Big backers of public schools in Texas? Rural Republicans.

When a well-known community member dies in Atlanta, Texas, the funeral is often held in the high school auditorium.

“It’s the only place in town that can hold that many people,” says Atlanta schools Superintendent Jason Harris. “It’s just the heartbeat of the local community.”

Downtown Atlanta – about 10 miles from the border of Louisiana and Arkansas – features a grocery store, a hardware store, a public library, a feed store, and a couple of auto parts stores. There are about a dozen churches. 

In the rural towns where he’s worked, these social and cultural bonds are as important as any other service the public schools provide. The school and the community are indistinguishable, sharing Friday night football and Sunday morning services, good times and bad times.

“I’ve always been extreme East Texas,” says Mr. Harris, in a thick, piney woods drawl. Like most rural public school teachers, Mr. Harris taught multiple subjects and coached multiple sports. (Science was his area of expertise.) In the past 30-plus years, he’s never worked more than 20 miles from the Louisiana or Arkansas state line.

“Strong Christian, conservative values ... the towns I’ve been in, they want their public schools to represent that,” he adds. “There is not a one-size school that fits everybody, but public schools do our best to do that for all kids.”

For decades, this has been the dynamic in Texas: Rural Texans are important to Republican dominance in the state, and public schools are important to rural Texans. This is because in rural Texas, as in rural America, a town is only as healthy as its public schools.

Thus, rural lawmakers are often decisive in determining the state’s education policy. As the country’s education landscape has diversified beyond the traditional public school system toward public, charter, private, and home-school options, efforts in the Lone Star State to keep pace have crashed against a wall of deeply conservative Republicans who are deeply loyal to public schools.

That is, until this year, perhaps. With the anxieties and uncertainties of pandemic schooling still fresh in the memory, with public education dragged into the culture wars maelstrom, and with a record surplus of over $30 billion to play with, Texas conservatives are more optimistic than ever of significantly altering K-12 education in