In an e-mail to supporters today, education consultant Judy Jennings of Austin responded to the announcement from University of Texas mathematics professor Lorenzo Sadun that he is withdrawing from the race for Cynthia Dunbar’s seat on the Texas State Board of Education. Sadun’s withdrawal leaves Jennings as the only announced Democratic candidate for the seat. Dunbar faces Republican teacher Rebecca Osborne in the March GOP primary.
See Jennings’ e-mail after the jump.
I can’t adequately express how grateful I am to Lorenzo Sadun for putting our common goal of bringing change to the State Board of Education ahead of his desire to serve on the board himself. Dr. Sadun would make an able, brilliant board member in his own right. In receiving his approval of my candidacy, I feel I have measured up to a high standard, indeed.
Dr. Sadun and I share the outrage of many voters that our current representative on the State Board of Education is someone who calls public education “a subtly deceptive tool of perversion.” This statement flies in the face of the board’s duty to support and guide our Texas public schools. As of today, Dr. Sadun and I are working together to end Cynthia Dunbar’s career on the State Board of Education.
I have asked Dr. Sadun to advise me on both academics and on the campaign. His credentials as a scientist are of the first rank, and as he has pointed out numerous times as a candidate, science textbooks will be on the agenda of the State Board in 2011. We will need Dr. Sadun’s expertise in this area along with that of other scientists and educators for the State Board of Education to live up to its responsibility to guide Texas’s public schools in preparing today’s students for a successful future.
The other area where I have asked Dr. Sadun to advise me is the campaign. There are only 15 State Board of Educations members as opposed to 32 members of Congress and 31 State Senators. Thus each of the SBOE members represents more than twice as many constituents as a State Senator or member of Congress. The district I am running in is vast. Dr. Sadun knows so many people — Democrats, independents and Republicans — from his 2004 campaign for Congress and his candidacy for the state board that his guidance will be invaluable to the success of this effort over the next eleven months.
I am so very happy to be working with Dr. Sadun rather than to be competing against him. He was a formidable opponent and is now a formidable ally. This is good news for the Democratic Party, the voters of District 10 and the schoolchildren of Texas.
Judy Jennings, Ph.D., Democratic candidate for State Board of Education, District 10
