drone for useful content.”
“It is also not uncommon for the Russians to try to intercept them,” Kirby said, adding that such an encounter “does increase the risk of miscalculations, misunderstandings.”
Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, said Russia has the technological capability to recover the drone’s fragments from deep in the Black Sea.
Earlier Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated the Russian Defense Ministry’s statement that Russian jets didn’t use their weapons or impact the U.S. drone.
Peskov described U.S.-Russia relations as being at their lowest point but added that “Russia has never rejected a constructive dialogue, and it’s not rejecting it now.”
At the Pentagon, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the intercept by the Russian jet was part of a “pattern of aggressive, risky and unsafe actions by Russian pilots in international airspace.” He said Russia must operate its aircraft in a safe manner.
“Make no mistake, the United States will continue to fly and to operate wherever international law allows,” Austin said in opening remarks before a virtual meeting of a U.S.-led effort to coordinate Western military support for Ukraine.
While encounters between Russian and NATO aircraft are not unusual — before the invasion of Ukraine, NATO planes were involved in an annual average of 400 intercepts with Russian planes — the war has heightened the significance and potential hazards of such incidents.
“The last thing that we want, certainly the last thing that anybody should want, is for this war in Ukraine to escalate to become something between the United States and Russia, to have this actually … expand beyond that,” Kirby said, speaking Wednesday on CNN.
The secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, tweeted Wednesday that the drone incident was “a signal from (Russian President Vladimir) Putin that he is ready to expand the conflict zone, with drawing other parties in.”
Separately, the U.K. defense ministry said British and German air force fighter jets were scrambled Tuesday to intercept a Russian aircraft flying close to Estonian airspace. The U.K. and Germany are conducting joint air policing missions in Estonia as part of NATO’s bolstering of its eastern flank.
The defense ministry said the Typhoon jets responded after a Russian air-to-air refueling aircraft failed to communicate with Estonian air traffic control. The Russian plane did not enter the airspace of Estonia, a NATO member.
On the ground in Ukraine, the fighting ground on. At least three civilians were killed and another 23 wounded in the country by Russian strikes over the previous 24 hours, Ukraine’s presidential office said Wednesday morning.
In eastern Ukraine’s partially occupied Donetsk province, where much of the heaviest fighting has been concentrated, Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said a total of 14 cities and villages were shelled. That included Kramatorsk, a city where some of Ukraine’s military forces are based.
In embattled Bakhmut, where Russian forces have pressed a months-long assault to capture the city, Ukrainian forces have successfully fought for northern parts of the city, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said.
“There are certain and significant successes of the armed forces of Ukraine who were able to achieve something in the north of the city,” Maliar told Ukrainian television. “Bakhmut is the epicenter (of fighting in the Donestk region), the Russian occupiers are tryng to encircle and seize the city.”
In the northeastern Kharkiv region, one person was killed and another was wounded in Vovchansk, a city near the border with Russia that is regularly shelled. Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said Russian forces also hit a civilian area of Kharkiv itself, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
“There is no military or infrastructure facility in the vicinity of the place of the strike,” Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. “Only residential buildings and urban infrastructure.”
Speaking on Ukrainian television, Terekhov said a boarding school, where only employees were present, had been damaged, as well as an apartment building. No casualties were immediately reported.
In the south, Russian forces shelled the city of Kherson seven times in the last 24 hours, hitting an infrastructure facility and residential buildings and wounding four people. In Dnipropetrovsk province, Russian forces shelled Nikopol and Marhanets, towns located across a river from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
Why this Mediterranean staple could help you live longer
Abigail Buchanan – March 14, 2023
sofrito – Getty
The latest study extolling the virtues of the Mediterranean diet has come this week from Newcastle University. Researchers studied data from 60,000 people, and found that eating plenty of fruit, vegetables, legumes, fish and olive oil, and very little red and processed meat, could significantly cut your dementia risk.
