Brewer Foundation Announces Attorney and Community Advocate Ian Shaw as President

February 24, 2025 – The Brewer Foundation today announced attorney and community advocate Ian Shaw as its president. Mr. Shaw will have oversight of all aspects of the 501(c)3 Brewer Foundation, the charitable affiliate of Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors. Mr. Shaw was most recently with Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr, P.C, where he practiced commercial litigation, labor employment, and personal injury defense.

Today’s announcement marks Mr. Shaw's return to the Brewer team. He previously worked in the consulting group in the firm’s New York office and was an associate in the firm’s Dallas office.

“Ian is a committed community advocate and trusted leader – with a background in team leadership, public service, and educational issues,” says William A. Brewer III, chairman of the Brewer Foundation. “His role as president of the Brewer Foundation represents the growth of the Foundation and its programs, and the need to invest more in managing them for the future.”

Founded in 1995, the Brewer Foundation supports a range of community initiatives, with a special emphasis on developing, overseeing, and funding a growing array of educational programs. Among these are the Brewer Foundation Future Leaders Program (FLP) and Brewer Foundation/New York University International Public Policy Forum (IPPF).

The FLP is an academic and leadership development program that benefits more than 200 students, ages 12 to 18, from urban communities within the Dallas Independent School District (DISD). Through year-round academic courses, leadership training, and exposure to a wide array of cultural programs, the FLP helps prepare its “future leaders” for success in college and beyond.

Since its inception in 2001, the FLP has graduated hundreds of students, many of whom have gone on to be first-or second-generation college students. FLP graduates have earned more than $20 million in scholarship offers. Seven FLP students have been named QuestBridge Scholars, and three have been named Gates Scholars – some of the nation’s most prestigious scholarships. The program has been recognized by the Texas State Board of Education and the Texas Governor’s Office.

“I am excited to join the Brewer Foundation and help build the FLP’s blueprint for the future,” Shaw says. “We are eager to explore new partnerships, continually improve our academic offerings, and help these students realize their visions for success. The program is a testament to the power of education and the belief that every student deserves equal opportunity.”

The IPPF is the only competition that gives high school students around the globe the opportunity to engage in written and oral debates on issues of public policy. Thousands of students participate each year. During the 2024-25 competition, 283 teams representing schools in 26 countries and 30 U.S. states submitted qualifying round essays affirming or negating the contest topic. Now in its 24th year, the IPPF will host the “IPPF Finals” in May at the Harold Pratt House in New York City.

Over its history, the Foundation has contributed more than $25 million to more than 60 charities in areas such as medicine, the arts, and human rights. All the firm’s professionals are given the opportunity to support the Foundation – and its impact on future generations.

Mr. Shaw will also contribute to the Brewer Storefront, the firm’s community service legal affiliate. Founded in 1995, the Storefront tackles local and national issues, providing legal assistance to a wide range of individuals, businesses, and community entities in need. The Storefront is currently handling several Voting Rights Act cases in North Texas – advocating for voting equality and giving a voice to minority communities.

Outside of his professional duties with the Brewer Foundation and Storefront, Mr. Shaw is a member of the Dallas Bar Association of Young Lawyers, JL Turner Association, Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce, and the Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Economic Development Council. He is currently in the middle of a term with the Texas State Board of Pharmacy, as appointed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

International Public Policy Forum Announces Advancing “Sweet 16” Teams

February 24, 2025 – The Brewer Foundation and New York University recently announced the advancing "Sweet 16" teams competing in the 2024-25 International Public Policy Forum (IPPF) — the first and only debate contest that gives high school students the opportunity to engage in written and oral debates on issues of public policy.

By advancing into the "Sweet 16" round, the teams remain eligible to win an all-expenses-paid trip to the IPPF Finals in New York City, where the IPPF World Champion will be awarded a $10,000 grand prize. The 2024 – 25 IPPF topic resolution is: “Resolved: Equitable access to pharmaceuticals should be prioritized over protecting intellectual property rights.”

