There are 15 members on the State Board of Education, which sets curriculum and chooses textbooks for Texas public schools.
Seven seats are up for grabs this year. But only two districts will be on San Antonio area ballots for the Nov. 5 election.
The education board’s District 3, which encompasses the entire city of San Antonio, will remain in the hands of incumbent Marisa B. Pérez-Díaz as she was unchallenged.
Pérez-Díaz is the most senior Democrat on the State Board of Education and was first elected to her position in 2012.
District 1 seat represents a swath of West and Central Texas, including El Paso and a small portion of Bexar County.
Candidates for District 1 include Republican Michael Stevens, a longtime educator and administrator who works in the San Antonio Independent School District, and Gustavo Reveles, who runs the communications department for Canutillo Independent School District in El Paso, and has previously reported on education for newspapers.
The fractious disagreement that has dominated education issues in other races is notably absent in this SBOE race, with the candidates generally agreeing on the need for educator-centered governance, increased rigor in curriculum and less politics in education. While Reveles is staunchly opposed to vouchers, Stevens said he was “neutral” on the topic.
Both candidates agree that state school governance has drifted too far from the guidance of teachers and others on the local level.
Each sees their candidacy as a way to reintroduce that representation after the incumbent, Democrat Melissa Ortega, opted not to run for reelection last December.
Returning a voice to educators
Reveles, who spent 15 years writing about schools for news outlets in El Paso and Fort Worth, has spent the last decade in communications roles for school districts.
From that, he said he has a “well-versed approach to understanding public school governance [and] public school issues.”
Reveles said he would want to “push to make sure that… [curriculum] decisions are guided on the advice of the educators on the ground.” The current process has been swayed by politics and politicians, he said.
Stevens echoed that sentiment in an interview with the San Antonio Report, sharing that his 14 years in education equip him to help cut through the noise.
“Seeing the needs that there are in our school campuses across the state, and really the lack of input from actual educators or former educators on the [SBOE] really drove me to want to run to provide that insight,” he said. “I know the board has 15 members, but most of them have not worked in education before.”
Stevens, who unsuccessfully ran for the same seat in 2022, currently works as an academic dean at Sam Houston High School in SAISD.
Taking on curricula
One of the central responsibilities of the SBOE is to set state curriculum standards and vet potential curricula for Texas classrooms.
Reveles said he would work to ensure that “the voice and the experience of all Texas students is respected and reflected,” in that process.
“I’m really concerned about some of the movement that we’ve seen at the SBOE level to … diminish the role that … different races, ethnicities, genders, … and sexual minorities have had in the shaping of our state and our country,” he added.
His opponent, Stevens, said he wants to focus on the rigor of the curriculum and its effectiveness in the classroom — mirroring the work he is currently doing for SAISD.
He also wants to move away from a “one-size-fits-all” approach focused on preparing students for college, “which is great,” he said… “But we have plenty of kids that don’t fit that particular mold.”
That doesn’t mean diminishing the standards, however. Stevens said he wants to increase the rigor to boost the middling ranking of Texas education nationally.
Others have called for similar changes, including lawmakers that mandated the creation of a state-authored curriculum, which was previewed earlier this summer and will be voted on by the current SBOE next month. The proposed content authored by the Texas Education Agency has been celebrated by some for the increased rigor, but criticized by many for the inclusion of Bible stories in the lessons.
Stevens said he disagrees with that approach, speaking as both a parent, a Christian and an educator.
“Public schools are public schools for every kid,” he said. ” If I want my kids to get specific Christian values, I’ll send them to Christian school, but that’s not the purpose of a public school.”
Proponents of the curriculum have pushed back on criticisms, arguing that the Bible is only used in historical context.
Out with the STAAR
Both candidates also want to see reform of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR), which has been updated in recent years to more closely match the classroom learning environment.
Candidates of the District 1 race want to see the test used as a tool to help districts instead of punishing them. STAAR scores are crucial to state accountability letter grades, which are typically given to each campus and district and can be used by the state to launch interventions into failing campuses.