Along with this, they suggested that to maximise the benefits of the Med way of life, we should be having twice weekly servings of sofrito – a simple sauce made from just four or five ingredients, that is the bedrock of Mediterranean cuisine, used in sauces, soups and stews, and as a marinade for fish and meat. The ingredients vary slightly by region, but it always starts with a base of workaday staples: onions, tomatoes and olive oil. In Spain, it usually contains garlic and peppers, in Italy, celery and carrots.
Sofrito was also identified as a key component in the ‘perfect’ diet based on findings from an influential, long-running study conducted in Spain, which informed Newcastle University’s research. Its importance is “based around its ubiquity in Mediterranean cooking,” says Dr Oliver Shannon, a lecturer in human nutrition and ageing at Newcastle who led the recent study into diet and dementia risk. Few people got a ‘perfect’ diet score in the study, but “even one or two small changes to an individual’s diet could make a big difference.”
sofrito chopped vegetables – Getty
One of the crucial ingredients for brain health is plenty of olive oil, which is abundant in sofrito, and has a “healthy profile of fats – mono and poly-unsaturated fatty acids,” says Shannon.
“It’s also rich in polyphenols, these ‘plant defence’ compounds that seem to be really good at protecting the body against oxidative stress. There’s some really good evidence now that that contributes to the cardiovascular and cognitive benefits of the Mediterranean diet.”
A diet that includes two dishes cooked with sofrito per week has broader health benefits, as it means that you’re cooking a healthy meal from scratch and not taking shortcuts or eating fast food, says nutritionist Jane Clarke. But the tomato base provides a specific brain boost.
sofrito – Getty
“Tomatoes contain an antioxidant called lycopene that reduces what we call ‘free radical damage’ – the damage that the environment, our genes and lifestyle can have on our body – and reduces the risk of certain types of dementia,” she says. It’s lycopene that gives tomatoes their bright red colouring.
“What’s great about tomatoes is that the lycopene content increases and becomes more readily available to the body when it’s cooked. And you’ve lost the water so you’ve got a more concentrated source.”
Some suggest that cooking tomatoes with olive oil – as is often the case in a Mediterranean diet – further increases the concentration of this potent antioxidant. An Italian study showed that the absorption of lycopene was three times greater from cooked tomatoes in comparison to raw.
Onions and garlic get their smell from allicin, another anti-inflammatory ingredient, says Clarke. Plus, an Italian soffritto typically also contains carrots and celery. “Carrots contain beta-carotene, an antioxidant, and like the tomato, it’s more efficiently absorbed when it’s cooked,” she says. Beta-carotene, which is also present in tomatoes, helps support a healthy immune system.
sofrito – Getty
The best news of all is that sofrito is the base of countless delicious dishes, from Spanish paella to a traditional Italian bolognese. It can also be used as a condiment. ‘We use it in many different dishes [but] you can have it as it is, with a fried egg on top, for example,’ says Jose Jara, the Spanish head chef of JOIA, an Iberian restaurant in Battersea, London. He regularly serves a sofrito sauce with tapas dishes.
Preparing sofrito is easy, but requires a fair amount of chopping to finely dice the ingredients and then a long, slow simmer. You can buy a frozen sofrito (or soffritto) base from supermarkets, or buy the ready-made sauce from Waitrose and Ocado.
However, it’s best homemade, and can be batch-cooked and stored in the freezer. ‘The base of [our] sofrito is olive oil, onion, red or green pepper, tomato, garlic and paprika,’ says Jara, although depending on who’s cooking it, they might add one or two extra ingredients, such as herbs.
Cereal before bed? Food makers push ‘sleep’ snacks at night.
Anahad O’Connor and Teddy Amenabar – March 14, 2023
(Linnea Bullion for The Washington Post)
You’ve heard of breakfast cereal. But what about bedtime cereal?
Post Consumer Brands, the cereal company known for Raisin Bran, Grape-Nuts and Fruity Pebbles, has launched a new line of cereals that it wants you to include in your nightly sleep routine.
