Molly Ivins October 1

AUSTIN, Texas — Election alert! Heads up, voters. There are some down-ballot races that could cause us major embarrassment, not to mention putting the public schools at risk.

The State Board of Education — one of those obscure entities that we notice only when its members do something impressively foolish — is in real danger of being completely taken over by the theocratic right. Five candidates backed by Christian conservative organizations are running for the board; if they win — and the Christian Coalition will be distributing millions of leaflets in their behalf — they will join the Christian right-wingers already on the board, giving them a heavy-duty presence on the 15-member body.

These are pretty much your basic pro-voucher, prayer-in-the-schools, teach-creationism-instead-of-evolution, no-sex-ed-of-any-kind, post-the-Ten-Commandments, teach-only-phonics and get-rid-of-the-school-to-work-program folks. All that comes straight off an Eagle Forum questionnaire for board of ed candidates.

You may confused by some of this. How in the world phonics and the school-to-work program became issues for the Christian right is not readily apparent, but there is an increasingly long list of issues that the Christian right has taken up that have no bearing whatever on religion or morality. For some reason, it has decided that the Goals 2000 program, a program to set higher academic standards, is a tool of creeping socialism.

The Christian Coalition strategy on down-ballot races like the State Board of Education is tried and true, and it works. According to the coalition's own strategy manuals, their goal is to find low-turnout races, preferably as low as 15 percent, which they can win with just 8 percent. When the public is indifferent or ignorant about these "minor" races, it's quite easy for a motivated, well-disciplined minority to win.

Its candidates, whom you might want to remember, just so you can vote against them:

— Donna Ballard (District 1) was on the board from 1995 to '97, when she resigned because her family moved from East to West Texas. We already know how she behaves on the board; a Houston paper called her "the most controversial member of the board — perhaps in the entire history of that body." She was a noisy, polarizing presence, and she so alienated many members of the Legislature that there was serious talk of simply disbanding the board entirely.

— Dr.

Shirley Pigott (District 2) is a physician and head of the Victoria chapter of the right-wing American Family Association.

— Dr. Don McLeroy (District 9) is a dentist and a Bryan school board member.

— Judy Strickland (District 15) is chairwoman of the Plainview chapter of the Texas Eagle Forum, and in 1987, she received that group's Full-time Homemaker Award.

— Richard Watson is an incumbent running for re-election and is also backed by right-wing groups. He had supported their agenda on the board.

It seems to me that Republicans in particular have reason to vote against these candidates; it is their party that will be embarrassed by their behavior and platform, and their governor whose programs and ideas to improve the schools that will be under attack.

A major player in these elections is James Leininger, a San Antonio multimillionaire who funds efforts to get vouchers for religious education. Not only are vouchers in violation of the Texas Constitution, but they also are a rotten idea on their face. Taking money out of the public schools and putting it into religious schools instead will damage the public schools; one would think anyone could see that.

One group that backs these candidates is called Texans for Governmental Integrity. In Ballard's 1994 race, the group sent out a direct mail piece that showed two men kissing and stated that Ballard's opponent favored textbooks that promote abortion and homosexuality. Such a Christian level of campaigning. Since 1992, Leininger has given $35,000 to Texans for Governmental Integrity, according to the Texas Freedom Network.

It may be that the State Board of Education does not have much impact, but it does select school texts and influence the curriculum. True, if it becomes outrageous, the Lege can always abolish it. But it is depressing to think that we will have to listen to these people carry on about abortion, homosexuality, creationism and federal conspiracies to take over the schools.

Our schools need all the help they can get, and in particular, the movement to raise standards in the schools has had an important and positive impact in other states. Couldn't we get some people on the board who are concerned about education?

Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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