The Memorial Examiner takes a look at the race in SBOE6 between Republican Donna Bahorich and Democrat Traci Jensen.
Bahorich is former district director for state Sen. Dan Patrick (R-District 7) and says her experience with the state legislative process adds to her qualifications for the post. A former manager at Mountain Bell, she home-schooled her sons until they reached high school and founded the non-profit Home Ed Plus to provide supplemental classes for other home school families.
Bahorich said she is a collaborator who will bring all groups involved with education together to help set policies for the state.
“About half on the board have been teachers. What I bring to the board, in addition to my work with home schooling, is my experience on the whole picture, through legislative process. I have a global view of how we need to be going about our work that’s been missing from the board. My opponent is focused on the classroom, she doesn’t know legislative process,” Bahorich said.
Traci Jensen
Jensen was inspired to run for the SBOE seat following its controversial decisions involving the state social studies curriculum in 2010. A former classroom teacher in Aldine ISD, Jensen has a doctorate in curriculum and instruction. As a visiting professor at University of Houston until last year, she worked with educators across the city, state, the nation, and internationally concerning the improvement of learning and developing curriculum.
Jensen wants to end the culture wars that politicize subject matter. She advocates more creative instruction choices for teachers.
“My concern is making sure we are public education advocates, not political advocates. The state board should be advising legistors and advocating for parents and teachers,” Jensen said. “She (Bahorich) has a completely political background working for Dan Patrick for years, and she’s not worked in classorooms or in the schools.”
Might be nice if someone would ask Bahorich what she thinks about vouchers, since her former boss plans to push for them next year. I mean, if we’re going to divert public funds to private schools, does that mean that the private schools need to follow the curriculum set by the SBOE? I’m sure there are other questions pertaining to this as well.
On a side note, this is the first truly contested election in SBOE6 in at least 20 years. Terri Leo had a Libertarian opponent in 2008, but before that every Republican running in SBOE6 going back to 1992 – Jack Christie in ’92 and ’94. Chase Untermeyer in ’98, and Leo in ’02 and ’04 – were unopposed. That’s as far back as the SOS archives go – if you know the history from before that, leave a comment and let us know. Campos has more.
well kuffners run basically this same story about this race six times but flipps the paragraphs each time-its his way of posting a free campaign add— the truth is the best candidate is donna.
joshua ben again……………
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