The State Board of Education is one of two entities that deal with education policy in Texas. The other entity, the Texas Education Agency, is led by a commissioner appointed by the Governor, and contains a large number of bureaucrats. The State Board of Education, on the other hand, is composed of 15 elected officials, elected in different regions around the state. Travis County contains part of two SBOE districts. District 10, represented by Cynthia Dunbar, covers parts of 19 counties from Williamson to Fort Bend, while District 5, represented by Ken Mercer, covers parts of 15 counties from Bell to Bexar.
The SBOE is primarily responsible for developing curriculum standards, and administering the Permanent Textbook Fund. The Permanent Textbook Fund pays for textbooks in all public schools in Texas. It is an endowment that is invested and managed so that the principle is never consumed.
Both of the representatives currently serving on the SBOE for Travis County Districts belong to the conservative wing of the SBOE. Last year, the SBOE reviewed the Science standards. Both Ken Mercer and Cynthia Dunbar supported proposals to require that all scientific theories be discussed in terms of their strengths and weaknesses. Naturally, the education establishment went ballistic at the thought that they should have to discuss the weaknesses of such theories as Newtonian Physics (in the light of contrary evidence from General Relativity, Chaos Theory, and Quantum Mechanics), or Macro-Evolutionary Biology (in the light of contrary evidence from irreducible complexity, the aforementioned general relativity, and the third law of thermodynamics). Actually, the so-called experts brought in from California didn’t complain about challenges to Newtonian Physics at all, only Neo-Darwinian Evolution and anthropogenic global warming.
In the end, Cynthia Dunbar was able to craft language that maintained the right to question scientific theories. The final language was:
“In all fields of Science; analyze, evaluate and critique scientific explanations of science by using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing including examining all sides of scientific evidence of those scienfitic explanations so as to encourage critical thinking by the student.”
The education establishment, wanting to keep teachers free to ignore most of the scientific research in the world, is running challengers in these races. For various reasons, Cynthia Dunbar decided that she would not seek re-election, so District 10 is an open seat, while Ken Mercer is running for re-election in District 5, challenged by Tim Tuggey, a moderate lobbyist for the text book publishers.
For District 10, Round-Rock Democrat Rebecca Osborne was recruited by the education establishment to run against Cynthia Dunbar. Rebecca announced in April of 2009, soon after the Science TEKS were approved by the board. Cynthia did not announce her decision to not seek re-election until December. At that point, two other candidates filed. One is Marsha Farney of Georgetown. Marsha has an education background, has been a school teacher, and holds a PhD from UT in Curriculum Development. Another candidate is Brian Russell of Austin. Brian is an intellectual property attorney and grassroots activist in the Republican Party. He has served as State Republican Executive Committeeman for Senatorial District 14 for 6 years. In that role, he has served on the Resolutions committee, and has written many resolutions and ballot propositions concerning the State Board of Education.