McALLEN — Two Republican candidates vying for the District 2 seat on the State Board of Education faced off in a forum Monday hosted by Futuro RGV.
Hilda DeShazo and Lj Francis are both running for the spot which incumbent Ruben Cortez is vacating.
Francis, a Nueces County engineer, plugged his knowledge about STEM and how it could be better implemented in curriculum, and often cited his grassroots-thinking mindset.
DeShazo, a former educator and school board trustee at McAllen ISD, mostly cited her years of service in education, along with her work in curriculum development and textbook adoption committees.
The candidates largely agreed on perennial education issues in the state: they both supported STAAR testing reform, they said they were OK with vouchers for public schools and said they would support more work identifying minorities being incorrectly labeled as intellectually disabled.
DeShazo and Francis differed more on hot-button issues that have been the source of often heated debate over the past year, things like critical race theory, how to address controversial books in school libraries and who should decide pandemic mandates for students and staff at Texas schools.
The candidates talked more about controversial books in libraries than any other single topic.
Last month Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Education Agency to investigate “pornographic” reading materials in schools after a state representative compiled a list of about 850 books dealing with sexual or racial subjects.
They agreed that they were concerned about some media available at local schools — DeShazo said she’d “like to see that 850 book list” — but they disagreed on how active a role the board should play on that front.
Francis said while the state education board isn’t explicitly tasked with reviewing library books, it should take an active role in that discussion, and that parents he’s met on the campaign trail are looking for that sort of leadership.
“That’s what we do,” he said. “We allow these policies to be in place to make sure that we’re protecting our Texas school children.”
DeShazo said that school boards and teachers are more equipped for that task.
“I think that if I’m on the State Board of Education and I get a list of 850 books, am I supposed to decide what works in one community and not the other?” she said. “I think teachers … have the academic freedom to choose. But they also have to have the professionalism and the academic freedom for interpretation.”
The candidates’ views flipped on who should set policies for mask and vaccine requirements in Texas schools, with Francis saying that responsibility should fall with parents.
“The parents are responsible for their child, and they know more about that child,” he said. “As we all know, that every child is different and no ‘one size fits all’ is a good model to use for a global pandemic such as this.”
DeShazo, on the other hand, indicated those requirements should be based on advice from the medical community.
“I think we need to listen to the medical experts,” she said. “I think that once a school board or a local community receives the information from the medical health experts — not the politicians, not what one political party says about the other, you look at the science of medicine. The science of medicine says this: wearing masks, 6-feet distancing, vaccination has a higher rate of protection. Then let’s go with that.”
The candidates were both asked where they stand on the state’s critical race theory law, which Gov. Abbott signed last year. That legislation prohibits the teaching of critical race theory, essentially the study of racism’s impact on the United States.
Francis said he feels critical race theory teaches students to divide themselves based on race, and strongly opposes it.
“I’m from Jamaica, I came here from Jamaica to America, and it was just the push for excellence that got me to where I’m at right now, you know I have a master’s degree in engineering, I’m finishing my Ph.D,” he said. “And no student should be taught to divide based on race.”
DeShazo’s opinion on the law was hazier. She said she opposed critical race theory and law, but mostly talked about the importance of teaching controversial topics.
“Of course I don’t agree with critical race theory in the terms of ‘everything in the United States is bad; everything we’ve done is bad; we need to be more divisive,’” she said. “We need to teach our students the truth. We need to expose them to the truth. Why did this happen? When did it happen? What motivated these individuals to act this way? So we can learn from it and stop it from happening again.”
