Jockeying for Texas State Board of Education

What do the next elections for the Texas State Board of Education have in common with Toy Story 3? They’re both a year away, but people want you to start taking notice now.

The Daily Texan reports on a meeting designed to get people to care about the Board. This is not easy, as relatively few people know what the Board is about, who their representative is, and it’s generally pretty far down the ballot.

(Ronald) Wetherington (Southern Methodist University professor of anthropology) said the science-versus-religion debate is related to the lack of cohesion in the board.

“The disagreement has absolutely nothing to do with ignorance of science on the part of the far-right board members,” he said.

Next year, 8 positions will be up for election. On a 15 member board which has been repeatedly split, it will only take one or two positions to change hands for the tenor of the board to change dramatically either way.