Statewide Advocacy
In communities across Texas, we hold listening circles, candidate forums, and town hall meetings, design and produce interactive events for community members, engage with school districts, and encourage Texans to become advocates for public education. Our work aims to foster advocacy and increase competencies around the Texas legislative process.
Our past experience informs our future vision.
Across Texas, school trustees provide education oversight and citizen governance to ensure our public schools meet the expectations of our local communities. The community perspective these leaders — and their constituencies — bring is critically important to state policymakers.
Launched in January 2022, our Trustee Advocates Program gave Texas school boards and their superintendents the tools they need to find, use, and amplify their voices and the voices of their communities to influence state education policy.
The Raise Your Hand Texas Community Leaders Fellowship is the next evolution of our advocacy training, building upon the success of the Trustee Advocates Program. The new collaborative model of the Fellowship is unique, creating powerful local teams to support Texas schools.
In December 2025, our third Advocacy Summit will take place, welcoming school board trustees, superintendents, ISD leaders, and community members from across the state to participate in the deep learning events. Districts and communities, large and small, will gather to learn and focus on equipping themselves with the tools and strategies needed to advocate for their communities and schools effectively.
As we continue to broaden and deepen local advocates and champions for public schools, both in their home communities and in Austin at the Texas Capitol, our past informs our future. We are adapting and evolving our work to meet the moment.
Our Impact
Since its founding, Raise Your Hand has consistently sought to ensure that thriving public schools are a priority in the Texas Capitol. Our legislative efforts have focused on early childhood education, innovative school models and practices, an appropriate emphasis on standardized testing within our accountability system, and overall school funding. For many years, Raise Your Hand was also a consistent opponent of vouchers.
Beginning in 2019, our organization also started a focused effort to cultivate grassroots public education advocates throughout the state. Our regional advocacy team has equipped thousands of advocates to participate in the legislative process in new and focused ways, while deepening their understanding of education policy and facilitating relationship-building across lines of professional, geographic, and political differences.
We believe that strong public schools are foundational to strong communities and a strong Texas. Our deepened focus on building committed teams of community advocates is an expression of our commitment to make every legislative session a public education session.
Read our Legislative Session Recap.
Our Approach to Working in Texas Public Education
Raise Your Hand Texas approaches all of this vital work with five values in mind: integrity, democracy, courage, equity, and pragmatism.
- Integrity: We approach every conversation with unwavering honesty and respect. We recognize the current challenges faced by our school communities, the people who lead them, and the elected and appointed officials who craft policy. We seek to serve as an essential resource to all involved in school improvement.
- Democracy: We believe in a government of the people, by the people, for the people. A robust democracy is led by duly elected leaders and is responsive to the input, needs, and aspirations of the community it serves. This means democracy is a hands-on process for all of us, and we seek to constantly bring more hands to that work.
- Courage: We work on behalf of all Texas students, even in the face of criticism and uncertainty. We will not back away from an insistence on a high-quality education for every child.
- Equity: We advocate for every student to be treated with kindness and respect, free from racism, classism, and other forms of exclusion, and to receive the specific resources required to find success during their PK-12 education and beyond.
- Pragmatism: We approach each challenge knowing that our work is complex, progress is incremental, decisions are rarely clear-cut, and winning is sometimes hard to define. Our desire to improve the lives of all public school students causes us to press onward with determination and humility.
Join Us
Improving public education begins with you. We are here to make sure you understand the issues before voting, and ensure your voice is heard in your corner of Texas and at the Capitol.
We are right #AcrossTheLawn from the Capitol. If you want to stay in touch with us, please sign up for our Across the Lawn Newsletter or be added to our Across the Lawn events list. If you want to join us in making an impact #InTheBuilding, then please reach out to your Regional Advocacy Director, who will connect you to our advocacy efforts.
The future prosperity of our state hinges on the success of every public school, school leader, educator, and child. Join us and let your voice be heard.
Get Involved Today