"These teams dedicated months to analyzing a complex public policy issue and crafting written advocacy on both sides of the question," says William A. Brewer III, chairman of the Brewer Foundation and founder of the IPPF. "The upcoming round is pivotal, as it decides which teams earn the opportunity to travel to New York and face off in the ultimate test of oral advocacy.”

The advancing teams are:

• AfterSkool Learning Centre from Singapore, Singapore

• Akademeia High School from Warsaw, Poland

• Alpha Co from La Crescenta, California

• Alpharetta High School from Alpharetta, Georgia

• Blue Valley High School from Stilwell, Kansas

• Carroll Senior High School from Southlake, Texas

• duPont Manual High School from Louisville, Kentucky

• Ethos Academy from Vancouver, BC, Canada

• Kealakehe Public High School from Kailua-Kona, Hawaii

• North Allegheny Senior High School from Wexford, Pennsylvania

• Peak to Peak Charter School from Lafayette, Colorado

• Rowland Hall from Salt Lake City, Utah

• Slovak Debate Association from Bratislava, Slovakia

• The Westminster Schools from Atlanta, Georgia

• Westwood High School from Austin, Texas

• William Mason High School from Mason, Ohio

The IPPF's 24th annual contest began in October 2024, when 283 teams representing schools in 26 countries submitted qualifying round essays affirming or negating the IPPF topic. A committee reviewed those essays and determined the “Round of 64” teams based on the overall quality of each 3,000-word essay.

In November, the “Round of 64” teams began a single-elimination, written debate tournament. Each team was assigned a position (affirmative or negative) and then volleyed papers back and forth with another team via email. A panel of judges reviewed the essays in the order they were presented and selected the advancing 32 teams, who then engaged in another round of debates against new opponents.

The "Sweet 16" round is now underway and will conclude in late March with the announcement of the advancing final eight teams. To learn more about the IPPF, visit www.ippfdebate.com.

San Antonio Express-News Reports on Local High School Advancing into the Top 32 Round of the IPPF

January 10, 2025 — The San Antonio Express-News today reported that a team of students from Ronald Reagan High School in San Antonio, Texas, have advanced into the Top 32 round of the International Public Policy Forum (IPPF) — a high school debate contest sponsored by the Brewer Foundation and New York University. 

By advancing, the team remains eligible to win a $10,000 grand prize and an all-expenses-paid trip to the IPPF Finals in New York City this May.  

The report notes that the contest began in October, when 283 teams submitted qualifying round essays on the topic, "Resolved: Equitable access to pharmaceuticals should be prioritized over intellectual property rights." 

"We commend all the advancing teams for their achievement on this global stage," said William A. Brewer III, chairman of the Brewer Foundation and founder of the IPPF. "This is among the most complex and pressing issues on which our students have ever debated. As advocates, our law firm started this competition with a vision to promote what we see here — an extraordinary level of academic research, scholarship, and discourse." 

The publication reports that the Brewer Foundation created the IPPF in 2001 to "inspire students to think critically and develop skills to make a broader impact. The competition went global in 2009 and today attracts thousands of high school debaters worldwide."

To read the full report, click here (subscription required). 

Brewer Foundation, NYU Announce "Top 32" Teams Advancing in International Debate Competition

January 8, 2025 — The Brewer Foundation and New York University (NYU) recently announced which high school debate teams have advanced into the "Top 32" round of the International Public Policy Forum (IPPF) — the first and only contest that gives students the opportunity to engage in written and oral debates on issues of public policy.

The IPPF's 24th annual contest began in October 2024 as 283 teams, representing schools in 26 countries, submitted qualifying round essays affirming or negating the IPPF topic, “Resolved: Equitable access to pharmaceuticals should be prioritized over protecting intellectual property rights.” Those essays were reviewed by a committee, which determined the “Round of 64” teams based on the overall quality of each 3,000-word essay.

In November, the “Round of 64” teams began a single-elimination, written debate tournament. Each team was assigned a position (affirmative or negative) and then volleyed papers back and forth with another team via email. A panel of judges reviewed the essays in the order they were presented and selected the advancing 32 teams.  

