The State of Texas's latest takeovers of four school districts, including Fort Worth, Beaumont, Lake Worth, and Connally Independent School Districts (ISDs) have already had a direct cost to local taxpayers.

In 39 days spanning the months of June and July 2026, big-screen broadcasts, sights of colorful jerseys, and sounds of cheerful fans were nearly impossible to miss in Las Vegas. 

According to a 2017 study, ‘The Effects of Doodling on Recall Ability,’ by Jason Boggs, Jillian Cohen and Gwen Marchand at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, published in the journal Psychological Thought, free-form, unstructured doodling actually led to worse recall than either structured shading or plain note-taking. The type of doodling matters quite a bit.

Psychologists have been doing research on if there is a definitive answer on whether it is a good or bad idea to listen to music while studying. Bridget Daleiden from the Department of Educational Psychology Leadership and Higher Education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas has joined to answer.

Walk into any college library and you will likely see students wearing headphones and listening to music. The idea that music can improve learning has been around for decades. The “Mozart Effect,” is the pop psychology myth, first hypothesized in a 1993 paper, that listening to classical music can help people retain and process new information. However, there is no single answer to whether music helps learners study or not.

The state education agency took over four additional districts this spring, installing leaders linked to Houston’s state-imposed superintendent, Mike Miles, including two who worked for his former charter school network.