Additional Information

Running for Texas House District 65 in the 2026 Democratic primary. Ran unsuccessfully for the same seat in 2024.

Candidate Survey Responses

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RESPONSES TO THE 2026 ATPE CANDIDATE SURVEY:

1. If elected, what are your top priorities for Texas public education?

Please describe any specific goals or legislative initiatives you would pursue to strengthen the state’s public education system.

Fairly funding Public Education is my top legislative priority. We do this by using inflation as the primary influencer of the basic allotment. When costs rise, the basic allotment should increase accordingly. We should also change the funding model from attendance-based to enrollment-based. Fixed costs (e.g., salaries, insurance, and building costs) remain the same regardless of student attendance. Let's base funding on enrollment.

2. Public Education Funding:

The 89th Legislature passed an $8 billion school funding bill, HB 2. However, despite years of unanswered “inflationary challenges, a large majority of that funding was earmarked to specific programs and did not supply districts with significant flexible funding, leaving the majority of Texas students in districts with deficit budgets and other significant funding challenges. Do you believe Texas public schools should receive additional funding? If so, how should the state pay for it, and should that funding be earmarked at the state level or provide districts with flexible dollars?

Yes, public schools should receive more funding. More importantly, funding should be unrestricted as those “closest to the problems” are best qualified to solve them (i.e., school district officials). The state legislature's role, which controls resources, is to ensure districts have the flexible funding they need to do their jobs.

3. ESA Vouchers:

Education savings accounts (ESAs) redirect public funds to private or home schools. How do you believe Texas should fund public schools, traditional and charter, alongside ESA vouchers? How should ESA spending be held accountable to taxpayers?

The Texas Constitution calls for funding free public schools. Although not expressly stated it can be reasonably implied that they be funded fairly and adequately. There’s no constitutional mandate for ESA’s in any way, hence funding private schools is NOT a priority of the state. We could possibly consider them but ONLY after we are in the top 5 states in public education funding. It's a matter of priorities. More importantly any school receiving “public dollars” should be held to the same accountability standards. We should hold private and home schools to the same transparency standards as public schools before considering offering them public funds of any kind.

4. Teacher Recruitment and Retention:

Under HB 2, passed in 2025, all educators in core content courses (math, English, science, and social studies) must be certified by 2030. While this is a good start, more can and should be done to ensure high-quality teachers continue to enter the classroom. What are your suggestions to improve the quality of the new teacher pipeline?

To improve the quality of the new teacher pipeline, we start by increasing teacher pay, especially for tenured, more experienced teachers. We need to make conscious efforts to attract teachers who are “demographically aligned” with the student population. That means attracting more minority male teachers to the profession. It means investing in programs like “The He is Me Institute, an African American Male Teacher Initiative at Hutson-Tilloston.

5. Educator Pay and Benefits:

The 89th Legislature passed legislation creating a new mechanism to provide only classroom teachers with tiered raises based on early years of service and their district’s student enrollment. While the raises were significant, they did not apply to all campus educators, and the program created a significant negative funding stream at the district level due to unfunded increased costs for non-salary compensation tied to payroll, such as TRS retirement contributions. Do you support a state-funded across-the-board pay raise for all Texas educators? How would you ensure that compensation keeps pace with inflation and remains competitive with other professions?

Yes, I support an across-the-board pay raise for all Texas educators. We ensure that compensation keeps pace with inflation, but makes increases driven by inflationary forces.

6. Educator Health Care:

The high cost of health insurance for active and retired educators continues to reduce take-home pay, with educators shouldering the vast majority of their ever-increasing heath care costs. How would you address the affordability and sustainability of educator health care, particularly the TRS-ActiveCare and TRS-Care programs?

We start by expanding Medicaid in the state of Texas, bringing federal health care dollars into Texas which tends to lower the overall cost of health care. As health care costs tend to drop as more people are covered.

7. Retirement Security:

Do you believe the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) should remain a defined-benefit pension plan for all current and future members? If not, what is your plan to provide a secure retirement for Texas educators, particularly considering that state law has been set up such that most districts do not participate in Social Security?

Yes, it should remain a defined benefit pension plan. It's time to revisit the state law that prohibits TRS participants from participating in Social Security.

8. Accountability and Assessment Reform:

The Legislature has passed a new “through-year” multi-test model under HB 8. What role should standardized testing play in evaluating students, teachers, and schools? Should test results continue to determine A–F accountability ratings or teacher pay?

Standardized tests should play NO role in evaluating students, teachers or schools in any meaningful way. They could be used as ONLY one of many measurement tools, but not as a final evaluation tool. Many other factors contribute to a student, teacher or schools effectiveness that standardized testing simply doesn’t measure.

9. Parental Rights and Community Voice:

Recent legislative debates have focused on “parental rights” in education. In your view, what is the appropriate balance between accommodating the often conflicting wishes of individual parents while maintaining policies that reflect the broader community’s educational priorities and still providing consistency and an appropriate level of professional deference to educators?

