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Top Education and Parenting Influencers, Part 1
The top seven top k-12 education and parenting influencers in the greater Austin, Texas area include five who talk about both k-12 education and parenting and two who only discuss parenting. Details about their websites, social links, content, and the number of followers have been provided in the attached spreadsheet. Below is an overview of the findings.
WeAreTeachers | Educators Blog
- The blog WeAreTeachers is an online community for educators committed to one of the toughest, most rewarding jobs, which is teaching.
- A written article in 2018, with a list of the 30 best science websites for grades K-12, gives an overview of each of the websites and why they are considered best for 12th graders.
- A written article on parenting in 2017 stated why teaching and parenting are fundamentally similar.
- It is considered top due to its social media following including Facebook with 1.7M and Twitter with 517k followers.
Texas Public Policy Foundation
- The mission of the foundation is to defend and promote liberty, personal responsibility, and free enterprise in Texas. It achieves this by offering policymakers and the Texas public policy debate with academically sound outreach and research.
- It researched on the poor state of the k-12 schools in Texas and how e 918k students are in attendance in those schools.
- Regarding parenting, the foundation has a YouTube video recording of a group of panelists discussing how lawmakers can help protect parental rights while also ensuring child welfare.
- The consideration for the foundation's top position is due to its social media following on Facebook which has over 310k followers.
Micheal and Susan Dell Foundation
- The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation is committed to transforming the lives of children living in urban poverty through improving their education.
- The foundation has published an article on a teacher's perspective on data inter-operability in the K-12 sector and how parents can benefit as key stakeholders.
- It also includes, regarding parenting, a discussion by two parents, Wendy and Gaye, on how small shifts in eating and exercise habits could affect the quality of their families.
- Their social media following includes 15k followers on Facebook.
Alt Ed Austin | Alternative Education Blog
- Alt Ed Austin is a news blog about unique learning environments, discussions about innovative approaches, and guest posts from expert educators.
- Alt Ed Austin has a published article on "a wicked problem," which is a maker-based experience that introduces youth to architecture through reality-based projects that tackle issues such as inadequate housing and environmental health.
- On parenting, it discusses the life lessons learned as a special needs parent.
- Their social media following includes 2.3k followers on Facebook.
Other Helpful Findings
Jack's Mom in Austin
- Adriana Cantu is a feminist of Latina origin, who is a community and parenting advocate. She invites the public to follow her on her parenting adventure as she learns to maneuver through the ups and downs with a little help from parenting books.
- For parenting, she discusses the challenges parents who have more than one child face regarding finding a place that accommodates their varying ages.
- She has 2.5k followers on Facebook.
Life by Lee
- Lee Anne Benjamin in her article discusses her gentle approach to motherhood.
Research Strategy
In determining the top education and parenting influencers in the Greater Austin, Texas area, we reviewed aggregated findings compiled on blogs discussing parenting and k-12 education influencers. We also reviewed articles, social media channels, and education reports determining the top influencers based on their social media following. We found a list of the top 100 education influencers with only two from the greater Austin, Texas area. Other lists of influencers reviewed include the 45 top teacher influencers, which had two teachers in Austin, Texas, but with a very low social media following. We also observed some best parent bloggers in Austin, Texas who, however, appear to not have discussions on k-12 education and instead focus on parenting.
After an exhaustive and extensive search, we found limited information on influencers that have discussed both k-12 education and parenting in the Austin, Texas area. This may largely be due to most of them either discussing parenting or family life alone, instead of education discussions surrounding k-12 graders. To try and obtain more findings on eligible influencers, we reviewed a Ballotpedia list of education influencers and were able to find only two attributed to Austin, Texas. We also reviewed EdTech, which focuses on k-12 education, and found a list of 30 k-12 IT influencers.