Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

This city's future was entrusted to the University of Texas at El Paso on Tuesday by businessman Woody Hunt and his wife, who gave the school a $5 million gift to change the economic direction of the region.

On the evening of Wednesday, June 23rd, Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, was monitoring events on Capitol Hill from his office, which overlooks the ice-skating rink at Rockefeller Center. Volcker, who is eighty-two years old, works at a polished granite desk covered with correspondence, books, and financial reports. Apart from a slight loss of hearing, he is in robust health, and when he rises to greet guests he towers above them. His height (six feet eight inches) is initially intimidating, but that impression is soon mitigated by his wry manner. For a year and a half, Volcker, who serves as an economic adviser to President Barack Obama, had been waging a campaign to curb greed and speculation on Wall Street. This effort was reaching a climax, as the Senate and the House of Representatives worked to reconcile the lengthy financial-reform bills that each had passed.

How can a comparatively poor, high-immigration town that sits across the border from super-violent Ciudad Juarez be one of the safest big cities in America?

HOW THE SUPERINTENDENT AT EL PASO INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT

MAKES STUDENTS “DISAPPEAR” TO INCREASE DISTRICT WIDE TAKS TEST SCORES

State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh opposes a tax increase for the El Paso Independent School District, saying its leadership is inefficient, central administration salaries are bloated, and Bowie High School has violated the civil rights of students.

Lorenzo García, superintendent of the El Paso Independent School District, said Saturday that he stands ready to cooperate in a federal investigation of standardized testing programs and is confident the findings will show he runs an honest system.

State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh on Friday accused Austin High School of being part of a scam to improperly raise standardized test scores in the El Paso Independent School District.

Three years ago, 352 underperforming sophomores disappeared from Austin before they could take the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test, Shapleigh said.

Confused by the back-and-forth between state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh and the administration of the El Paso Independent School District?

You're not alone.

Part of what happens when you have high-profile community members like Shapleigh and EPISD Superintendent Lorenzo García going at it in public is a muddying of fact and a soiling of reputations.

El Paso State Senator Eliot Shapleigh (D) isn't giving up on his claim the El Paso Independent School district is sweeping some students under the rug to improve standardized test scores.

District leaders, students, and parents gathered at Coronado High School to respond to the allegations that Senator Eliot Shapleigh has made of the El Paso Independent School District.

Senator Shapleigh has accused the district of telling some students to stay home on standardized test days to boost the district's scores. But on Thursday, supporters of the district said this is not true.

The El Paso School District is defending itself against allegations from State Senator Eliot Shapleigh.

The state senator is asking the U.S. Department of Education to investigate EPISD, saying the district found ways to make some students "disappear" on TAKS testing day in order to bring up campus scores.

State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh has asked the U.S. Department of Education to investigate the El Paso Independent School District, which he said has manipulated standardized tests so that certain low-performing students did not take them.

Canutillo High School seniors who failed the standardized TAKS test and missed graduation last month were asked by administrators to withdraw from the public district and obtain their diplomas from an online high school.

In a vote of confidence in his administration, the EPISD school board tonight voted to extend Superintendent Lorenzo Garcia's contract.

Lorenzo García, the El Paso Independent School District superintendent, received a vote of confidence Tuesday night when the district's trustees voted unanimously to extend his contract.

The extension comes without a pay increase as the board voted to continue paying him $280,314 a year -- the same amount he received last year.

I am a teacher, parent and a taxpayer in the El Paso Independent School District and I will be voting "no" in the upcoming Tax Ratification Election.

I cannot trust an incumbent school board and a superintendent that have shown irresponsible fiscal leadership for the past years to have another $37 million , even if it is "only" $10.83 per month per $100,000 of property value.

A light-rail commuter train that will take people from the southernmost neighborhoods of Juárez to the international bridges in Downtown could be in service as early as 2013, officials from there said Tuesday.

Un Abrazo Fuerte!

In our family, public service is the highest calling. Way back in 1846, on Christmas Day, our great, great grandfather fought here near the Rio Grande so that Texas might join the Union, not secede from America. His dreams then are yours and mine now—a more just society for all Texans; great public schools to educate all our children; strong Texas universities to make us proud; super highways to move commerce and create jobs; and fundamentally, government of the people, by the people and for the people, not just the privileged few.

What can Texas learn from ducks? By that I mean Oregon Ducks, that strain of independent westerner whose university's duck mascot comes often to entertain El Paso in the Sun Bowl. From our view here in God’s Country—in a state that is first in those without a high school diploma, last in insured, and about to face a $17 billion deficit in ten short months—we can all learn a lot from ducks.

Below you will find a letter to Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst regarding the recent proposals to swap the property tax and dramatically increase the sales tax: