Good morning, Houston. It's Thursday.
☀️ Temperature check: High of 104; low 79. Justin's insight: Houston has gone 41 days without measurable rainfall, but a possible tropical system in the Gulf could bring the summer's best chance for rain early next week. Read more here.
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 | Cat DeLaura
Audience Engagement Producer
cat.delaura@houstonchronicle.com |
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Today we're talking about special ed funding... |
If you read one thing: Houston ISD spent $166 million more on special education than it received in state funding between 2020 and 2022, the largest budget gap of any Texas district, according to data from the Texas Education Agency. What's going on across the state? Nearly half of the state's roughly 1,200 public school districts and charter school organizations spent more on special education than the state gave them, a gap administrators say has shortchanged students and strained local budgets even as the number of students seeking added resources has sharply risen since the pandemic. The total deficit across all districts in the 2021-22 school year was about $2.3 billion. Will the state send more money to schools? State lawmakers have supported the idea of boosting resources for districts to conduct evaluations, but the proposal was held up this spring by supporters of private school vouchers who used the special education funding as a bargaining chip. Republican state leaders are divided over vouchers, which let families use public dollars to subsidize private school tuition. The issue could come up again if they return this fall to revisit the voucher debate.
Read Edward McKinley and Megan Menchaca's full story here.
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Susan Barber / Houston Chronicle |
- Crime: Three law enforcement officers pursuing a person of interest in the shooting of a Harris County deputy were wounded Thursday evening after being fired upon. The person sought was taken into custody following a five-hour standoff.
- Fire: Smoke from the Houston mulch fire at the Living Earth organic recycling facility poses a health risk. Smoke from similar small fires across the city has become an increasing concern this August, as high, dry temperatures have turned Houston spots filled with natural materials into kindling.
Lawsuit: A federal judge refused to drop a lawsuit against three Harris County deputies filed by Kerry Lee Thomas, a Black man who accused the deputies of unnecessarily siccing a dog on him. Elections: Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee said Thursday he will be running for reelection in 2024. Menefee said some of his second-term goals would be "to continue to protect the county against these attacks from state officials" and to focus on consumer protection. Pay raise: Texas Southern University regents have budgeted a 3% increase to full-time employees' salaries – a rate that some faculty say doesn't go far enough to correct pay that often falls below industry standards.
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🗣️ Opinion: As a national security historian, I know there's a long history of secrets at Area 51. I also know that none of those secrets have anything to do with space aliens, writes Christopher McKnight Nichols, the Hayes Chair in National Security Studies at Ohio State University. 🗪 Other points of view: Sign up for the "SaysHou" newsletter to get more editorials, columns and letters curated by the Chronicle's opinion team here. |
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Ken Ellis / Houston Chronicle |
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Elizabeth Conley / Houston Chronicle |
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Pipelines, Blackouts and Politics. |
If you read one thing: Over the past two weeks, business columnist Chris Tomlinson has examined allegations that natural gas pipeline operators and traders triggered the 2021 blackouts while trying to manipulate prices, in a four-part series. Part one: Most Texans believe cold weather in February 2021 shut down natural gas power plants and froze wind turbines, triggering one of the deadliest blackouts in the state's history. But the true cause was corporate greed, according to a growing number of lawsuits filed across the country. Read part one here. Part two: Data suggests pipeline companies continued to reduce flows during Winter Storm Uri, even after Gov. Greg Abbott issued an emergency declaration. When temperatures dropped, pipeline companies declared emergencies to suspend their fixed-price contracts. That allowed them to sell the gas to the highest bidder as prices skyrocketed. Read part two here. Part three: Regulators in Kansas and Oklahoma are pursuing pipeline companies for alleged artificial price gouging during Winter Storm Uri, and some of the pipeline firms have sued one another, alleging fraud. Read part three here. Part four: While other states investigate pipeline co0mpanies' role in price gouging during the winter storm of 2021, only a private lawsuit is digging into pipelines' role in the grid failure in Texas. Read part four here. |
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Enjoy the weekend, folks! Cat DeLaura cat.delaura@houstonchronicle.com |
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