Originally posted at http://www.sacurrent.com/news/story.asp?id=70749

Michael Soto, the willowy, curly-haired candidate for the State Board of Education District 3, officially launched his campaign the night of December 1 with a high-caliber host committee that included grocery magnate Charles Butt, a supporter of the Texas Freedom Foundation and a financial factor a few years back in the surprise win of former State Representative Juan Garcia; former State Senator John Montford, whose resume reads like any three overachievers’ CVs combined; and the Honorables Mary Esther and Joe Bernal.

Soto, whose run last spring for the San Antonio Independent School District’s board was derailed by a certain former SA mayor, says he was reluctant at first to jump into another race so soon. “But the more thought I gave to it, the more upset I became with the current state of affairs,” he said. “For too long the [SBOE] has been out of touch with the population of public-school students.” He mentioned the heated battle over the language-arts curriculum (“they disregarded three years of expert work and decided to play politics”), although he might as well have mentioned the recent wrangling over opening the door to intelligent design in the science curriculum, or diversity in the social-studies curriculum’s cast of historical characters. Of intelligent design, Soto says, “I suppose it makes sense to talk about it in a civics class, but it doesn’t belong in a science classroom.”

A native of the Valley, Soto has been a professor at Trinity University for more than a decade (he specializes in 20th Century American Lit), and is the father of a first grader. Perhaps a lesser-known achievement: For a short period during the George W. Bush administration, he channeled the spirit of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s inner Chicano activist for a series of Current Last Words memos. If Soto takes the SBOE seat, the QueQue will compile a special edition of his pieces in his honor.

District 3 represents the lower half of Bexar County on the 15-member elected board. Outgoing incumbent Rick Agosto characterizes the job as “Strap yourself onto a lightning rod and go into an electrical storm.

“Elected officials are basically writing a curriculum for Texas, which can influence much of what’s being read and studied in most of the United States for the next 10 years.”

But, Agosto says, “The most important job we have is protecting the investment of the Permanent School Fund,” the 150-year-old land bank that pays for those controversial textbooks.

The filing deadline is January 5. Soto he says he hopes to use the campaign “to inform people about the SBOE and how important it is to be involved in the process.”