The cereal of crunchy flakes and almonds, called Sweet Dreams, comes with a description that reads like a box of herbal tea, touting notes of lavender and chamomile, as well as vitamins and minerals intended to support your body’s production of the sleep hormone melatonin. But Sweet Dreams cereal also contains as much as 13 grams of added sugar from cane sugar, corn syrup, “invert sugar” and molasses, which according to studies can be detrimental to your nightly sleep.
The company says its goal is to help people establish healthy nighttime habits “by providing a nutrient dense before-bed snack” that supports your sleep routine.
But some studies have found that eating late-night meals, including those with a lot of added sugar, actually can worsen your sleep and increase your risk of obesity. Although some of the vitamins contained in Post’s new cereal can influence your body’s melatonin levels, experts say it’s not clear that they’ll have more than a minor impact, especially when consumed in the evening.
“You’re not going to eat this at 7 p.m. and have it boost your melatonin secretion at 9 p.m. to help you fall asleep,” said Marie-Pierre St-Onge, an associate professor of nutritional medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and the director of the Sleep Center of Excellence at Columbia. “It’s not going to be a quick-fix two hours before bedtime.”
Sweet Dreams is one of a growing number of nighttime snacks marketed to a large segment of sleep-deprived consumers in search of better shut-eye.
Studies show that more than half of all adults in the United States experience difficulty falling asleep, and 1 in 5 have insomnia. Marketing late-night meals as sleep enhancers is a way for the food industry to achieve one of its longtime objectives: To boost sales by creating a so-called fourth meal that follows dinner.
“It’s a potential new eating occasion,” said Nicholas Fereday, the executive director of food and consumer trends at investment firm Rabobank. “If they can somehow turn it into a ritual, and it becomes more habit rather than the occasional thing, they’ll start getting their repeat purchases.”
Expanding into late-night meals is a timely move for the cereal industry, which has lost ground in its fight over “share of stomach” to other breakfast-food competitors.
Despite an uptick in sales during the pandemic, cold cereal has largely been on the decline as breakfast habits have changed, with more people either skipping breakfast, eating foods on the go or opting for “healthier” meals – such as eggs and Greek yogurt – that are higher in protein and lower in sugar.
Other food companies are catering to late-night snackers. Nightfood sells “sleep-friendly” cookies and ice creams with vitamin B6, magnesium, zinc and other ingredients.
Numerous candy bars and chocolates infused with melatonin, herbal extracts and other ingredients claim to help you sleep. One company sells “sleepy chocolate” candy bars with magnesium, melatonin, and a blend of botanicals “designed to help you fall asleep faster and more soundly.” You can wash it down with PepsiCo’s Driftwell brand of still-water, which contains L-theanine and magnesium and is marketed to help you wind down before bed.
Scientists know that what you eat plays a role in how you sleep. Diets high in sugar, saturated fat and simple carbohydrates like white bread are associated with poorer sleep. Large studies show that eating a diet with plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and foods high in unsaturated fats like fish, olive oil, nuts and avocados is linked to better sleep.
One reason a diet high in plant foods may help: Almost all plants, including tomatoes, olives, rice and walnuts, contain melatonin in varying concentrations. And a healthy diet provides nutrients that support the production of melatonin, such as zinc, magnesium and B vitamins. To synthesize melatonin, your body needs tryptophan, an amino acid, which you can find in milk, salmon, tuna, nuts and poultry.
St-Onge has found in her research that people who eat a lot of simple carbs wake up more frequently throughout the night.
But eating complex carbs keep blood sugar levels stable throughout the night, she said, resulting in better sleep. Some of her favorite “sleep-promoting foods” are cruciferous and green leafy vegetables, mushrooms, nuts, seeds, olive oil and lentils.
She recommends not eating too close to bedtime. But you also shouldn’t go to bed hungry. If you need a nighttime snack, she suggests eating something light, such as a bowl of plain yogurt with fresh fruit.
Erin Hanlon, a research associate professor at the University of Chicago and behavioral neuroscientist who studies sleep, said it’s fascinating to see companies marketing foods for a better night’s sleep. But, she adds, a box of sugary cereal might not be “the best way forward.”
