Ruben Cortez

Status

Challenger

Party

Democrat

Occupation

Consultant

Address

Additional Information

Advanced to a runoff for Texas House District 37 in the 2024 Democratic primary election.

Served as a member of the SBOE from 2013 to 2023. Click here to view his SBOE officeholder profile.

Cortez previously lost a runoff in the 2022 Democratic primary for Texas House District 37 and ran unsuccessfully for a Texas State Senate seat in 2020.

Former Brownsville ISD Trustee. Also served on the Council of Urban Boards of Education, NSBA Pre-K Legislative Committee, TASB Legislative Advisory Committee and Region 1 ESC Board of Directors.

Cortez was endorsed in the 2020 election by Texas Parent PAC, a pro-public education organization that advocates for adequate and equitable funding of public schools, local control, teacher quality, and the prevention of private school vouchers.

Recommended favorably by Texans for Public Education, a grassroots educators' group that researched and rated candidates in the 2018 election based on their stances toward public schools.

Candidate Survey Responses

RESPONSES TO THE 2024 ATPE CANDIDATE SURVEY:

1. If elected, what are your top priorities for public education?

I will fully fund public schools, file the largest teacher pay raise in Texas history, and oppose all attempts to defund our public schools through private school vouchers.

2. Voucher programs take many forms (tax credits, scholarships, education savings accounts, etc.) and are either universal or aimed at specific subpopulations (special education students, low-income students, students attending schools with poor A-F accountability ratings, etc.). Would you vote to create a voucher program of any type to pay for students to attend non-public K-12 schools, such as private or home schools?

Never.

3. In 2023, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill (HB) 3 requiring a number of new school safety measures. However, many believe the Legislature did not adequately increase funding to cover the cost of the mandates in HB 3 or other locally adopted school safety measures. How would you work to make schools safer and ensure such initiatives are properly funded?

The state passed new school safety laws without giving districts any money to implement them. I will fight to make sure schools have permanently dedicated school funding to cover all expenses related to school safety.

4. Despite a record-breaking surplus of $38 billion during the 2023 legislative session, school funding formulas were not increased to keep pace with inflation since they were last adjusted in 2019. Do you believe Texas public schools should receive additional funding? If so, how should the state pay for it?

Public schools deserve to be fully funded. I will prioritize fully funding public schools and requiring the state to ensure that funding keeps up with inflation and enrollment growth into the future.

5. Texas has faced growing teacher shortages in recent years, with many schools hiring uncertified teachers to fill the gaps. How would you work to ensure Texas public schools have an adequate number of trained and certified teachers?

I will make sure that schools have the funding to pay teachers better, which will attract more to the teaching profession. I will also work to require schools to only hire certified educators.

6. Inadequate compensation hampers the recruitment and retention of high-quality educators. Do you support a state-funded across-the-board pay raise for all Texas educators?

I will file the largest teacher pay raise bill in Texas history, which will be an across-the-board raise for all Texas educators. It's time we get serious about treating educators as professionals and that begins by paying them like professionals.

7. The high cost of health insurance available to educators is a significant factor decreasing their take-home pay. How would you address the challenge of rising health care costs facing Texas educators and ensure access to affordable health care?

We need to shift the burden of paying for healthcare away from the educator and back to the state where it belongs.

8. What do you feel is the proper role of standardized testing in the Texas public education system? For instance, should student test scores be used as a metric in determining teacher pay, school accountability ratings, evaluating teachers, measuring student progress, etc.?

Teacher pay should have nothing to do with test scores and our accountability system needs to be based on something other than the STAAR test.

9. In your opinion, what is the proper balance between accommodating an individual parent’s or student’s wishes and the taxpaying community’s interest in directing and maintaining an optimal educational environment for the student population as a whole?

I believe in preserving parents' oversight of school decisions through locally elected school boards.

10. Do you believe the Teacher Retirement System (TRS) should be maintained as a traditional defined-benefit pension plan for all future, current, and retired educators, or do you support converting TRS to a defined-contribution structure that is more like a 401(k) plan, in which future benefits are not guaranteed?

TRS should be maintained as a defined benefit pension plan.

11. State law allows educators and other public employees to voluntarily choose to join professional associations such as ATPE and have membership dues deducted from their paychecks at no cost to taxpayers. Do you support or oppose letting all public employees continue to exercise this right?

Support.

RESPONSES TO THE 2022 ATPE CANDIDATE SURVEY:

1. If elected, what will be your top priorities for public education?

Education is the reason I got into this race. I believe every child should have a great education, and that begins with having great teachers. My first priority will be to address the teacher shortage by LISTENING to teachers. For starters, we can give them the higher pay and professional respect they deserve. We need to make sure all schools are fully funded and make sure our students have access to high-speed broadband no matter where they live. I will also fight against vouchers and the expansion of charter schools that threaten to defund our community public schools.

