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If the name Becky Beck rings a bell, it's because she was the whistleblower who, two years ago, notified the feds that a $316,000 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant intended to go toward HIV prevention education efforts was being used by the district on everything but HIV prevention education. But three months after the district had to refund the money, Beck, a health education specialist with the district, has filed suit against DISD in U.S. District Court in Dallas. Beck claims her bosses at 3700 Ross Avenue -- among them Assistant Superintendent Renita Berry and supervisor Narvella West -- retaliated against her for calling them out by giving her a bad review, withholding promised pay and making "disparaging remarks." Details, including the suit, are after the jump.

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This "Comet-like character" is among the proposed mascots for the University of Texas at Dallas.

As a former University of Texas at Dallas co-ed, I can safely say it was never clear exactly what we were. Allow me to clarify: For some sports, we were the Comets, local and proud. When it came to football and hard-core national branding, however, we tended to align ourselves with our mother school and Go Longhorns! Hell, even the school colors are burnt orange and white … and green.

Apparently, the university's lookin' to rectify that issue, as today I was forwarded a survey from a former classmate revealing that UTD’s Office of Student Affairs/UT Dallas Mascot Committee has released sketches of four mascot “concepts,” one of which might replace the ill-fitting, unoriginal and loser-ific Temoc (yeah, you’re seeing it correctly -- it's “comet” spelled backward). Much like Mavs Man, Temoc is sorta terrifying. I welcome his impending demise. Only, you're kidding, right, UT Dallas Mascot Committee? Right?

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DISD school board trustee Carla Ranger

As mentioned below, at last night's meeting of the Dallas Independent School District's board of trustees, Carla Ranger delivered a speech in which she questioned the ethics of board president Jack Lowe, whose company, it was revealed last weekend, has received some $10 million in district contracts since 2002. After the meeting, Ranger gave Daniel Rodrigue, our new intern and Unfair Park contributor, a copy of her speech, which we're making available in full for those so interested Ranger's proposal that the board alter its policy allowing the district to do business with a company in which the board president has a financial interest. And, yes, those are her edits, not ours. --Robert Wilonsky

Outside the Dallas Independent School District board of trustees meeting last night, more than a dozen protesters carried signs decrying the $1.35-billion bond proposal and DISD leadership. “F! The sign speaks for itself,” said Pete Peterson, pictured above. “The audit doesn’t look good for the district, and that doesn’t look good for the children.”

But inside Ross Avenue HQ, all was calm: The much-delayed audit and the troubling sneak peek provided to district officials Wednesday by outside auditor Deloitte and Touche weren't even mentioned by the trustees. And only late in the meeting did one trustee finally address concerns over how much dough top DISD officials are making off the district via lucrative contracts.

But nearly every person who spoke during the public forum portion of the meeting asked some variation of the one question that's on most observers' minds: “We want accountability and we need to see where the money went before we vote. How can we vote yes before then?”

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Action figure ... or study aid?

Shaun Treat's a Visiting Professor of Rhetoric at the University of North Texas -- and, no, I have no idea what that means, not exactly. But just in time for the onslaught of super-hero movies crashing into multiplexii this summer, UNT today has announced that Treat's treating the school's grad-school students to a course sure to be populated by cheerleaders and jocks: Mythic Rhetoric of the American Superhero. Treat, whose dissertation "explored the mythic culture types and fantasy rhetoric of charismatic leadership," will use as his textbook 2002's The Myth of the American Superhero, and says the UNT media release announcing the new course, which debuts in the fall:

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A D.C.-based nonprofit called Project on Fair Representation today filed a 35-page federal lawsuit against the University of Texas at Austin. The suit claims that the school's admissions policies kept out a white 18-year-old high-schooler named Abigail Noel Fisher, who, says the very detailed legal docs, is sorta near the top of her class at Stephen F. Austin High School in Sugar Land (top 12 percent, at least). Says PFR's media release, the school's admission policies "discriminate[d] against [Fisher] on the basis of her race," and she "seeks to have UT-Austin re-evaluate her for admissions to the undergraduate program under race-neutral criteria."

Expect to hear plenty more about this suit, at least from Project on Fair Representation: It's holding media conferences tomorrow in Dallas and Houston to further discuss the litigation. And the nonprofit's also begun a Web site called UT Not Fair, where other rejected applicants can make their case to, ya know, join the suit. --Robert Wilonsky

The nonprofit America's Promise Alliance of which Colin Powell is the founding chair, this morning released a report titled Cities in Crisis: A Special Analytic Report on High School Graduation, which disputes the notion that 85 percent of all high school students get their diplomas. Says the study, it's more like 70 percent -- though in Dallas, it's far, far below that figure. Indeed, of the 50 major metropolitan areas included in the study, Dallas ranks 44th, with a graduation rate of 44.4 percent -- for the 2003-2004 school year, at least. But, notes the study, there are "striking differences between schools situated in urban and suburban environments." --Robert Wilonsky

John Wiley Price, namesake of a new African school

Later this year, Masai children in rural Kenya will begin classes in a school named for “one of Texas’ greatest sons.” They -- indeed their parents and just about everyone else in Kenya -- might be a bit puzzled about the name. And no, it’s not George W. Bush.

Plunked down in the middle of four villages in one of the poorest areas of Africa will be a new high school, complete with computers and solar technology, called The John Wiley Price School, in honor of, yup, the Dallas County Commissioner.