“We commend all the advancing teams for their achievement on this global stage,” says William A. Brewer III, chairman of the Brewer Foundation and founder of the IPPF. “This is among the most complex and pressing issues on which our students have ever debated. As advocates, our law firm started this competition with a vision to promote what we see here – an extraordinary level of academic research, scholarship, and discourse.”   

The advancing "Top 32" teams represent schools in 15 U.S. states and nine countries, including Poland and the United Arab Emirates. 

The "Top 32" round of the contest is now underway. To view a complete list of the advancing teams, visit https://www.ippfdebate.com/announcing-the-2024-25-top-32. 

Brewer Foundation, NYU Announce “Top 64” for Global Debate Contest

November 6, 2024 – The Brewer Foundation today announced the “top 64” teams for the 24th annual International Public Policy Forum (IPPF). Sponsored by the Brewer Foundation and New York University, the IPPF is the first and only competition that gives high school students around the world the opportunity to engage in written and oral debates on issues of public policy.

This year’s qualifying round involved submissions from 283 teams representing schools in 26 countries and 30 U.S. states. This is the second-largest year in competition history.

Teams drafted essays in the affirmative or negative on the topic, “Resolved: Equitable access to pharmaceuticals should be prioritized over protecting intellectual property rights.” The advancing 64 teams will now compete in a written, single-elimination debate tournament – as teams advance through the rounds with a chance to earn an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City to compete in the IPPF Finals in May 2025. The overall winner is named the IPPF World Champion, receives the Brewer Cup, and is awarded a $10,000 grand prize.

Visit this link to see which teams advanced.

William Brewer Writes in The Dallas Morning News About Texas School Accountability Case

October 15, 2024 — William Brewer III writes in today’s Dallas Morning News opinion section that Texas school accountability ratings should be released, and shares that the Brewer Foundation Future Leaders Program (FLP) intervened in a court case in support of doing so.

The text of the piece follows:

The “Texas miracle” is an often-told tale of unbridled economic expansion and explosive population growth.

But as new residents flock to our state — an estimated 470,000 last year — many public schools in Texas are failing to adequately educate the children already here. It is no “miracle” when most of Texas students attending public school did not meet grade level on the state STAAR exam last year, including 64% of Black children, 58% of Hispanic children and 62% of economically disadvantaged students who did not, according to the Texas Education Agency.

Unfortunately, rather than a united determination to fix the situation, battle lines are emerging in the community — and in the courtroom. A monumental fight is taking place in state court that will determine whether parents can easily access information evaluating the student performance at schools that their children attend. Incredibly, the answer from a Travis County judge may be “No,” as she recently blocked the release of such data after five school districts sued Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath.

School and district ratings should be released, for the sake of transparency and accountability. Doing so represents the first step in addressing the state’s educational crisis. Such information informs educational choices parents make for their children. Information is power, and the effort to suppress it is a detriment to educational progress and the future generations of our state.

That’s why the Brewer Foundation Future Leaders Program, which supports students from a dozen Dallas ISD schools, is among the parties that intervened in the case in support of releasing school ratings. Programs like the FLP, parents and community stakeholders need to access such information and use it to empower them to make critical educational decisions.

School districts are taking divergent paths in the legal action over the release of Texas public school accountability ratings, with some districts, such as Dallas ISD, voluntarily releasing their projected ratings.

Texas has more than 1,200 school districts, and yet just 33 districts that have now joined the lawsuit are blocking the release of ratings for all districts.

Of those school districts, 27 performed worse than the state average when it comes to students meeting grade level in 2023, according to TEA data on STAAR performance by school district. While scrutiny often focuses on large urban school districts such as Houston and Dallas, the plaintiff districts in the lawsuit demonstrate that many rural districts and exurb communities are struggling and failing to adequately educate children.

For example, in 2023, Kingsville ISD enrolled 2,694 children and only 27% met grade level on the STAAR exam across all grade levels and subjects tested.