Lawsuits have halted the release of the grades for the last two years.
“I do want us to make sure that the way we approach this is … to help the students meet their academic goals, not to harm schools, not to punish school districts,” Reveles said.
The SBOE sets state standards, which inform the STAAR test, but does not have the power to cancel the state-mandated test.
Still, Reveles said there should be a “moratorium on how we are what we’re doing right now,” and a new system, created with the help of classroom educators “that helps them meet their academic goals.”
Stevens, who has been outspoken about problems associated with the STAAR for years, said he wants to see the test removed from graduation requirements and moved instead to end-of-course exams that could be included in student’s overall grades.
In 2021, lawmakers removed requirements for students to pass the third and eighth-grade STAAR tests to move on to the next grade – but students still have to pass high school STAAR exams, or comparable tests, to graduate.
A new funding model
School districts across the state, including the district employing Reveles, have adopted deficit budgets this year in the wake of rising costs and state funding levels left unchanged since 2019.
Texas is one of the few states nationwide to provide funds to schools based on average daily attendance instead of enrollment, meaning that schools get less money if fewer students show up for class, even if the costs remain the same.
Both candidates favor changing the funding model to one based on enrollment, including Stevens, who said he has seen the negative impacts of the current model while working in Title I Schools, which often have lower attendance rates than others.
Despite school and district leader’s best efforts, Stevens said, “we can’t control how many kids come to school every day.”
Reveles echoed that, pointing to an apathy among parents and students following the pandemic.
“School districts are bending over backwards to make sure that students come to school,” he said. “I do believe that there’s been a shift in the way parents are thinking about getting their kids to school.”
Voucher fight to return
State funding decisions will be made by the Legislature, which is primed to pick up where it left off with discussions over funding and school vouchers, which were tied together in an effort to pass a long-fought Republican priority.
Proposed voucher programs would allow some parents to use public education funds to help pay for private or alternative schooling.
In past years, the SBOE has included a stance against vouchers in its legislative priorities, although they dropped that opposition in 2023.
Even if the SBOE doesn’t have a say in the voucher fight, Reveles said “it’s important to be on the record as saying that, as a proponent of public education I am… deeply opposed to vouchers and the use of public funding to support private education.”
Stevens, on the other hand, despite past social media posts in support of school choice, said he isn’t taking a stance on the issue.
The reason for the neutrality, he said, is that if vouchers do pass, “then it’s going to be up to me to make sure, as a member of the board and the entire board, that we are absolutely creating the best curriculum and resources for teachers possible to keep our kids in public school.”
If school vouchers pass, Stevens said he would want oversight for anyone receiving public funds, including evaluating student growth and learning.
The future of charter schools
SBOE members are responsible for vetting, scrutinizing and eventually approving the comprehensive applications for charter schools to open schools in Texas or expand.
Charter schools have exploded in popularity in the decades since being established in Texas law in the mid-1990s but have also seen closures, state intervention and scandals, like school funding being approved for the use of a private plane by an administrator.
Both candidates want to see the approval of new charter schools slow down and greater scrutiny on the efficacy of already established institutions.
Reveles said he has seen positive work done by some schools but called in an interview with the Report for a “moratorium” on approving new charter schools.
“I do believe that Texas needs to come back to the table and reassess the efficacy of the charter schools that we have already in place,” he said. “We assess what’s working, what’s not working, and then use those standards to move forward as we approve charters, making sure that these systems … are high quality … effective and will compete in a fair manner with the traditional school systems.”
Stevens, who spent the first three years of his career at a charter school, and is generally in support of the education model, stopped short of calling for a moratorium, but agreed that more scrutiny should be applied to new and expanding charters.
“I do absolutely believe that we have to slow down when it comes to approving the applications,” he said. “[We need to] look at them, give them the in-depth evaluation that they need to ensure that they’re what we need for our kids.”
