By Bill Zeeble, KERA News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-875990.mp3
Dallas, TX –
Dallas school officials and lawmakers sat in on a ground breaking education program they say could help to reduce the dropout rate.
Legislators backed a 6 million dollar plan to improve cognitive brain development in middle school students. Lt. Governor David Dewhurst says the program could help keep at-risk students in class. He believes the state's current drop-out rate is higher than the number reported by the Texas Education Agency.
Dewhurst: We See data from the TEA indicating that we've got a dropout rate of 1 percent or 2 percent but we all know that's impossible. When we talk to high school principals in cities all around the state of Texas we're hearing from teachers and principals that too many of our young people are dropping out.
Dewhurst and Education Committee Chair Senator Florence Shapiro are pushing the brain health program pioneered by the University of Texas at Dallas. They want to see it in more middle schools.