Past TECEC Events

The 2011 Texas Early Childhood Leadership Summit: Making Meaning Out of Change   was held in Austin, Texas on July 13- 15, 2011. Summit participants chose from specialized tracks in the following areas to focus their professional development during the event: early childhood administrators, trainers/coaches, early childhood teachers, and parents. Approximately 1,000 early education professionals, leaders and advocates attended the 2011 Summit and came away with renewed energy and strategies for developing high quality early education in Texas. Thank you to all participants for bringing your enthusiasm, passion and dedication to this unique professional experience that brought together early education leaders from across the state. TECEC also thanks our partners at the Children's Learning Insitute at the University of Texas Health Science Center and the Texas Education Agency for co-hosting this exciting event.

Updated 7/28/11.

The goal of Pre-k Day is to raise public awareness about the importance of high quality early childhood care and education at the start of the 82^nd Texas Legislature. Over 2,000 advocates braved the cold to participate in Pre-k Day 2011 on February 1, 2011 at the State Capitol in downtown Austin.

*New:  The Pre-k Day at the Texas Capitol 2011 Participant Toolkit  is now The 82nd Legislative Session Toolkit . Download the Toolkit to use in all of your advocacy activities! Remember to check back for updates to the Toolkit that reflect new legislation that TECEC is supporting and/or budget changes. 

Thank you to the dedicated early childhood education leaders who made Pre-k Day a success!

• Pre-k Day Press Conference Speakers: The Honorable Representative Mark Strama and Dr. Juliet Garcia, President of The University of Texas at Brownsville.
• Pre-k Day Interactive Classroom Participants: Hatch Early Childhood, Imagine Learning, Lakeshore Learning Materials and Pearson.
• The generous sponsors whose support facilitated each and every Pre-k Day activity.
• The 20+ volunteers who dedicated their energy and time to ensure that Pre-k Day participants and legislators had access to resources.

*Pre-k Day Agenda

*Pre-k Day at the Texas Capitol 2011 Flier!    The Pre-K Day Flier is also available in Spanish !

Investing in Tomorrow's Texas. Today.

TECEC is pleased to share the success of our First Annual Gala Fundraising Dinner, held on Monday, January 31, 2011 .

Thank you to all of the early childhood education leaders and advocates who joined with us to honor Commissioner Robert Scott of the Texas Education Agency with the

Representatives from child care, Head Start and public school pre-k gathered at the iconic Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum to applaud the Commissioner's pre-k reform efforts and to build on this energy to move forward in the 82nd Legislative Session.

Texas School Ready! Summit
On May 4, 2010, TECEC, Children’s Learning Institute, Child Care Associates, Texas Education Agency, and Texas PBS partnered to bring the Texas School Ready! Summit to 33 different communities throughout Texas. 

The Texas School Ready! Summit sought to bring together early education thought-leaders, policymakers, and researchers to highlight achievements, explore current issues, and raise awareness of many of the wonderful school readiness efforts & partnerships formed in local communities throughout Texas.

The summit was hosted by KLRU studios in Austin, and available live through webcast. 33 communities set up official viewing sites.  Over 200 hundred attended the Austin event, and combined viewership across the state was over 1000! 

For a synthesis of the varying perspectives presented at the Summit, check out our new white paper on the Texas School Ready! Summit.

• Chairman Mark Strama , Texas House of Representatives (Video: Part 1 , Part 2 )

• Robert Scott , Texas Education Agency, Commissioner (Video: Part 1 , Part 2 )

• Dr. Grover “Russ” Whitehurst , Brookings Institution (Video: Part 1 , Part 2 ) (Presentation available for download )

• Dr. Bob Pianta , Center for the Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning (Video: Part 1 , Part 2 ) (Presentation available for download )

• Dr. Bruce Fuller , University of California at Berkeley (Video: Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 ) (Presentation available for download )

• Dr. Susan Landry , Director and Founder of Children’s Learning Institute  (Video: Part 1 , Part 2 )(Presentation available for download )

• Dr. John W. Gasko , Children’s Learning Institute

• Kara Johnson , Texas Early Childhood Education Coalition

Visit the TECEC YouTube Channel for more clips from the TSR Summit

33 communities particpated in the Texas School Ready! Summit

Leadership Summit on Early Education
On June 16, 2009 TECEC partnered with United Way Great Houston Bright Beginnings and United Ways of Texas to host the first Texas Leadership Summit on Early Education in Houston, Texas.

The Leadership Summit was intended to build a bridge between business and early education policymakers in Texas, with guests including a mix of non-profit, government, and business leaders from all across Texas.

Leadership Summit Goals:

• Engage business and economic leaders on supporting economic growth and sustainability through key investments in early education
• Share strategies and knowledge about various early care and education initiatives operating throughout the country
• Explore the connection between early childhood learning and future workforce development
• Establish that building a Texas early care and education public structure will support greater worker productivity
• Identify the next policy steps needed to ensure high-quality early care and education for young children in Texas

TECEC was proud to be among the organizations selected by the Partnership for America’s Economic Success to host a statewide summit on the importance of investing in early education, and we plan to continue to host similar events annually. The Partnership for Economic Success works to advance the fact that investing in children is investing in economic success.

Please enjoy the short video below on the Texas Leadership Summit on Early Education

Pre-k Day at the Capitol
Pre-k Day on February 17, 2009 was a huge success!

