Five races for the Republican-dominated State Board of Education to watch this year

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

Voters will decide the outcomes of five competitive Texas State Board of Education races this November, with some challengers hoping to shake up the curriculum-setting body they say has shifted too far into party politics.

The stakes of the board races are especially high this year, as the group’s responsibilities in the next year could include, among other tasks, revising Texas’ social studies curriculum. Some conservatives on the Republican-dominated board, including the chair who is up for reelection, have campaigned on the idea that public schools are harming children with how they teach America’s history of racism and its diversity.

The State Board of Education does not require candidates to have experience working in public education — even though the 15 members on the board play an extraordinary role in determining what students learn in the classroom and what’s required for kids to graduate, as well as in overseeing a $56 billion state endowment to support Texas public schools.

In recent months, the board has fielded complaints about a Texas Education Agency-proposed curriculum that, if approved by the group next month, would insert Bible teachings into elementary school reading and language arts lessons. The group has delayed its vote on a long-awaited Native Studies course, covering the culture and history of tribes and nations across Texas and the U.S. And in recent years, the board has rejected science textbooks over their messaging on climate change and walked back its opposition to school vouchers, a program that would set aside public taxpayer dollars to fund children’s private education.

Board members serve staggered two-year and four-year terms. This year, eight of the 15 seats are up for election, with three Republican incumbents vying for reelection and San Antonio Democrat Marisa Perez-Diaz and Houston Democrat Staci Childs running unopposed.

After board member Aicha Davis recently stepped down to run for the Texas House, her seat on the board representing parts of North Texas is also up for election, with Democrat Tiffany Clark running without a challenger.

That leaves five races that could potentially change the makeup of the board, which currently has 10 Republicans and four Democrats.

Here are the candidates running for office.

District 1

Gustavo Reveles and Michael “Travis” Stevens are running in District 1, which encompasses El Paso County and part of Bexar County. El Paso Democrat Melissa Ortega, who decided not to seek reelection, currently holds the seat.

Reveles, a Democrat who currently serves as communications director for the Canutillo school district outside of El Paso, said he is running to ensure that Texas’ border community continues to have a presence at the state level. While acknowledging that he has not worked as a teacher or an educator, Reveles said the board needs people who respect educators as leaders and experts in the field. Top of mind for Reveles is helping ensure that students of all backgrounds feel represented in curricula. He also would like to see a more rigorous approval process of charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately managed.

Stevens is a Republican with 14 years of experience working in education, including time as both an English teacher and an administrator. He is currently an academic dean for the San Antonio school district. He wants teachers and educators to have more say when it comes to public education. Stevens said current state standards for student learning are difficult to achieve in a given school year and that teachers are faced with too many onerous professional development requirements. He also believes that using the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR), the state’s standardized test, as a graduation requirement is ineffective and harmful to students, saying the test is not always representative of how much a student has learned in the classroom.

District 10

Tom Maynard, the incumbent, is running against Raquel Sáenz Ortiz in District 10, which includes Bell County and part of Williamson County.

Maynard is a Florence Republican who has served on the board for 11 years. He is currently the chair of the board’s Committee on School Finance and helps oversee the $56 billion state endowment known as the Permanent School Fund. With more than 30 years in education, Maynard spent more than a dozen of them as an agricultural science teacher. He also worked as executive director of the Texas FFA Association. In an emailed response to questions, Maynard listed working to improve the quality of instructional materials, creating and implementing a library book review process and completing revisions to the social studies and mathematics standards as some of his top priorities.

Ortiz, a Democrat, is an assistant professor of education at Southwestern University with more than 15 years of experience working in education. She began her career as a sixth grade social studies teacher in South Texas and has served on workgroups in Texas and Massachusetts to help revise their curriculum standards. Having also worked with the Ethnic Studies Network of Texas, which advocates for more ethnic studies in schools, Ortiz supports state curricula that are project-based and inclusive of all backgrounds and cultures. She also said she wants to see more decisions from the board that are less focused on the personal politics of each member.

District 11

Rayna Glasser, Brandon Hall and Hunter Crow are running in District 11, which includes Parker County and part of Tarrant County. The seat is currently held by longtime Fort Worth Republican incumbent Patricia “Pat” Hardy, who lost in the March primary.