Hanlon suggested dimming lights and limiting screen exposure, because light stops the brain from releasing melatonin.
Logan Sohn, a senior brand manager at Post, said the company recommends eating Sweet Dreams cereal as part of a relaxing bedtime routine that includes things like switching off electronic devices and practicing meditation.
As with any snack, people should consume it in moderation “while being mindful of other added sugars they are consuming throughout the day,” he said.
Tamarah Logan, a 56-year-old writer in Los Angeles, was shopping at Walmart last month when she spotted the blue box of Sweet Dreams with the tagline, “part of a healthy sleep routine.”
Logan said she has long struggled with sleep, getting only four or five hours of uninterrupted slumber each night. She doesn’t want to take supplements. So, she bought a box of Sweet Dreams Honey Moonglow, which she has been eating instead of dessert.
“I’ll have a bowl of cereal several hours before bedtime, instead of dessert or instead of a cookie with my tea,” she said. “I’m a kid of the ’70s. I grew up on boxed cereal. It’s comfort food for me.”
Details: According to the newspaper, the Institute for the Study of War told Insider that its mapping data showed that Russia had gained just 0.039% more territory in Ukraine between 31 January and 28 February.
At the same time, according to Business Insider, according to the war Mapper tracking group, Russia managed to increase the territory it controls in Ukraine by less than 0.01% in February, the same month it launched its long-awaited new offensive, experts say.
The ISW told Insider that “both numbers are small enough” that a tiny miscalculation could be why they are different, but that ultimately, both accurately portray the limited state of Russia’s territory gains.
“Russia gained this tiny amount of land while losing thousands of soldiers and hemorrhaging military equipment,” the publication concludes.
Texas announces takeover of Houston schools, stirring anger
Juan A. Lozano and Paul J. Weber – March 15, 2023
People hold up signs at a news conference, Friday, March 3, 2023, in Houston while protesting the proposed takeover of the city’s school district by the Texas Education Agency. Texas officials on Wednesday, March 15, announced a state takeover of Houston’s nearly 200,000-student public school district, the eighth-largest in the country, acting on years of threats and angering Democrats who assailed the move as political. (AP Photo/Juan A. Lozano)People hold up signs at a news conference, Friday, March 3, 2023, in Houston while protesting the proposed takeover of the city’s school district by the Texas Education Agency. Texas officials on Wednesday, March 15, announced a state takeover of Houston’s nearly 200,000-student public school district, the eighth-largest in the country, acting on years of threats and angering Democrats who assailed the move as political. (AP Photo/Juan A. Lozano)Houston Independent School District Superintendent Millard House II answers questions from the media, May 21, 2021, in Houston. Texas officials on Wednesday, March 15, 2023, announced a state takeover of Houston’s nearly 200,000-student public school district, the eighth-largest in the country, acting on years of threats and angering Democrats who assailed the move as political. (Steve Gonzales/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)
HOUSTON (AP) — Texas officials on Wednesday announced a state takeover of Houston’s nearly 200,000-student public school district, the eighth-largest in the country, acting on years of threats and angering Democrats who assailed the move as political.
The announcement, made by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s education commissioner, Mike Morath, amounts to one of the largest school takeovers ever in the U.S. It also deepens a high-stakes rift between Texas’ largest city, where Democrats wield control, and state Republican leaders, who have sought increased authority following election fumbles and COVID-19 restrictions.
The takeover is the latest example of Republican and predominately white state officials pushing to take control of actions in heavily minority and Democratic-led cities. They include St. Louis and Jackson, Mississippi, where the Legislature is pushing to take over the water system and for an expanded role for state police and appointed judges.
In a letter to the Houston Independent School District, Morath said the Texas Education Agency will replace Superintendent Millard House II and the district’s elected board of trustees with a new superintendent and an appointed board of managers made of residents from within the district’s boundaries.
Morath said the board has failed to improve student outcomes while conducting “chaotic board meetings marred by infighting” and violating open meetings act and procurement laws. He accused the district of failing to provide proper special education services and of violating state and federal laws with its approach to supporting students with disabilities.
