FROM RUBEN CORTEZ: CUPCAKES AND LIES ABOUT CELESTE

By Juan Montoya
Even as he was courting voters with cupcakes at Chef  Ricardo's on Tuesday, former Brownsville Independent School District trustee Ruben Cortez has been mailing campaign literature filled with misleading statements and outright lies about his opponent in the runoff for the District 2 spot on the Texas State Board of Education.
His opponent Celeste Zepeda Sanchez, a school board member with the San Benito ISD, not only has a bachelor's and a Master's degree in education but has spent more than 45 years as a teacher, counselor and administrator. In contrast, Cortez possesses a high school diploma (GED?) and has used his family's political connections to claw his way to his current level.
His mother is a local Justice of the Peace and other relatives are prominent in law enforcement and real estate. One of his business partners is a local attorney who was also ejected by the voters in the BISD school board.
After the BISD voters rejected him in the last election, he somehow managed to convince board members at other school districts to vote him to the Region One board. Now he wants to be on the state board of education.
Yet, if you go by the voting precincts today, you will see that Cortez has blanketed each site with his campaign signs paid people to be at each one. He has also erected tents at each one to convince people he is the person to vote for in the state school board election.
One of his "facts" in the mail-out is that his opponent "admits that she does not need the advice of teachers."

The fact is that Sanchez has been saying (and living) just the opposite. 

"I have been saying that teachers should be part of the solution and should be involved in setting state standards and curriculum," Sanchez asserts.

Cortez also lies outright when he tells voters that Sanchez "believes in high stakes testing."

"He's lying," she retorts. "I have been saying exactly the opposite."

Then he blames her for saying that she is "directly responsible for our two low performing schools (in San Benito)" but fails to say that the San Benito district also have acceptable, recognized and exemplary schools.  Lastly, he states that Sanchez "wants to keep the old hard cover textbooks and that he wants technology."

Based on Sanchez's record, there is documented fact that this is exactly the opposite of what she has been saying all along.

"This, too, is a lie and my record here with the use of technology money to improve our schools proves this to be a lie," she said.

The Texas board of education is at the moment embroiled in a struggle to correct the version of history in the textbooks our children read. With Cortez's adherence to lies about his opponent, what can we expect from him on that board? Hopefully, the voters will look past his cupcake version of the truth and won't let him have his cake and eat it, too.