The Board of Education adopts the curriculum for the state of Texas for grades kindergarten to the twelfth grade. They set the graduation requirements, and the promotion requirements to graduate high school in Texas. The board also approves or disapproves applications for new charter schools while maintaining and regulating educator certification requirements.
Seats for District One and District Three of the board will be on the ballot during the general election in November. Meet the candidates for each open seat.
Michael “Travis” Stevens (District 1)
Dr. Michael “Travis” Stevens (As shown in the ballot) is the current Academic Dean at Sam Houston High School with SAISD in San Antonio Texas. He is running for State Board of Education for District 1. Stevens said that with his 14 years of experience as a certified Texas educator, he understands issues that are important to Texas teachers, parents and students.
Q: How do you think your propositions will enrich student learning?
A: The perspective I’ll bring to the State Board of Education is actual experience from a current educator, and I know that may sound like “Ok well duh it’s the State Board of Education,” but the majority of the members that are currently on the board have never worked in education – in the classroom setting.
Q: Why are you running for this position?
A: I want to make sure that we’re giving our Texas students the best quality curriculum and education that we can. We in the state of Texas currently rank at the bottom half of the United States when it comes to quality of education, and that’s a problem for me as an educator.
Q: What sets you apart from your competitor?
A: Not to give the same answer but it’s that education experience. He works for a school as public relations and as a journalist which is great and absolutely necessary, but he doesn’t have that classroom experience or that administrator experience that I have.
Q: We’re in San Antonio and District 1 includes the southern border region and then goes east all the way to El Paso. There are huge similarities in the population. Do you think there should be some sort of consideration in appealing to the demographics and population in that district?
A: Absolutely […]. Currently we have a one-size-fits-all curriculum for our students. It really just fits one demographic of students that are pretty well versed in English and are headed towards college. And there’s of course a couple of exceptions. But, we really need a curriculum that is able to allow all students to be successful.
Gustavo Reveles (District 1)
Gustavo Reveles is running for the first time under the Democrat party for the State Board of Education. Reveles said he believes in the impact of having equitable access in classrooms, and is an advocate for the Hispanic community, first-generation students and the LGBTQ community. He is currently the Communication Director for Canutillo Independent School District in El Paso.
Q: If you are elected, what are some things that you hope to maybe improve or change if you can?
A: I think the main reason the SBOE has been in the news recently has been because they tried to eliminate the black experience, the Mexican-American experience and the LGBTQ experience from our textbooks, from our curriculum. My goal is to make sure that the voice of Texans, all Texans, are respected and celebrated and to make sure that our curriculum reflects the experience of Texas and not just the experience of some Texans.
Q: And how would you protect public schools or maybe even private schools in Texas?
A: We need to protect public education by making sure that we establish a curriculum that allows school districts to not just celebrate their students, but also give a fair chance of meeting their academic goals. We know that standardized tests are designed to favor one group of students over another. We know that it discriminates based on race, based on language acquisition. I want to make sure that we do something about that.
Q: With the shortage of teachers right now, do you think that it’s important to only hire teachers that are certified, or do you think that maybe somebody with a degree that’s not certified could have the power to teach?
A: Well, I do believe that there are systems in place that allow school districts to hire uncertified teachers with the goal of getting them certified, getting them through the process. Yes, I’m in full support of that system because we have shortages in certain areas and we need to make sure that students are being taught by experts.
Marisa Perez-Diaz (District 3)
Candidate Name: Marisa Perez-Diaz
Political Party: DEM
Race: Texas State Board of Education. District 3
Incumbent (yes or no): Yes
Years as incumbent, if applicable: 11 Years
Occupation (if you can find it. If they’re the incumbent, they might not have another occupation, depending on the position): https://www.firstmarkcu.org/foundation/about-us/
Campaign website:https://marisabperez.com/
Campaign social media channels: https://twitter.com/Marisa4PubEd https://www.facebook.com/MarisaPerezSBOE
Perez-Diaz did not respond for an interview.
