Nine seats on the State Board of Education on the ballot

Audio By Carbonatix

(The Center Square) – There are nine seats on the ballot for the Texas State Board of Education. Eight seats are a regular election; one is a special election. 

Four incumbents are running for reelection to a board whose majority have no teaching experience, The Center Square reported. Five are open seats.

In nearly all races, Republican candidates have no teaching experience whereas Democrats have lengthy teaching histories.

The SBOE is the policy-making body of the Texas Education Agency, which is statutorily required to adopt policies, rules and regulations; approve budgets; execute contracts to purchase textbooks and instructional materials; direct the investment of the Permanent School Fund; among other actions. Members serve on three committees.

Each member represents roughly 1.8 million Texans in 15 districts. The majority are located in the eastern half and most populated areas of the state. District 15 in the Panhandle has the most counties (87); District 11 in the Dallas area has the least (five).  

Members are elected to four-year overlapping terms. Of the incumbents and outgoing members, all but five are Republicans. Eight are women. Nine are Caucasian, four are Black and two are Hispanic.  

In addition to four incumbents running for reelection, there are five open seats on the ballot. Voters will pick new members in the following races: 

District 2: South Texas and the Gulf Coast 

Democrat Thomas Garcia, a professor at South Texas College and former public school educator, is running against Republican Victoria Hinojosa, a U.S. Coast Guard veteran and wife of state Sen. Adam Hinojosa, R-Corpus Christi. 

Garcia has a lengthy education background after founding the nonprofit College Scholarship Leadership Access Program when he was 19. The organization has helped thousands of students. His platform includes empowering parents, uplifting students, improving public schools, focusing on foundational math skills, prioritizing early reading, reforming reading academies, among other priorities.

Hinojosa’s platform states her priorities are “excellence in education” focusing on results-based education and career and technical education opportunities, ensuring parental rights, and building career and workforce programs. 

District 5: Central Texas

Longtime educators Democrat Allison Bush and Republican Mica Arellano are running with similar priorities.

Bush’s platform includes supporting teachers, accountability and oversight of taxpayer-funded charter schools, ensuring standards for state curriculum and protecting “accurate history, age-appropriate health education, and safe schools, while ensuring that teachers have the trust and freedom to do their jobs effectively.” 

Arellano’s platform prioritizes classroom safety, academic standards, which she argues have been “diluted,” ensuring parents are involved, teachers are supported and resources get to the students, among other issues. 

District 6: Southeast Texas and north Houston suburbs

Three women are running for the seat: Democrat schoolteacher Michelle Palmer, Republican Conroe ISD trustee Tiffany Nelson and Independent entrepreneur Margo Jordan. 

Nelson has no teaching experience. Her platform prioritizes ensuring that “schools equip young Texans to thrive after graduation through pathways to college, entrepreneurship, trades, and military service.” She has pledged to remove “liberal indoctrination” from schools, including critical race theory, gender ideology, and “anti-American narratives.” She argues schools should focus on reading, writing, math, science and history that “honors our nation’s values.”

Palmer has taught math, English and Social Studies since 2009. Her platform includes improving special education services in Texas charter schools and improving state curriculum. This includes teaching climate change in Science, “understanding of consent and sex” in health class and in history, that “Moses should not be mentioned in the U.S. history curriculum.”

Jordan, a CEO, a disabled U.S. Army Veteran, says she is already “bringing business-minded leadership, accountability, and a ‘Self-Esteem First’ vision to Texas schools.” Her platform includes “strengthening student self-worth, ensuring responsible oversight of our $50 Billion education fund, and giving parents a real voice in the decisions that shape their children’s future.” 

District 9: East Texas

Democrat 20-year educator Ericka Ledferd is running against business owner and pastor Republican Kason Huddleston, who has no teaching experience.

Ledford has a lengthy education record and her platform includes fulling funding public schools, guiding schools with AI use, ensuring curriculum is strengthened and “not shaped by political noise.”

Huddleston says he’s running to “defend our children and strengthen our education system. Texas is at a crossroads. Our values are under attack and the radical left-wing is imposing their agenda heavily.”

District 14: North-Central Texas 

Republican candidate Mindy Bumgarner, wife of state Rep. Ben Bumgarner, R-Flower Mound, is running against Democrat Amy Taylor, a 17-year public school teacher. 

Bumgarner has no teaching experience. Her platform includes protecting parental rights, supporting school choice, prioritizing teaching reading, writing, math, “real world skills” and “respect, responsibility, hard work, and pride in our country.” She says education “should reflect the values of our families, not the latest political trend.” 

Taylor’s platform includes prioritizing “rigorous, differentiated and non-religious” textbooks and materials and ensuring curriculum is “written by educators designed around student learning.” She also wants to reform funding mechanism, improve testing and ensure teachers can “afford to stay in the classroom.”