Rebecca Bell-Metereau was troubled when she read that the State Board of Education had introduced questions about the validity of evolution in its revisions of Texas’ pre-college science curriculum. She was even more disturbed when her district’s representative wrote, in a newspaper editorial, that the board had given a group of schoolteachers a “well-deserved spanking” when it rejected an English review committee’s proposed curriculum.
As an English professor at Texas State University at San Marcos, where she has taught since 1981, she didn’t have a professional stake in the growing political theater.
But now she has become a leading player in the drama, running for a spot on the education board, a conservative body that has also sunk its teeth into the social-studies curriculum, introducing amendments that, among other things, question the founding fathers’ commitment to a separation of church and state and add course work on the “conservative resurgence” of the 1980s and 1990s.
Ms. Bell-Metereau’s academic interests include contemporary literature, film, and gender studies, but her political interest is to unseat Ken Mercer, a Republican businessman and former member of the Texas House of Representatives who opposes what he calls “fuzzy” and “rain forest” math.
During an interview in her office at Texas State, Ms. Bell-Metereau is soft-spoken, funny, and at times self-effacing as she describes her transition to public life and her obligations to keep that separate from her university responsibilities.
She says she began attending education-board meetings with the intention of drumming up support for a challenger to Representative Mercer. But then a political consultant sent her an e-mail suggesting that she throw her own hat in the ring.
She had never run for any kind of office, so she ran the idea by her family. Among those who encouraged her was her 21-year-old daughter, who had found high school uninspiring. “When she read the e-mail her eyes got really big, and she told me I should do it. That I could really make a difference. I had sort of a psychological motivation, feeling that I hadn’t done right by my younger daughter. This was a chance to make up for it,” Ms. Bell-Metereau says.
Around campus, she keeps quiet about the campaign. Her office offers no hint of her political aspirations.
“My colleagues have been supportive, but they’re not all that aware of what I’m doing. I’ve tried to keep my academic life free of politics,” she says.
“I talked to the university’s lawyer, who just said, ‘Don’t use your computer or phone for political stuff, don’t proselytize your students or put campaign posters on your door.’”
Michael Hennessy, chair of the university’s English department, says Ms. Bell-Metereau has kept her roles separate. “She’s a talented, energetic, disciplined scholar-teacher, and I’m confident that she can carry out her duties as a faculty member while running for office,” he wrote in an e-mail message.
“Many of us talk about how the schools might be improved. Rebecca is doing something about it.”
On her Web site, Ms. Bell-Metereau accuses board members of “tearing down” public education in Texas.
“Their record of mismanagement includes dumbed-down textbooks, a public endowment placed in the care of cronies, and a curriculum that intrudes on private matters of belief. Enough is enough!” she writes.
In a telephone interview last week, Mr. Mercer said his heavily conservative district supports the kinds of changes he has pushed for, including a return to phonics-based reading instruction and a requirement that students memorize multiplication tables.
“The parents in my district want back-to-basics math, phonics, and true and accurate history where kids are allowed to love America and honor our founding fathers and veterans,” he said. One of the main reasons Texas has such a high dropout rate, he argued, is that “kids are frustrated because they can’t read and write.”
Dan Flynn, a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives, wrote in an e-mail message that he supports Mr. Mercer because “his leadership in free enterprise and the historic value of our founding fathers has been priceless in ensuring that the youth of Texas grow up with the knowledge of our nation’s great beginnings.”
Despite the conservative leanings of the State Board of Education, Ms. Bell-Metereau remains optimistic that, if elected, she can make a difference.
Two of the most ardent social conservatives on the board will be gone next year. One was defeated in his primary re-election bid, and the other decided not to run.
That, combined with the drubbing the board received in the state and national press after its curriculum overhauls, could make the board a more hospitable place for a college professor, Ms. Bell-Metereau believes. And she hopes she can get the board to send its curriculum changes back for another round of review.
Ms. Bell-Metereau’s own personal narrative stresses the importance of education. She grew up on a farm in Indiana, attending a school whose single building housed all 12 grades. Her father attended one year of college but couldn’t afford to continue. “Education was so important to my parents,” she says. “They had wanted so much to go to college themselves and felt the next-best thing was making sure all four of us did.” Three of the four siblings went on to receive doctorates, and the fourth, an M.B.A. and M.F.A.
Ms. Bell-Metereau recalls that when her father came in from his work farming corn, soybeans, and winter wheat, he would settle in to read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica and dictionary. “My mother was also passionate about reading, and would go to the public library every week and pick up four or five books, and then go back for more,” she says.
No Summer Off
While summer is typically a relaxed time for academic scholars, Ms. Bell-Metereau is keeping a hectic pace.
“My schedule is packed all the time. I’m working on a book contract, as well as a chapter for someone else’s,” she says. “When I’m not working on those things or trying to get a shower or exercise, I’m making phone calls, going to school-board meetings,” or shaking hands and handing out fliers at events like last month’s parade in Lockhart, Tex., in which a colleague, a Milton scholar, offered to drive Ms. Bell-Metereau in the colleague’s Miata convertible. (When the car’s battery died, she slapped her campaign signs on the back of the truck in front of them and walked the route.)
During a recent fajita luncheon with a group of about 30 Democratic women in Austin, she said she had raised about $100,000, mostly to win her primary election, and needed about $200,000 more by November: “That’s a lot of money for a college professor to raise.”
Political observers note that she faces a tough race in a heavily Republican district, particularly since people often tend to vote along straight party lines. “If you look at the demographics of the district, you’d have to give the advantage to Mercer, but if all the attention and public criticism that came from the social-studies debate translates to more money for her, she could win,” says Richard Kouri, chief spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association, which has endorsed her.
Ms. Bell-Metereau, who has advised the university’s president on ways to increase retention, says reducing the state’s high-school dropout rate is one of her top priorities.
In the months leading up to the November election, she plans to appeal to swing voters, making the rounds of Rotary Clubs and PTA meetings.
“We need people who are dedicated to education on the State Board of Education,” she told the group in Austin. “We need a board that respects experts and teachers.”
