Reinventing Texas Education and the Future of College Media: Houston Matters for Friday, August 29, 2014

All this week, Houston Public Media News 88.7 education reporter Laura Isensee has examined big changes this year for public school students in Texas. Incoming freshmen are learning about new high school graduation plans. There’s less standardized testing, and more vocational classes.

On this edition of Houston Matters, we talk with Laura Isensee about her series Reinventing Texas Education (#TXEDredo). Then, we talk with H.D. Chambers, Superintendent of Alief ISD, who helped lead the effort to overhaul high school graduation plans in Texas that culminated in House Bill 5.

Also this hour: we explore The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Houston news. On this week’s panel: the Houston Chronicle’s Joe Holley, La Voz de Houston’s Aurora Losada, and attorney and Defending People blogger Mark Bennett.

And: The University of Houston’s student newspaper, The Daily Cougar, has announced that it will drop the “daily” from its name and only publish once a week – on Wednesdays – while shifting its focus to online journalism. It’s the latest in a trend of college publications scaling back and devoting more time to online journalism, which is indicative of changes in professional journalism as well. We talk with Garth Jowett, Professor of Communications at the University of Houston, about this developing trend in college media.