He cited the seven-year record of poor academic performance at one of the district’s roughly 50 high schools, Wheatley High, as well as the poor performance of several other campuses.
“The governing body of a school system bears ultimate responsibility for the outcomes of all students. While the current Board of Trustees has made progress, systemic problems in Houston ISD continue to impact district students,” Morath wrote in his six-page letter.
Most of Houston’s school board members have been replaced since the state began making moves toward a takeover in 2019. House became superintendent in 2021.
He and the current school board will remain until the new board of managers is chosen sometime after June 1. The new board of managers will be appointed for at least two years.
House in a statement pointed to strides made across the district, saying the announcement “does not discount the gains we have made.”
He said his focus now will be on ensuring “a smooth transition without disruption to our core mission of providing an exceptional educational experience for all students.”
The Texas State Teachers Association and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas condemned the takeover. At a news conference in Austin, state Democratic leaders called for the Legislature to increase funding for education and raise teacher pay.
“We acknowledge that there’s been underperformance in the past, mainly due to that severe underfunding in our public schools,” state Rep. Armando Walle, who represents parts of north Houston, said.
An annual Census Bureau survey of public school funding showed Texas spent $10,342 per pupil in the 2020 fiscal year, more than $3,000 less than the national average, according to the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University in Houston.
The state was able to take over the district under a change in state law that Houston Democratic state Rep. Harold Dutton Jr. proposed in 2015. In an op-ed piece in the Houston Chronicle on Monday, Dutton said he has no regrets about what he did.
“We’re hearing voices of opposition, people who say that HISD shouldn’t have to face consequences for allowing a campus to fail for more than five consecutive years. Those critics’ concern is misplaced,” Dutton wrote.
Schools in other big cities, including Philadelphia, New Orleans and Detroit, in recent decades have gone through state takeovers, which are generally viewed as last resorts for underperforming schools and are often met with community backlash. Critics argue that state interventions generally have not led to big improvements.
Texas started moving to take over the district following allegations of misconduct by school trustees, including inappropriate influencing of vendor contracts, and chronically low academic scores at Wheatley High.
The district sued to block a takeover, but new education laws subsequently passed by the GOP-controlled state Legislature and a January ruling from the Texas Supreme Court cleared the way for the state to seize control.
“All of us Texans have an obligation and should come together to reinvent HISD in a way that will ensure that we’re going to be providing the best quality education for those kids,” Abbott said Wednesday.
Schools in Houston are not under mayoral control, unlike in New York and Chicago, but as expectations of a takeover mounted, the city’s Democratic leaders unified in opposition.
Race is also an issue because the overwhelming majority of students in Houston schools are Hispanic or Black. Domingo Morel, a professor of political science and public services at New York University, said the political and racial dynamics in the Houston case are similar to instances where states have intervened elsewhere.
“If we just focus on taking over school districts because they underperform, we would have a lot more takeovers,” Morel said. “But that’s not what happens.”
Weber reported from Austin, Texas. Associated Press writer Acacia Coronado in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.
Texas Lawmakers Have a New Scheme to Punish Renewables and Prop Up Fossil Fuels
Molly Taft – March 14, 2023
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick waves to a crowd at a Trump rally.
Texas Republicans are at it again. Last week, Republican politicians in the state legislature introduced a package of bills intended to punish renewable energy and boost fossil fuels, despite the fact that Texas is currently one of the nation’s top generators of renewable power.
On Thursday, Texas state senators Charles Schwertner and Phil King introduced nine bills that they said would help solve issues with Texas’s beleaguered power grid. According to the Dallas Morning News, the bills include one that would create up to 10,000 megawatts of natural gas-fueled generation; one to smooth out what Schwertner said were pro-wind and solar “market distortions” that federal tax breaks create; one to get rid of any remaining state tax credits for renewables; and one that would limit new renewable energy facilities being built based on how much natural gas facilities are also being built, in an attempt to keep natural gas competitive.