2. What are your recommendations for funding public education, including securing the necessary revenue to sustain the improvements made by House Bill 3 in 2019? Do you believe additional funding is needed?

I believe additional funding is needed, and fortunately we have it. From serving on the State Board of Education, I know that we have the funding we need to better fund our schools. It's a matter of priorities. Instead of diverting billions of our tax dollars to duplicate work that is the responsibility of the federal government, we can invest in lifting up students and driving down taxes. Every state dollar we invest in helping students helps us lower local school district taxes that have been forced to make up for declining state support. Restore balance and everyone wins.

3. How would you address the challenge of rising health care costs facing Texas educators and ensure that active and retired educators have access to affordable health care?

Increasing the state's investment in public education must include teacher healthcare. Premiums are increasing much faster than salaries, and it's the state's responsibility to pick up the slack. The same goes for retirees. I support increasing funding to drive down TRS-Care and TRS-ActiveCare premiums and giving retirees a cost of living adjustment.

4. Do you believe the Teacher Retirement System (TRS) should be maintained as a traditional defined benefit pension plan for all future, current, and retired educators, or do you support converting TRS to a defined contribution plan that is more like a 401(k) plan, in which future benefits are not guaranteed?

I believe in protecting TRS as a defined benefit pension plan. We must keep our promises to our retired teachers who have given their lives' work to our children.

5. What do you feel is the proper role of standardized testing in the Texas public education system? For instance, should student test scores be used for teacher pay, school accountability ratings, evaluating teachers, measuring student progress, etc.?

Test scores should never be used for accountability, evaluations, or pay. There is already too much focus on testing. Let's cancel the STAAR and let everyone focus on learning, not drill and kill.

6. Would you vote to create any type of voucher, tax credit, scholarship, education savings account, or other program aimed at paying for students, including any subpopulation of students, to attend non-public K-12 schools, such as private or home schools?

I am 100% against vouchers of any type.

7. State law allows educators and other public employees to voluntarily choose to join professional associations such as ATPE and have membership dues deducted from their paychecks at no cost to taxpayers. Do you support or oppose letting all public employees continue to exercise this right?

I support educator associations and have worked in partnership with educators every since serving on the Brownsville ISD school board. I will always support educators' rights and their ability to join associations and I will fight all attempts to stop them.

8. What role, if any, should charter schools have in the public education system, and do you feel the number of charter schools operating in Texas should be reduced or expanded?

I believe in a moratorium on new charter schools until their impact on the public school system can be fully evaluated. Currently, the elected State Board of Education is able to veto new charter school applications, but existing charter schools are able to expand virtually unrestricted. I believe voters should have input over charter expansions, and that begins with expanding the SBOE's veto authority.

9. How much freedom should school districts have to make decisions during disease outbreaks, such as requiring face coverings and immunizations or transitioning to remote instruction?

I believe local communities know what's best for them. School districts are accountable to local voters and taxpayers, and we should defer to what each individual community believes is best for its needs.

10. What do you believe is the proper role of virtual education within the public education system? Do you believe full-time virtual education should be expanded, and if so, under what circumstances?

We've all seen the effects of full-time virtual education during the pandemic. The state should not expand full-time virtual programs until poor-performing programs are closed and there is better research on how to identify and better serve students who would actually benefit from a virtual environment.

11. What do you feel should be the state’s role (versus the role of school districts or individual educators) in decisions about public school curriculum and instructional materials?

At the State Board of Education, we have come a long way in developing a process that combines input from educators and parents. The proof of this is our ability to pass historic courses in Mexican American Studies and African American Studies by unanimous votes. The process isn't perfect and could be improved in many ways, but I don't believe the Texas Legislature should be involved in writing curriculum.

12. The COVID-19 pandemic and additional instructional support needed to remediate students’ learning losses have placed additional strain on public schools’ staffing needs. How would you work to ensure classrooms are appropriately staffed, teachers’ workloads are manageable, and planning time is not sacrificed amid these challenges?

We need to start by listening to teachers. Teachers have been very clear to me about what needs to happen. We need to pay salaries that reflect the training and professionalism of the job and that keep up with inflation. We need to reduce the non-instructional duties that we place on teachers, like paperwork, reading academies, and other administrative burdens. We need to give teachers time to plan and prepare lessons. We need to provide mentorship, support, and stipends for any extra work they're asked to do. Most of all we need to treat teachers with RESPECT. It's not hard if we listen to what teachers have to say.

