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Our Priorities

Texans for Education Reform (TER) is a bipartisan, non-profit organization of education, business, and civic leaders committed to improving public schools in Texas.  Currently 147,769 Texas public students are trapped in 297 campuses that have been failing for two or more consecutive years.

Our mission is to assure that no Texas child – regardless of race, ethnicity or zip code – is forced to attend a failing public school.  TER advocates proven educational strategies and policies that focus on students first and yield measurable results.

A summary of our agenda follows:

Policies that provide parents, local communities, and the state with the transparency and solutions they need to improve chronically failing public schools.

  • A-F School Ratings:  Rate each public school campus on an A-F standard that parents and the entire community can easily understand and measure.
     
  • Parent Empowerment: Strengthen Texas’ current parent empowerment law by shortening the current wait period from five to two consecutive years, allowing parents to petition to intervene in their child’s chronically failing public school in time to bring meaningful change.​
     
  • Local Control School District: Make it easier for school districts to innovate at the local level by streamlining and clarifying current state law on local control.
     
  • Opportunity School District: Establish a special statewide school district - an “Opportunity School District” - to turnaround and improve chronically failing public schools.

Invest in the best teachers and teaching policies to improve student learning.

  • Teacher Evaluation & Development: Improve the state’s teacher development policies by providing at least an annual evaluation and meaningful feedback focused on improving student educational growth.  Create and support customized professional development opportunities for individual teachers and allow school districts to develop compensation policies that reward excellent teachers.

​Make high performing public school options available to every Texas family.

  • Student Transfers & Transportation: Affirm a parent’s right to request a transfer to any public school in their school district.  Ensure every parent has the information they need regarding nearby public school options and fund districts to provide transportation to the selected public school. 

Implement proven education technologies and teaching innovations.

  • Course Access & Digital Learning: Increase the access of all Texas students to approved online courses and programs.