Laura Isensee
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About 5 million public school students in Texas this year will get new and controversial textbooks that critics say water down history.
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Our Secret Lives of Teachers series continues with Isis Smalls, who teaches English and coaches volleyball at a Houston middle school. She's also a beauty pageant winner.
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For the first time in more than a decade, the Texas State Board of Education has adopted new social studies textbooks. But the process came with a few hiccups.
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When a child is suspended or expelled, it rarely improves his behavior or his academics. One school in Houston has adopted an old technique to handle student disputes: the healing circle.
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Studies show that harsh policies, including criminalization, don't help the students who are removed from the classroom — and that schools punish black, Latino and disabled students more harshly.
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There's been a big controversy this holiday season over the race of Santa Claus. It was sparked after a Fox News commentator said both Santa and Jesus were white. But in Texas there's a longstanding tradition of a Hispanic Santa Claus, and in Houston he's known as Pancho Claus.
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Energy companies have begun paying for teachers to attend five days of all-expenses-paid training at a mine site. Not everyone is happy about the idea.