Texas Education Grantmakers Advocacy Consortium (TEGAC) held its fall members meeting in Austin on September 19. During the morning program state and local perspectives on key education policy issues were provided from H.D. Chambers (Superintendent, Alief Independent School District), Nicole Conley Johnson (CFO, Austin Independent School District and member of the Texas Public School Finance Commission), Todd Williams (Founder, Commit Partnership and member of the Texas Public School Finance Commission), and Pam Wells (Executive Director, Region 4 Education Service Center). The panel members spoke about early grade success, post-secondary pathways, teacher quality and compensation, school safety, and school finance. H.D. Chambers explained concerns about a teacher shortage train wreck on the horizon, stating “the wreck has already occurred.” As the panel discussed various solutions Conley-Johnson noted the big questions to keep in mind, “is it scalable and sustainable?”
During the afternoon portion of the program several current and former lawmakers addressed the attendees. The speakers included Distinguished Former Member Dr. Jimmy Don Aycock (80-84th Session and author of HB 5), Sen. Kirk Watson (member of Senate Finance), Sen. Larry Taylor (Chair of Senate Education and member of Texas Public School Finance Commission), and Rep. Diego Bernal (Vice-Chair of House Public Education and member of Texas Public School Finance Commission).
TEGAC (www.tegac.org) members include forty-eight family, corporate, community, and private foundations from across Texas. The TEGAC mission is to empower Texas philanthropy to invest and engage in effective public education policy and advocacy at the state level