Courtney Boswell MacDonald, most recently Executive Director of Texas Aspires, is a former high school math teacher with over a decade’s experience in education policy, advocacy, and research. In 2013, Courtney became executive director of Texans for Education Reform (TER), an organization formed with the goal of improving public school options and teacher quality, before being named executive director of the Texas Institute for Education Reform (TIER), a position she held to 2016. With Courtney at the helm, the two organizations later partnered to become Texas Aspires in the summer of 2016.
Prior to her work with these organizations, Courtney served as policy director for the Texas Senate Committee on Education from 2010 to 2013, where she created legislation, advised Senators on education policy initiatives, maintained relationships with key stakeholders and national experts, and shepherded bills through the legislative process on behalf of the committee chair. Courtney’s experience is enhanced by her leadership position on a large federally-funded teacher quality study and postgraduate work in the policy offices at the U.S. Department of Education and Texas Education Agency.
Courtney received her Bachelor of Science from Texas Christian University and her Master of Public Policy from Vanderbilt University and lives with her husband Justin MacDonald and their two dogs, Maddie and Radar.