5.22.2026: Criminal educators

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:04]Despite calls from the Texas GOP to end the runoff campaign, on a positive note, US Senator John Cornin says he has no intention of ending his barrage of negative ads against his challenger.

[00:00:18]This is Friday, May 22nd, 2026.

[00:00:24]Texas Scorecard presents the today's first news for the Lonear State, the Texas Minute with your host, Michael Quinn Sullivan.

[00:00:37]We have made it to Friday. Thanks for starting the end of your week with the Texas Minute. As a quick note, early voting ends today ahead of the Tuesday runoff election. Let's jump into today's news. A new transparency tool created by the Texas Education Agency reveals an alarming number of the state's educators are committing crimes. The state's new educator misconduct reporting dashboard displays data on reports submitted to the TEA from various sources, including fingerprintbased criminal history alerts from the Texas Department of Public Safety and the FBI. Data for the first eight months of the 2026 fiscal year, that's September 2025 through April 2026, shows more than 17,000 criminal history alerts. That's an average of 2100 Texas school employees every month who've been arrested or had their criminal records updated. It's worth noting here that non-certified school employees account for 3/4 of those criminal alerts. The TEA's educator investigations division is opening an average of,00 investigations a month. That's more than double last year's average. Sexual misconduct complaints, including those involving students and other minors, accounts for 21% of the open TEA investigations.

[00:02:02]The new push for transparency and investigations is the result of legislation authored in 2025 by Republican State Senator Paul Bettin Court of Houston. He told Texas Scorecard that the culture of quote looking the other way in public education has to end.

[00:02:20]Regents at the University of Texas and the University of Houston systems passed various rule changes in their respective meetings yesterday directing academic governance reforms at their member institutions. for UT. These included measures designed to guide the elimination of academic programs, faculty advisory bodies, and a series of other human resource issues. Meanwhile, the University of Houston system is consolidating lowerforming programs and putting new emphasis on academic program review and certification.

[00:02:54]Yesterday, Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms and WhatsApp LLC, alleging that the messaging service deceived millions of users by falsely claiming that their communications are fully encrypted and private. This is the second privacy related action Paxton has taken against Meta this week. WhatsApp has long marketed itself as a secure messaging platform using end toend encryption, meaning only the sender and recipient can access message content, not even the platform itself. However, according to the Attorney General's office, investigations and insider accounts have revealed these claims to be false.

[00:03:36]Reports indicate that WhatsApp employees have been able to access user communications and message content can be retrieved and viewed after transmission. Earlier this week, Attorney General Pax announced an investigation into Meta and their AI glasses. A Meta spokesperson told Texas Scorecard that the allegations are false and that the company will be defending its record. The Texas Minute will be right back.

[00:04:04]News and analysis on what's happening in Texas. End your day with daily headlines from Texas Scorecard. Every day at 5:00 PM, join me, Brandon Waltons, as we recap the biggest stories of the day, and talk about why they matter to you.

[00:04:18]From the state capital to town hall, there's no shortage of events happening, keep up with it all. Watch and subscribe to daily headlines from Texas Scorecard.

[00:04:37]Incumbent US Senator John Cornin is rejecting calls from the Republican Party of Texas for the senatorial candidates to end their negative advertising in the final days of the runoff election period. Yesterday morning, Texas GOP Chairman Abraham George challenged both John Cornin and Attorney General Ken Paxton to shift their messaging and quote, "Finish this runoff campaign on a positive note so as to start showing a unified front for November." Paxton quickly agreed, announcing that his campaign, booied by President Donald Trump's endorsement earlier this week, has already shifted its own ads. Cornin, however, indicated on social media that he has no intention of backing off from the negative attacks. He wrote that quote, "Judgement Day is coming for Paxton." Well, it's coming for someone. You can find details on all the stories mentioned today and keep up with the latest news by visiting texascorecard.com.

[00:05:38]This edition of the Texas Minute was based on the original reporting of Aaron Anderson, Adam Khan, Sydney Henry, and Brandon Walton's. The show is produced and delivered to you each weekday morning by Nick Shepard. I look forward to seeing you out around the Lonear State. Now, go finish the week strong.