We must invest in public schools and commit to making them better. They are part of the fabric of our state and will always remain so. In 1876, the Texas Constitution wisely declared that it was the duty of the state Legislature to support and maintain “an efficient system of public free schools” given the essential role of a “general diffusion of knowledge.” We must resist the urge to turn the accountability case into a referendum on vouchers.

The immediate impulse may be to penalize these failing districts. Instead, let’s talk about solutions: schools need adequate funding to address challenges to student achievement.

Many studies report that Texas is not funding its public schools adequately. An August 2024 report by Rice University’s Kinder Institute found that 73% of Texas public schools are underfunded and that districts with the larger funding gaps tend to have the lowest student achievement ratings from the TEA. The report concluded that “severely underfunded” school districts were “strongly associated” with ratings of “C” or worse. The correlation comes as no surprise.

Let’s consider the findings of the accountability ratings a galvanizing force. Within every district, we should promote transparency, address academic and financial shortcomings, and share best practices, all benefits of the ratings process. Only then can we live up to our larger-than-life story of the Texas miracle.

William A. Brewer III is managing partner of the Brewer Storefront and founder of the Brewer Foundation Future Leaders Program. Katherine Leal Unmuth contributed to this article.

We welcome your thoughts in a letter to the editor. See the guidelines and submit your letter here. If you have problems with the form, you can submit via email at letters@dallasnews.com

William Brewer Writes in The Dallas Morning News in Support of Releasing Texas School Accountability Ratings

September 15, 2024 -- The Dallas Morning News published a letter to the editor written by Brewer Partner and Brewer Foundation Future Leaders Program (FLP) founder William A. Brewer III calling for the release of Texas school accountability ratings.

The FLP is a is an award-winning public-private partnership that provides academic resources and leadership training to economically disadvantaged students in the Dallas Independent School District.  The Brewer Foundation on September 5, 2024, filed a petition in intervention in Travis County court on behalf of its Brewer Foundation Future Leaders Program (“FLP”), seeking the release of the Texas Education Agency (“TEA”) 2024 A-F accountability ratings for school districts and campuses.

On August 12, 2024, a Travis County judge blocked the scheduled release of the school ratings with a temporary restraining order after five school districts (located across West and South Texas) sued Texas Commissioner of Education Mike Morath in Pecos-Barstow-Toyah Independent School District, et al., v. Mike Morath.

The Foundation is represented by the Brewer Storefront – the community service affiliate of the national litigation firm of Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors.

The full text of the letter as it appeared in the Sunday edition of the newspaper is below:

Release school ratings

Re: “Why we released our schools’ ratings,” by Joe Carreón and Robert Selders Jr., Monday Opinion.

It is encouraging to see Dallas ISD School Board President Joe Carreón call for two items of importance in Texas education: accountability and transparency. Both are in short supply these days in public education — as several school districts recently brought a Travis County lawsuit to block the Texas Education Agency from releasing school ratings statewide. Meanwhile, DISD and a handful of other districts took the lead in releasing their preliminary ratings.

The accountability rating system is an A-F methodology that evaluates districts and schools. By definition, the system promotes awareness of educational challenges, helps identify best practices and instills confidence in parents and students. The ratings also spark interest and engagement — as we all work collectively to improve the educational system in our state.

Our law firm’s community service legal affiliate, Brewer Storefront, filed a petition to intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of our Brewer Foundation Future Leaders Program seeking the release of the ratings. The FLP is a public-private partnership that provides academic resources and leadership training to DISD students. We will argue the issue before the court to give a voice to schools, students and communities.

The plaintiff school districts face considerable challenges with student achievement, with between 51% and 73% of students not meeting grade level last year on STAAR exams. We need a system that identifies such problems and inspires the corrective actions necessary to improve schools. It is not only the Texas educational system that depends on this, but also the future generations it serves.