“His record as a fighter for the underprivileged and for justice is legendary throughout Dallas and the State of Texas,” reads the Web site for Build African Schools. “He is in the vanguard in the fight for those who are discriminated against in their struggle to be invited to the great table of opportunity.”

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Last week came news that the Dallas Independent School District would be repaying federal grant money is was using rather inappropriately -- like, $316,000 worth of federal grant money. That dough, provided by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant, was supposed to go to HIV prevention education efforts. Only, not so much. It spent the money on everything but HIV prevention education.

Today, the feds make it official with the release, for the first time, of the original complaint filed by whistleblower Becky Beck, whose boss was in charge of the federal funds. Here's Beck's original complaint filed in Dallas federal court in October 2006, after which time it was sealed. And, after the jump, the media release distributed today by U.S. Attorney's Richard Roper's office. --Robert Wilonsky

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High-stakes testing doesn’t result in better education, at least not among minorities -- it just leads to a disproportionate number of African-Americans, Latinos and ESL students dropping out of Texas schools. That’s one finding in a new report released today by Rice University and the University of Texas. The study found that the state’s public school accountability system, which became the model for the national No Child Left Behind act, directly contributes to lower graduation rates.

Researchers looked at data from more than 271,000 students and found that 60 percent of African-American students, 75 percent of Latinos and 80 percent of ESL students did not graduate in five years. Overall, the graduation rate is just 33 percent. "High-stakes, test-based accountability doesn't lead to school improvement or equitable educational possibilities," Linda McSpadden McNeil, director of the Center for Education at Rice University said in a press release issued today. "It leads to avoidable losses of students. Inherently the system creates a dilemma for principals: comply or educate. Unfortunately, we found that compliance means losing students."

An executive summary of the study is available at Rice University's Center for Education. The study can be viewed in its entirety here. --Jesse Hyde

Last year, Kiplinger listed the University of Texas at Dallas as the 69th-best deal for in-staters among public colleges. This year, the school formerly known as the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest moves way, way up to the No. 50 slot, after the personal-finance advisors factored in both academic criteria (such as SAT scores and admission, retention and graduation rates) and financial considerations (including tuition for in-state students and average cost per student without a student loan).

UTD is touting itself as "one of the 100 best values among public colleges in the United States," and only two other Texas schools crack the Kiplinger Top 100: the University of Texas at Austin (No. 24) and Texas A&M University (No. 25). Among the most interesting stats from the Kiplinger chart is the average debt of a student post-graduation: At UTD, that figure is around $16,895, or $95 more than that of the average UT-Austin grad. And in other awesome UTD news, there's an American Idol-watching party Tuesday from 7-10 p.m. in the Galaxy Rooms of the Student Union! I will bring the popcorn and Kahlua. --Robert Wilonsky

Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, a supporter of Dallas-based Voyager Expanded Learning -- but why, some wonder.

On December 20, The Washington Post ran a lengthy piece questioning the relationship between Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, the ranking Democrat and chairwoman of the Senate's D.C. appropriations subcommittee until a year ago, and Dallas-based Voyager Expanded Learning. According to the story, Voyager's founder, Randy Best, raised $30,000 for Landrieu during an October 2001 fund-raiser at his Turtle Creek condo -- and Landrieu in turn helped push through Voyager's program aimed at teaching Washington, D.C., kindergartners and first-graders how to read. This, despite the fact that Voyager's literacy program was "a new product with virtually no track record," according to The Post.

Landrieu and Best deny there was any quid pro quo, insisting Landrieu supported the program long before the fund-raiser. But Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a government watchdog group, yesterday filed complaints with the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District for Louisiana and the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas. The group wants an investigation into the relationship between Landrieu and Best, and has also asked the Senate Ethics Committee to look into the matter.

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I had no idea it paid so well to be a DISD student. That's what it says in the new issue of U.S. News & World Report:

In Dallas, high school students can pocket about $100 for every passing score on college-level examinations. The Advanced Placement Incentive Program "has created a culture where it's cooler to be in an AP class than to be in a regular class," says Michael Watkins, associate principal at W. T. White High School.

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The Texas Freedom Network sends word that, at this very moment, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Committee on Academic Excellence and Research in Austin is discussing and considering a request from the Institute for Creation Research in Dallas for a certificate of authority to grant degrees in Texas. And from the looks of the committee's agenda, it's close to being a sure thing: A Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board committee has already recommended approving ICR's request.

The ICR moved its Henry M. Morris Center for Christian Leadership to Dallas in September 2006 -- specifically, to 1806 Royal Lane at Luna Road. That's where folks are taught, among other things, "the rationale for the creationist interpretation of scientific data related to origins and Earth history." Its headquarters have been in Dallas since June.

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Texas may suck at a lot of things relating to children -- worst in teen birth rate, most uninsured kids in the nation, million-dollar high school football stadiums -- but at least we feed our children. So says the Center for Public Policy Priorities, usually the bearer of gloom and doom, in a press release today:

“Ninety-nine percent of Texas schools participate in the national School Breakfast Program, ranking Texas 7th best in the country, according to a report released today by the national Food Research and Action Center (FRAC). The report, School Breakfast Scorecard 2007, also finds that more than a million low-income Texas children are eating breakfast at school.”