RESPONSES TO THE 2020 ATPE CANDIDATE SURVEY:

1. If elected, what will be your top priorities for public education?

First and foremost, I will locate permanent and reliable funding for public schools so that the gains under HB 3 will not expire. While HB 3 was helpful, it barely brought school funding back to the levels before the budget cuts of 2011 in which thousands of educators were laid off. Texas still ranks 43rd among all 50 states in per-student funding. We have to increase school funding even more, and significantly increase teacher pay without requiring a merit pay program. Teachers deserve a raise more than once a decade. We should be fighting for better pay every year.

2. What are your recommendations for funding public education, including securing the necessary revenue to sustain the improvements made by House Bill 3 in 2019? Do you believe additional funding is needed?

I believe much more funding is needed. One immediate source of revenue is the nearly $1 billion Texas spends every two years in order to militarize our southern border. State troopers are desperately needed keeping highways safe in the parts of the state from which they've been relocated in order to accomplish the "border surge." Border security is the federal government's job and not the job of nearly $1 billion in Texas taxpayers' money that could be spent on classrooms instead.

3. How would you address the challenge of rising healthcare costs facing Texas educators and ensure that active and retired educators have access to affordable healthcare?

Educators deserve better healthcare and the state has to step up funding in order to do so. The cost of healthcare for teachers and retired teachers is going up much faster than pay, which means educators are effectively getting a pay cut every year. This is not acceptable. We have to step up funding for educator healthcare.

4. Do you believe the Teacher Retirement System (TRS) should be maintained as a traditional defined benefit pension plan for all future, current, and retired educators, or do you support converting TRS to a defined contribution plan that is more like a 401(k) plan, in which future benefits are not guaranteed?

We should not sell out our educators' retirement to Wall Street fund managers. We must maintain TRS as a defined benefit pension plan that guarantees retirement income for the life of the retiree. We must also continue to reform the TRS trust and increase investment in order to give every retiree a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) that they desperately need.

5. What do you feel is the proper role of standardized testing in Texas's public education system? For instance, should student test scores be used for school accountability purposes, for evaluating teachers, for measuring student progress, etc.?

Student test scores should be used for diagnostic purposes only. They should not be used to evaluate teachers or as the basis of the school accountability system. The A-F system labels children "failures" based almost entirely upon STAAR scores. Even worse, we know the STAAR test is flawed. We need to end high-stakes testing and end the process of using the STAAR test for purposes for which it wasn't designed.

6. To what extent should student performance determine teacher pay?

Student performance should not determine teacher pay.

7. Would you vote to create any type of voucher, tax credit, scholarship, education savings account, or other program aimed at paying for students, including any subpopulation of students, to attend non-public K-12 schools, such as private or home schools?

I will never vote for a voucher, tax credit, scholarship, education savings account, or similar such program that is a voucher in all but name. I am opposed to privatization of the public school system in any form.

8. State law allows educators and other public employees to voluntarily choose to join professional associations such as ATPE and have membership dues deducted from their paychecks at no cost to taxpayers. Do you support or oppose letting all public employees continue to exercise this right?

I fully support payroll deduction for Texas teachers and I will fight against any effort to deny educators' their voice in the Texas Capitol.

9. What role, if any, should charter schools have in the public education system, and do you feel the number of charter schools operating in Texas should be reduced or expanded?

Charter schools have expanded unchecked in Texas and have had a significant adverse impact on the school finance system. I'm calling for a moratorium on all new charters and a review of existing charter schools.

10. Recent legislation has made it possible for school districts to exempt themselves from many state laws (e.g., class-size limits, requirements for hiring certified teachers, minimum salary schedules, school calendar restrictions, etc.) by partnering with outside entities, allowing campuses to be managed by a charter school operator, or becoming part of a District of Innovation, for example. Do you agree with this type of deregulation of public schools, and how should such non-traditional schools be governed?

I would vote to repeal the "Districts of Innovation" laws. There is no reason for any school district to exempt itself from hiring certified teachers, paying a minimum wage, or waiving class size restrictions. I oppose this type of unrestricted deregulation. I believe charter partnerships are highly problematic for a number of reasons, including the fact that they force local school districts to relinquish control and the partnering organization is not subject to the same accountability requirements. These non-traditional schools should still have to answer to local voters and taxpayers.

Additional Comments from Candidate on Survey

COMMENTS SUBMITTED IN RESPONSE TO THE 2022 ATPE CANDIDATE SURVEY:

I am proud to be supported by every public education organization in my race, including Texas Parent PAC. I have made teachers and education the core themes of our campaign because of the important role our public schools play in shaping our future. Educators have supported me in each election and I humbly ask for your support again to help fight for you in the Texas Legislature.