As the Dallas Morning News reported, Texas leadership are all for these types of measures. Earlier this month, Governor Greg Abbott said he would not allow wind and solar companies to get corporate tax breaks under a new state program. Meanwhile, last week Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick praised the bills at the press conference, saying in a release that they will “fix the Texas power grid once and for all.” Patrick said that he has designated two of the bills—the one to create the new natural gas generation and one dealing with the “market distortions”—as part of his hand-picked suite of 30 priority bills that he would be pushing during this legislative session.
What’s truly wild about this set of possible laws is just how well renewable energy is doing in Texas. Last year, the state was the number one producer of wind energy in the country and the number two producer of solar. The International Energy Agency predicted last year that renewables’ work on the grid could grow even more in 2023, pushing natural gas use down.
“These bills will subsidize those dirty energy sources at a big cost to consumers and the environment,” Luke Metzger, executive director at Environment Texas, told Earther in an email. “Folks at the Texas Legislature used to speak of the importance of not picking winners and losers in the energy marketplace. Well, that’s exactly what these bills do. The state of Texas is dispensing with the free market to subsidize polluting power plants and discriminating against wind and solar energy.”
The Texas power grid’s issues are a hell of a lot more complex than ‘renewables bad, fossil fuels good.’ It’s going to take more uncomfortable reforms to iron out what actually is going to work for the state, but we can count on Republicans to take any opportunity to use renewable energy as a political punching bag.
Federal manhunt underway for man who was Larry Hogan’s chief of staff
Kathryn Watson – March 14, 2023
FILE: Prosecutors have accused Roy McGrath of collecting excessive expenses while in office, for illegally engineering a $233,647 severance payment from the Maryland Environmental Service when he left the organization to be Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s chief of staff and for fabricating a memo from Hogan’s office that showed the governor’s approval of the payment. / Credit: Pamela Wood/The Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
A federal manhunt is underway for Roy McGrath, once the chief of staff to ex-Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, after he failed to appear in court Monday for the first day of his trial on wire fraud and embezzlement charges.
The U.S. Marshals Service launched an interstate fugitive search after a federal judge issued a warrant for McGrath’s arrest. McGrath’s face is plastered on a U.S. Marshals poster, which highlights charges against him for wire fraud, theft in programs receiving federal funds and falsification of records in federal investigations.
Roy C. McGrath Wanted poster. / Credit: U.S. Marshals
A law enforcement source tells CBS News that McGrath’s family was at his home in Florida when FBI visited the house Tuesday morning. The source said his high profile and the widely circulating photos will make it difficult for him to remain at large.
McGrath was scheduled to appear in federal court in Baltimore on charges related to his tenure running the Maryland Environmental Service before joining Hogan’s office as chief of staff in 2020. The 2021 indictment against McGrath says he sought to enrich himself personally by using his position as executive director of the agency and his role as chief of staff to the governor to engineer a payment from the agency he shouldn’t have received. Prosecutors also allege that McGrath falsified his time sheets while he took a vacation to Europe and that he stole money for classes at Harvard. McGrath resigned from Hogan’s office weeks after assuming the chief-of-staff job after an investigation found he wasn’t forthcoming about the $230,000 severance package he had received for leaving the quasi-government agency, according to court filings.
McGrath, 53, has been living in Naples, Florida, and was supposed to travel to Maryland for the trial, according to court records. It’s possible Hogan could testify in the trial. He was Maryland’s governor from 2015 until earlier this year; he has denied knowing about or approving McGrath’s severance payment.
McGrath has pleaded not guilty on all charges. His attorney, Joseph Murtha, said he doesn’t know where his client is.
“Unfortunately, I have no idea of Roys’s whereabouts,” Murtha said. “I hope that he is safe, and that we will soon have an opportunity to speak with one another.”
Murtha told CBS Baltimore’s WJZ on Tuesday he has yet to hear from his client. He confirmed McGrath’s wife spoke to law enforcement at the couple’s home in Naples, Florida. And he said she is cooperating with the investigation and has no idea of her husband’s whereabouts.
Rob Legare, Scott McFarlane and Matthew Mosk contributed to this report.