Parents' rights don’t eclipse the broader community’s educational priorities. Private schools exist to give parents options when they feel their rights are not being honored within the broader community’s educational priorities. This is a balance we have struck since the beginning of state-funded public education in this country. As long as professional educators honor a parent’s constitutional rights, then they have done their jobs. Lastly, we defer to the opinions of professionals across other industries, from health care to nutrition. We should have the same deference for professional educators.

10. School Safety:

HB 3 (2023) imposed new school safety requirements but did not fully fund them. Although the 89th Legislature increased the School Safety Allotment, many districts continue to face substantial unfunded staffing and facility costs associated with school safety laws. How would you make schools safer and ensure the state provides adequate funding to meet safety mandates?

We make schools safer by making our communities safer overall. Therefore, working with local community safety organizations is the most effective way to make schools safer. Underfunded mandates are burdens that shouldn’t be expected to be met.

11. Curriculum and Local Control:

What do you believe is the proper role of the State Board of Education, the Texas Education Agency, and local school districts in setting curriculum standards and selecting instructional materials?

Local school districts should be the primary determiners of curriculum standards and the selection of materials. The State Board of Education is responsible for ensuring that the state legislature adequately funds local school districts and that curriculum decisions are consistent across districts. The Texas Education Agency is the oversight arm that ensures the efforts of the State Board of Education, the State Legislature, and local school districts are aligned.

12. Educator Rights and Professional Associations:

State law allows educators and other public employees to voluntarily join professional associations such as ATPE and have membership dues deducted from their paychecks at no cost to taxpayers. Do you support or oppose allowing public employees to continue exercising this right? Why or why not?

I support this right. Public employees have the right to control what can and cannot be deducted from their paychecks. This has long been a custom of labor unions and they see no need to change that custom.

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RESPONSES TO THE 2024 ATPE CANDIDATE SURVEY:

1. If elected, what are your top priorities for public education?

Increased funding for public education. We have been in the bottom 3rd in state funding per pupil since the 1950s. We must make teacher recruitment and retention a legislative priority.

2. Voucher programs take many forms (tax credits, scholarships, education savings accounts, etc.) and are either universal or aimed at specific subpopulations (special education students, low-income students, students attending schools with poor A-F accountability ratings, etc.). Would you vote to create a voucher program of any type to pay for students to attend non-public K-12 schools, such as private or home schools?

No! There's no evidence that large scale voucher programs in any form improve the educational outcomes of students.

3. In 2023, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill (HB) 3 requiring a number of new school safety measures. However, many believe the Legislature did not adequately increase funding to cover the cost of the mandates in HB 3 or other locally adopted school safety measures. How would you work to make schools safer and ensure such initiatives are properly funded?

We start by simply increasing public school funding to match inflation. Any school safety measure proposed MUST come with the funding to implement that measure.

4. Despite a record-breaking surplus of $38 billion during the 2023 legislative session, school funding formulas were not increased to keep pace with inflation since they were last adjusted in 2019. Do you believe Texas public schools should receive additional funding? If so, how should the state pay for it?

Public schools should receive additional funding. The state should earmark a set amount of the current and future surplus dollars (i.e. 10%) to public education. We should also tie any casino legislation directly to public education funding.

5. Texas has faced growing teacher shortages in recent years, with many schools hiring uncertified teachers to fill the gaps. How would you work to ensure Texas public schools have an adequate number of trained and certified teachers?

Teacher pay is a major problem. Texas teacher pay ranks 26th in the nation. Earmarked surplus dollars should be directed to teacher recruitment and retention.

6. Inadequate compensation hampers the recruitment and retention of high-quality educators. Do you support a state-funded across-the-board pay raise for all Texas educators?

Yes!

7. The high cost of health insurance available to educators is a significant factor decreasing their take-home pay. How would you address the challenge of rising health care costs facing Texas educators and ensure access to affordable health care?

We should expand Medicaid in the State of Texas. Persons working in the public school system who qualify could opt for Medicaid. This leaves more money to lower the cost for those who don't qualify.

8. What do you feel is the proper role of standardized testing in the Texas public education system? For instance, should student test scores be used as a metric in determining teacher pay, school accountability ratings, evaluating teachers, measuring student progress, etc.?

Test scores should be used as a metric for measuring student progress, not teachers or school administration. There should be other metrics for that.

9. In your opinion, what is the proper balance between accommodating an individual parent’s or student’s wishes and the taxpaying community’s interest in directing and maintaining an optimal educational environment for the student population as a whole?

The community's interest has to be the priority. But there is a lot of opportunity, in most cases, to accommodate an individual parent/student. We have to do what's best for the most,while being sensitive to individual needs.

10. Do you believe the Teacher Retirement System (TRS) should be maintained as a traditional defined-benefit pension plan for all future, current, and retired educators, or do you support converting TRS to a defined-contribution structure that is more like a 401(k) plan, in which future benefits are not guaranteed?

I support a Hybrid approach to the TRS. We can define a basic benefit pension, while exercising a defined contribution plan. Teachers should have the option to choose how they want to use the system based on their circumstances.

11. State law allows educators and other public employees to voluntarily choose to join professional associations such as ATPE and have membership dues deducted from their paychecks at no cost to taxpayers. Do you support or oppose letting all public employees continue to exercise this right?

Yes

Additional Comments from Candidate on Survey

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