William A. Brewer III

Brewer Foundation Intervenes in Travis County Demanding Greater Accountability and Transparency for Public Schools

September 5, 2024, Dallas, Texas… The Brewer Foundation on September 5, 2024, filed a petition in intervention (“petition”) on behalf of its Brewer Foundation Future Leaders Program (“FLP”), seeking the release of the Texas Education Agency (“TEA”) 2024 A-F accountability ratings for school districts and campuses.

On August 12, 2024, a Travis County judge blocked the scheduled release of the school ratings with a temporary restraining order after five school districts (located across West and South Texas) sued Texas Commissioner of Education Mike Morath in Pecos-Barstow-Toyah Independent School District, et al., v. Mike Morath.

The Foundation is represented by the Brewer Storefront – the community service affiliate of the national litigation firm of Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors. The petition seeks to dissolve the temporary restraining and prevent a permanent injunction – paving the way for greater accountability in these school districts across Texas.

The FLP is an award-winning public-private partnership that provides academic resources and leadership training to economically disadvantaged students in the Dallas Independent School District. The program maintains relationships with educators across the state, has been recognized by the Texas State Board of Education and Texas Governor’s Office, and advocates for improved educational offerings in Texas and beyond.

“The plaintiff districts are attempting to prevent the release of grades that help educators and parents better understand how their local public schools are performing and how well they are educating children,” says William A. Brewer III, partner at Brewer Storefront and founder of the FLP. “We support the call for greater transparency. As we know from our work with FLP students, identifying the opportunities to improve the educational system is the key to addressing educational performance – to the benefit of children and our collective futures.”

According to the petition, only about 53% of students in Texas meet grade level in English language arts and reading, and around 23% of students across all districts in Texas are not even approaching grade level. These numbers are even more drastic when Black and Hispanic student scores are isolated. Across the State, more than 59% of Black students and 54% of Hispanic students fail to read at grade level.

According to the TEA, the ratings are based on three domains: student achievement, school progress, and closing the gaps.

The Storefront has brought numerous successful Section 2 Voting Rights Act cases on behalf of Hispanic and Black voters in Texas, in efforts to ensure that the interests of minority voters – and children – are better represented on elected school boards. The Storefront’s Texas Voting Rights Initiative (TVRI) was founded due to concerns that a lack of diversity and equitable geographic representation on school boards can lead to underfunded schools, school and student achievement gaps, and disenfranchised voters.

Founded in 2001, the FLP is an academic and leadership development program that benefits Dallas Independent School District (DISD) students, ages 12-18, and provides them with year-round academic coursework and leadership training to prepare students for success in college and beyond. The FLP has become a national model to address the “dropout epidemic.”

The petition adds that the Brewer Foundation has a “vested interest” in the availability of the A-F performance ratings so the students in the FLP program and their parents can make “informed school decisions.”

The petition observes that the five plaintiff school districts face considerable challenges with student achievement:

• Pecos-Barstow-Toyah Independent School District in West Texas in 2022-23 enrolled 2,776 students, of whom about 72% were economically disadvantaged and 91% were Hispanic. In 2023, 66% of students did not meet grade level.

• Crandall Independent School District outside of Dallas in 2022-23 enrolled 6,003 students of whom about 62% were economically disadvantaged, about 40% were Hispanic, 31% were white and 25% were Black. In 2023, about 60% of students did not meet grade level.

• Forney Independent School District outside of Dallas in 2022-23 enrolled 16,211 students, of whom about 43% were economically disadvantaged, 36% of students were Black and 29% were Hispanic. In 2023, about 51% of students did not meet grade level.

• Fort Stockton Independent School District in West Texas in 2022-23 enrolled 2,187 students, of whom about 71% were economically disadvantaged and 89% were Hispanic. In 2023, about 65% of students did not meet grade level.

• Kingsville Independent School District in South Texas in 2022-23 enrolled 2,694 students, of whom about 83% were economically disadvantaged and 85% were Hispanic. In 2023, about 73% of students did not meet grade level.

The petition seeks dissolution of the temporary restraining order – and denial of plaintiffs’ request for a permanent injunction prohibiting the issuance of accountability ratings for the 2023-24 school year.