Alert
IDRA’s Georgia education legislative priorities for 2026 focus on fair school funding, safe schools and inclusive learning environments.
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Message
The past year underscored both the challenges facing public education and the importance of working in partnership to address them.
Students spoke up. Educators organized. Communities showed up. And alongside you, IDRA worked to protect public education and expand opportunity during a time of real uncertainty. We stayed focused on what matters most: students’ opportunity to learn.
In moments like these, many turned to IDRA for steady leadership. Our staff provided coalition leadership training, expert testimony, media interviews, legal analysis, research and public speaking that helped inform decision-making and elevate the voices of students, educators and families nationwide.
Here are some highlights of the work we advanced together in 2025.
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In the News
IDRA has been supporting families and the Lubbock NAACP in Lubbock, Texas, since 2022 regarding persistent harassment and bullying against Black students in two districts. We helped some of the families file OCR complaints, which are now stuck due to the cuts at the U.S. Department of Education.
This work has been featured in two December 19 national news stories by Meredith Kolodner in The Washington Post and Hechinger Report. See the stories and IDRA’s work to end identity-baed bullying. ProPublic also ran its own story on December 20, "Monkey Sounds, “White Power” and the N-Word: Racial Harassment Against Black Students Ignored Under Trump."
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IDRA Newsletter
• Texas Pride and a Model Worth Celebrating – The Power of Wall-to-Wall Early College High Schools
• Texas Public Schools See Historic Improvement in Student Retention – Highlights from IDRA’s 39th Annual Texas Public School Attrition Study
• College Diversity Policy Changes Compound Longstanding Barriers to College and Present New Ones
• IDRA Releases Model Policy to Strengthen College Counseling – New Model Policy on Culturally-Sustaining School Counseling Aims to Reduce Gaps in College Access
• Texas Dreamers Won’t Be Silenced – IDRA and TxILC File Amicus Brief on Behalf of Business, Faith, Educator and Student Groups Urging the Fifth Circuit to Protect the Texas Dream Act
Resource
Learn more about IDRA’s work to end harmful discipline to create safer schools.
IDRA’s expert, Paige Duggins-Clay, J.D., was interviewed for a recent San Antonio Express-News story by Melissa Manno, “A student packed a child-safe knife in his lunch. Discipline and a lawsuit followed,” about a mother who is suing a school district for assigning her 10-year-old son to alternative school for bringing a child-safe knife to school in his lunchbox.
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End of Year Giving
When you give to IDRA, you’re fueling more than programs, you’re fueling courage, curiosity, and belonging for students who deserve to see their potential reflected back at them. Plus, make the most of this year’s deduction rules before they shift in 2026!
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eNews
Texas received a failing grade for school funding, and Georgia was not better, scoring a D, according to a new report released by the Education Law Center. "Making the Grade: How Fair is School Funding in Your State?" is the latest contribution to the ELC’s decade and a half series of annual reports on school funding fairness.
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Check out these opportunities to join our work!
- Grants Consultant
- Course-Credit Internship
- Course-Credit Education Law Internship
- IDRA Summer 2026 Education Law Clerk
Federal Education Law and Policy Alert
U.S. Department of Education Announces Moves Key Programs to Other Agencies, Weakening Federal Oversight and Destabilizing Services for Key Student Groups
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Just out!
IDRA released our newest model policy package to help schools and state leaders equip school counselors to enhance college and career guidance schoolwide. School counselors play a pivotal role in helping students navigate the structural and cultural barriers that shape college and career access. This role is especially critical for students from historically underrepresented backgrounds, who often lack access to the support and networks that make higher education attainable.
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News
A new investment from Greater Texas Foundation will open doors to college for students in the Rio Grande Valley through the new Kickstart College-Ready program. The initiative is a collaboration between IDRA and Region One Education Service Center (ESC) to help school districts ensure all students have access to dual credit, career certificates and associate degree pathways.
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News
As schools struggled nationwide with significant attendance issues following the COVID-19 pandemic, Texas high schools saw successes last year, particularly with Latino students. The Texas high school attrition rate declined to the historic low of 18% 2023-24, down from 22% the previous year.
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Classnotes Podcast 252
In this new IDRA Classnotes Podcast episode, IDRA Education Policy Fellows offer advice, reflect on their growth, and share what gives them hope as they continue the work of education justice.
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Federal Education Law and Policy Alert
• Shutdown impacts education – Thousands furloughed, major grants will continue and civil rights investigations halted.
• English learner protections remain – Federal laws still require support for English learners despite withdrawn guidance.
