Today the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund released results from a statewide survey of what Texans think about the intersection of politics and religion with public schools. We released results from two questions back in May. One showed overwhelming support for putting teachers and scholars, instead of politicians on the State Board of Education, in charge of writing curriculum and textbook requirements. Another revealed that nearly 7 in 10 Texans agree that separation of church and state is a key principle of the Constitution.
Source: TFN
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It looks like the citizens of Texas are mostly reasonable about education, if still a bit confused (68 percent saying separation of church and state is a key constitutional principle but 49 percent saying religion should have more influence in public schools).
The problem, as with a lot of political problems, has to do with election mechanics. The board is elected by district. The religious right works hard in the GOP primary to gets its candidates on the ballot. It has had good success with this because a) school board elections are not at the top of most voters' attention, and b) it is the GOP primary. Come the general election, whoever gets the GOP nomination wins in this red state, just from voters selecting the party ticket, even though the vast majority will know nothing about these candidates.
Feh.
The school board is one reason I'm a Republican. The saner voters successfully shot down one of the wackier wingnuts in the last primary election.
Just to be clear, I'm a Republican in the only sense one can be in Texas: I vote in the GOP primary, which thereby stamps my registration card. That a) is entirely a pragmatic decision given electoral mechanics and demographics in this state, b) has absolutely no bearing on my political views generally, and c) says nothing about how I vote in the general election. ;-)
Getting the answer you want out of a poll is all about how you frame the question. For e.g.:
Do you think there should be:
A: Greater separation of church and state?
or
B: A child eating lizard as president?
That poll sounds quite against what most of the polls coming out of Texas usually say, I'd love to read how some of the questions were written.
One is led to wonder why they consistently fail to vote that way...
Notice the part about the oversampling?
Something is rotten in the state of Texas.
It should also be noted that school board elections have very low voter turnout. Texas' election mechanisms seem almost designed to drive voters away from the polls instead of towards them.
For one thing, Texas does not do the sensible things and hold all elections on the traditional November election day. Election for state and local offices are held throughout the year, with little pattern to them.
For another thing, you can only vote at one polling place, depending on where you live. This despite the fact that during early voting periods, you can vote at whatever polling place is most convenient to you. If they can make that work during early voting, they can make that work on election day.
I am a Texan and while I strongly advocate exercising the vote, I also travel for a living and can't accommodate 3 or 4 different election days per year. The same is true for many Texans with multiple jobs, jobs that do not accommodate employees' need to occasionally leave the workplace during business hours, or people with children.