蜜桃影视

Pat Hardy, the self-proclaimed swing vote on the powerful Texas Board of Education, is on the path to re-election as the body is set to consider contentious issues such as rewrites of state history and sex ed standards.

The 15-member board, which currently has five Democrats and 10 Republicans, is often divided into three factions: Democrats, moderately conservative Republicans, and 鈥渟ocial conservatives,鈥� .

, a former teacher, is undoubtedly conservative but has earned a reputation for listening to teachers and was endorsed by the United Educators Association, a Dallas teachers union, .

She was often a swing vote among the three factions.

鈥淭he swing voter is the most powerful person in the whole show. That is a badge of honor,鈥� Hardy told the Star-Telegram.

Hardy took 55.8 percent of the primary vote, avoiding a runoff. She will face Democrat , a pediatric neuropsychologist whose campaign is focused on 鈥渟cience-based education鈥� and special ed, in November. Hardy with 65 and 83 percent of the vote.

The three factions on the board are forced to work together, and losing Hardy would upset the balance, one education lobbyist told the Texas Tribune.

A total of seven seats on the board are up for re-election this year, and three incumbents are stepping down, though those elections aren鈥檛 expected to change the composition of the board the way replacing Hardy could, according to the Tribune.

There鈥檚 plenty of contentious issues ahead for the board: a rewrite of social studies standards this year, for example, and a revision of the health curriculum, including sex ed, in the coming years.

The 2010 rewrite of the social studies standards became something of a media circus after board to the original teacher-authored standards.

, which they say are overly politicized and ignore sound pedagogy.

The issue of sex ed is no less taboo in the Lone Star state.

A quarter of school districts didn鈥檛 offer sex ed at all, and 58 percent offered abstinence-only education; the state ended sex ed as a graduation requirement in 2009.

The Texas primary was the first of the 2018 cycle that will see a host of state elections with big ramifications for education, including 36 governors.

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