There have been a number of campaign announcements in Texas politics this week but maybe the most interesting is former MLB player Mark Teixeira, who said he’s running for a position in the Texas Legislature.
“He’s running for Congress in Central Texas,” explained Texas Tribune politics editor Jasper Scherer, “for the congressional district that’s currently represented by Chip Roy, a hardline Republican that’s giving up that seat to run for Texas Attorney General.”
Also, the Texas Tech University System is getting ready to decide on a new chancellor. The options are between U.S. House Rep. Jodey Arrington, whose district is in West Texas, and Texas Sen. Brandon Creighton, who represents an area around Houston.
“This is continuing a trend of former or current elected officials being tapped for these roles,” said Scherer.
Then finally, on Thursday, the Tribune reported that the Legislature is close to scrapping the STAAR test, which is used to test students in Texas. The current plan is to replace it with three smaller tests.
“It would be shorter tests overall. There’d be an option for schools to give alternative exams in place of the first two,” said Scherer. “The results would be reported as percentiles comparing student’s performance with their peers.”