Glasser, a Democrat with nearly 20 years of teaching experience in Texas, is an instructional coach in the Crowley school district. She said her and other candidates’ experiences as current educators would help the board make decisions in the best interests of kids and teachers. Glasser would like the board to revisit graduation requirements, specifically the mandate that students pass the STAAR to receive their diploma. Regarding school curricula, she believes schools need to teach facts — “the good, the bad and the ugly” — and not exclude pertinent information based on one’s personal preferences. Glasser also noted that classrooms are not the appropriate forum to teach so-called Christian values.

Hall, a Republican who defeated Hardy, is a youth pastor who has described Texas as having “a broken public education system” where kids “face an onslaught against their innocence” — particularly with how America’s history of racism is taught in classrooms and what he has called “obscene library books” and a “sexualized agenda.” Hall, who did not respond to requests for an interview, lists on his website his commitment “to making quality, conservative education a reality for all students” and to establish charter schools more easily. He also wants parents to “play a central role in shaping the educational trajectory of their children.”

Hunter Crow, a Green Party candidate, is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in history at the University of Texas at Arlington and recently earned his associate’s from Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, according to his campaign website. Crow, who did not respond to requests for an interview, is running on a platform that emphasizes the importance of state curricula with instruction on languages, arts and sciences and the history of social movements, his website states. He also opposes the use of standardized tests as a primary criterion for graduation and teacher pay.

District 12

Pam Little, the incumbent, is defending her seat against George King in District 12, which includes Collin County.

Little, a Fairview Republican who has served on the board since 2019, is currently the group’s vice chair. A co-owner of a fence company, she has taught courses in small business management in community college, according to her State Board of Education biography. Little, who could not be reached for an interview, has voted against presenting a “biased view” of the fossil fuel industry and social studies standards that “water down our history,” according to her campaign website. She listed as her accomplishments while on the board, among other things, implementing phonics-based curriculum standards, approving personal financial literacy education and updating the Texas Dyslexia Handbook.

King, a Democrat, recently retired from education after serving 40 years in the field, including time as a teacher and administrator. The former Plano school district educator believes “politics and ideology” have largely consumed the state board, citing as an example the elementary school reading and language arts curriculum proposal that includes biblical teachings. He said he wants to help ensure that when the board takes up social studies curriculum revisions in the near future, it is focused on accuracy, comprehensiveness and truth — and not on political ideology that could lead to the “whitewashing” of history.

District 15

Aaron Kinsey, the current chair of the board, is running against Morgan Kirkpatrick and Jack Westbrook in District 15, which includes Ector and Lubbock counties.

Kinsey, a Midland Republican, was elected to the board in 2022 and appointed chair by Gov. Greg Abbott last December. Kinsey, who did not respond to requests for an interview, is a former Air Force pilot who now oversees an aviation oil field services company in Midland, according to his online biography. At the Texas Republican Party Convention this year, Kinsey acknowledged he did not know much about the State Board of Education prior to running but that he did “understand the greatness of Texas” and that his family’s values were not being represented in public schools. Among Kinsey’s top priorities, he said at the convention, is for schools to teach Texas children “how to think and not to hate themselves.” He also advocated for curricula that embrace “capitalism and self-reliance as nobel quests.” Kinsey proclaimed at the end of his speech: “You have a chairman who will fight for these three-letter words: G-O–D, G-O-P, and U-S-A.”

Kirkpatrick, a Democrat, is a marketing coordinator at an engineering firm who previously worked as a teacher for 14 years in Lubbock. She decided to run for the board partly because she did not want to see Kinsey run unopposed as he did during the 2022 general election. She believes people on the board have forgotten that decisions should be made “with our students’ best interests at heart.” Kirkpatrick is advocating for providing teachers with more classroom support, eliminating high-stakes testing requirements and ensuring that students are receiving an accurate and inclusive education.

Westbrook, a Libertarian, is an Air Force veteran who has been running for different public offices in Texas since 2018. In education, he worked as a substitute teacher for roughly 15 years and is a former school board member of the Gonzales school district. He said he is running for the state board to help ensure political and religious ideology are kept out of schools, citing as one example his opposition to ongoing attempts by state officials to inject conservative Christian values into the public school system. Inserting political agendas, he said, “is not in the best interests of our children in any way, shape or form.”