Check out this video from the day's events

The model pre-k classroom was a hit- when there weren’t children in the classroom, there were adults wandering through it, reading the books, and playing with the toys!  Several legislators stopped in to see the children in the classroom and there was a resolution passed in the House declaring February 17 to be Pre-k Day.

Advocates for early care and education made hundreds of visits to legislators, motivating a dozen legislators to sign on to our priority bills that day and even more in the weeks that followed.  By the end of the Legislative Session, 100 members of the House joined as a co-author of HB 130, TECEC's priority bill.  Pre-k Day was a major part of gaining such strong support in the Texas Legislature for early care and education.

Pre-k Now Satellite Conference
Thank you for helping us make the Pre-k Now Conference a success in Texas!

On December 10, 2008 , the annual Pre-k Now National Satellite Conference took place from 12:00 noon – 3:00 PM. The broadcast,“Breaking Down Barriers to Quality Pre-K,” was hosted by Ray Suarez of the PBS News Hour.

The Texas Early Childhood Education Coalition (TECEC) and United Ways of Texas (UWT) joined the signal to host the Texas-Specific Pre-k Conference to discuss the Texas pre-k landscape and to present the TECEC Legislative Agenda to all of our important advocates. We were thrilled  to be joined by Former Lt. Governor and Chair of Raise Your Hand Texas, Bill Ratliff, Senator Judith Zaffirini and Senator Leticia Van de Putte.  Even more, Representative Diane Patrick joined the conference via phone, as well.

The 2008 Pre-K Now National Satellite Conference brought  thousands of  local advocates and leaders from all across the country  together for a discussion on the importance of early childhood education. Both the national broacast and the Texas-specific broadcast were great successes! This year Texas lead the country with 37 viewing sites!

You can watch archives of both the national and the Texas conferences :

National Pre-k Now Broadcast:

Windows Media Player , Real Player , QuickTime

Texas-Specific Broadcast:
 
          Windows Media Player , Real Player  , QuickTime 

TEXAS VIEWING SITES:
Abilene
Amarillo
Amarillo (Amarillo Independent School District Education Support Center)
Atlanta
Austin
Brownsville
College Station
Corpus Christi
Dallas
Dallas (Highland Meadows Elementary Library)
El Paso
Ft. Worth
Goliad
Greenville
Houston (United Way)
Houston (Harris County Agri-Life Extension Office)
Houston (Cy-Fair ISD)
Houston (Spring Branch ISD)
Hurst
Killeen
Laredo
Laredo (Farias Elementary School)
Lubbock
Midland
Natalia
Paris
San Angelo
San Antonio
San Antonio (North East ISD Education Center)
San Augustine
San Marcos
Sugar Land
Taylor
Tyler
Victoria
Waco
White Oak

Warm thanks to everyone that contributed their time and energy to this wonderful event!

2008 was TECEC's “Year of the Parent!”
Parents are and always will be a child’s first and most important teacher. In addition, parents are the best advocates for their children. As a result, TECEC traveled to multiple communities throughout the state in 2008 in order to recruit parents to advocate on behalf of our youngest Texans during the 81st Legislative Session beginning on January 13, 2009.

Following our tour across the state, TECEC brought 27 parents from 9 different Texas Senate districts to Austin for an in depth training related to legislative visits, committee hearings, and the legislative process. It is our hope that during the 81st Legislative Session, Texas legislators will be able to hear directly from parents on the importance of child care, Head Start, and public school pre-k programs for children ages birth to five.

NEW! Year of the Parent Toolkit


VIDEO BROADCAST
TECEC kicked off the year of the parent at the end of 2007 with a parent engagement satellite broadcast in 15 Texas communities. Hundreds of parents tuned in to learn about what to look for in a high quality early education setting, as well as how to become an effective advocate.

Part I
View the presentation given by Kara Johnson, Executive Director of the Texas Early Childhood Education Coalition (TECEC), John Gasko, Director of Research and Public Policy of TECEC, and Mary Capello, CEO of the Texas Migrant Council. Learn about what to look for in a high quality early education setting, and how to become an effective advocate.

Part II
View the Question & Answer portion of the presentation.

PARENTS

Tips on How to Get Involved [English ] [Spanish ]
There are a number of ways to get involved in the early childhood education movement occurring across the state. TECEC has listed 8 ways to get you started.

Tips on Registering as a Voter in Texas

2008 Public Awareness Campaign
In preparation for the 81st Texas Legislature, TECEC conducted a year-long public awareness campaign, "Through the Eyes," throughout 2008.

Each month TECEC looked at early care and education “through the eyes” of 11 different perspectives to gain a better understanding of how early childhood education impacts so many different sectors of our community and how this issue fundamentally links all of us together.

Below, you can access each monthly campaign to learn about the important role early care and education plays for many different sectors of our society.

January
Kick off the “Through the Eyes” Public Awareness Campaign

February
Through the eyes of a HEALTH PROFESSIONAL

March
Through the eyes of an ECONOMIST

April
Through the eyes of a HIGHER EDUCATION REPRESENTATIVE

May
Through the eyes of a BUSINESS

June
Through the eyes of a PARENT

July
Through the eyes of a GRANDPARENT

August
Through the eyes of a TEACHER

September
Through the eyes of a CANDIDATE

October
Through the eyes of a CRIME PREVENTION OFFICIAL

November
Through the eyes of an ELECTED OFFICIAL

December
Through the eyes of a CHILD

We hope you find these materials helpful in your own efforts to promote high quality early education and development experiences for young children.