• Court protects immigrant children – Head Start access restored for immigrant families after discriminatory rule blocked.
• Censorship laws challenged – Students and educators in Texas and Georgia push back against extreme curriculum bans.
• Civil rights enforcement gutted – Courts allow Education Department layoffs, slashing federal oversight capacity.
• Ten Commandments displays blocked – Federal judges reaffirm religious freedom in Texas and Georgia public schools.
Statement
IDRA, alongside the Texas Immigration Law Council and a broad coalition of business, faith, educator and student groups, filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in U.S. v. Texas to do what Texas state leaders refused to do: defend the Texas Dream Act and the ability of Texas high school graduates to access and succeed in college, regardless of immigration status.
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eNews
As students, families and educators get settled in this new school year, this alert is a reminder that public schools, by law, must serve all students.
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eNews
As educators and families get into the rhythm of a new school year, safety was on our minds, even before Wednesday’s tragedy in Minneapolis. We are saddened by such instances of violence in our schools and communities. We are also more determined than ever to ensure that safe, supportive, and welcoming schools are a reality for every young person. See free resources for schools and communities.
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eNews
IDRA’s newest model policy package provides policy language for states, school districts, and schools to adopt research-based student and family leadership and engagement strategies.
The package is a blueprint for transforming how schools relate to families and students, moving beyond surface-level communication to build real partnerships rooted in equity, trust and shared leadership.
Newsletter Special Edition
Through her vision and voice, Dr. María “Cuca” Robledo Montecel changed education forever.
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Alert
The 89th Texas Legislative session has wrapped up, and certain lawmakers spent those 140 days doing what we call the “Texas Three Step:” defunding public schools; demonizing them by attacking educators and what students can learn; and privatizing public education through private school vouchers. Despite a litany of attacks, IDRA and our partners stood strong in the face of billionaire-backed campaigns to harm students’ freedom to learn and ram through vouchers against most Texans’ wishes. We advocated alongside San Antonio educators who had lived through failed local voucher experiments and shared their stories on why vouchers hurt our communities most.
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eNews
Six students received prizes in a competition among participants in the IDRA Youth Leadership Now program, an asset-based leadership development program serving eighth-grade students who are deemed at risk of dropping out. In a reflection contest for YLN students in multiple school districts in Texas, the tutors wrote about how the program helped them do better in school and how they had helped their tutees to do better.
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eNews
Three students received prizes in a competition among participants in the IDRA VisionCoders program, an eighth-grade computer science course developed by IDRA serving Title I middle schools in Bexar County. In this innovative course, middle school students who are in at-risk situations become software designers who create educational games for younger students (their “buddies”).
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eNews
“I felt like I had a place to go where I was always welcomed.” – Kristina Espino, Odessa High School
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eNews
Students are still being hit in schools. That could finally end. The Protecting Our Students in Schools Act would end corporal punishment in all public schools receiving federal funds
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Alert
• IDRA Equipped Georgia Advocates to Defend Public Education
• Long Debate on School Safety and Discipline Results in Mixed Bag Legislation
• Charter Legislation Passes, Voucher Expansion Stalls
• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Ban Defeated – For Now
• Georgia’s Education Budget Funds Vouchers First, Mental Health and Poverty Support Second
• Partners Pushed Against Key Bills Affecting Education and Youth
• Spotlight: Coalition and Community Work in Georgia
News
Barriers to access college are a longstanding challenge for Texas students from underrepresented backgrounds. Federal and state restrictions on diversity, equity and inclusion introduced new barriers. IDRA released a preliminary report this month from its study of the impact of Texas Senate Bill 17’s ban on college diversity, equity and inclusion offices in 2023 and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that same year to significantly limit race-conscious admissions in higher education on marginalized college-going students.
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New Report
State legislatures across the U.S. South are acting on policies that significantly impact education equity. IDRA has released a new report outlining key legislative actions taken last year and previewing the current year.
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eNews
These students wrote a petition, gathered signatures and took their case to the school board
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eNews
A multiracial, intergenerational coalition of advocates filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging a Texas appellate court to end a Houston-area school district’s years-long practice of discriminating against Black students wearing racially and culturally significant hairstyles.
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eNews
Brownsville ISD middle school students who are in at-risk situations will become the next generation of technology leaders through an innovative project called IDRA Youth TechXperts™. Through this in-school program, eighth-grade students will gain cutting-edge STEM skills while also fostering leadership, inclusivity and real-world experience.
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eNews
Contact
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San Antonio, TX 78228
Phone: 210-444-1710
Fax: 210-444-1714
