This week we dig into something that should make every Texas parent, taxpayer, and lawmaker sit up straight.

In this important interview, Jackie Besinger goes straight to the heart of the corruption facing Texas, unpacking the Texas Education Agency’s recent audit and the serious issues it exposes. Joining her is Lynn Davenport, a dedicated grassroots mother and education policy analyst who has long tracked the lack of political accountability and media silence surrounding the problems that truly matter in our state. Together they break down the findings, the key players behind them, and why these failures continue to go unchallenged.

The State Auditor’s Office just dropped its August 2026 report on the Texas Education Agency — Report 26-034.

But then the real story emerges. Nearly $1.9 billion in state-funded grants went out the door with no minimum monitoring standards. Different departments set their own rules. When auditors tested 59 of those grants worth $571 million, critical performance records were missing, some statutory ‘pass-through’ grants received zero to almost no oversight, and digital signatures of former employees were still rubber-stamping approvals because no one had bothered to retire them.

Even more troubling: TEA issued minimal guidance for public-private pre-kindergarten partnerships… then never verified that a single private provider actually met state licensing, accreditation, or classroom requirements. Of the applications they sampled, thirteen involved private providers. Zero verification.

And while classrooms face teacher shortages and tight budgets, TEA’s management ranks exploded — one manager for every 3.5 staff, far above the legal requirement of one-to-eleven. Management headcount grew 38 percent while non-management grew only 12. Management salaries jumped 64 percent.

So the question isn’t whether the money was stolen. The question is whether hundreds of millions in education dollars are actually producing results, or simply disappearing into a system that can’t prove it.

Long-term issues

• Grant monitoring gaps create ongoing risk that hundreds of millions in state education dollars produce weak or unmeasurable results. Without consistent performance tracking, ineffective programs can continue year after year, eroding both fiscal accountability and public trust in how education funds are spent.

• Pre-K partnership blind spots Substandard private providers can operate for years, affecting early childhood outcomes for the youngest students with the longest developmental runway.

• Management-heavy structure locks in higher long-term administrative overhead. Dollars that could support classrooms, teachers, or direct student programs instead fund a denser layer of managers. Even if the LBB grants a waiver, the cost differential versus peer agencies continues. Forced restructuring later would be more disruptive than gradual correction now.

That’s what we’re unpacking today.