Texas Politicians Focus on Education, With Eye on Voters Ross Ramsey, the executive editor of The Texas Tribune, writes a regular column for the Tribune. The boilerplate for conservatives talking about education usually includes getting more school money into classrooms and out of administration. It usually does not edge into the dangerous ground of teachers" salaries. But this year, in the wake of deep cuts in the state's public education budget, some Republican candidates are talking about getting more money into classrooms by raising pay for teachers. Take State Representative Jason Isaac, a freshman Republican from Dripping Springs, who says the teacher pay he is now emphasizing has always been in his political portfolio. It is getting attention this year for a couple of reasons. He is running against John Adams, a Democrat and a former school trustee. And voters have added education to the list of electoral concerns, like jobs and the economy, that dominated recent election cycles. It is also a defensive strategy: Republicans who voted for the current budget, with its $5.4 billion in education cuts, have to fend off questions about teacher layoffs and pay. According to the Texas State Teachers Association (which has endorsed Mr. Isaac's challenger), average teacher pay dropped slightly in the 2011-12 school year for the first time in more than a decade. And the 25,000 layoffs the association counted in Texas public schools that year include 11,000 teachers. Meanwhile, those same schools are adding about 80,000 students per year. Mr. Isaac's pitch goes like this: The state has too many mandates for local school districts that force those districts to spend money outside the classrooms. As he put it in a recent campaign piece: "Administrative costs have skyrocketed, in part due to increasing unfunded mandates from the state and federal government, while teachers" salaries have only seen minimal increases. Teachers are one of the most important factors in a child's education, and this should be one of the highest-paying occupations. I will continue to advocate for more spending in the classroom, including teacher pay. Sounds like something a Democrat might say. Or - this is important - a voter. Teachers" groups are almost reflexively Democratic. Mr. Isaac's district has voted for Republicans in most statewide elections lately, but it is one of those zones that could be competitive this year. Candidates like Mr. Isaac are more interested in where the voters sit. He is taking a pro-education line against an education candidate, but it might work in this rural-turned-bedroom community anyway. People are there, in part, for the schools. Even the conservatives. His angle on teacher raises is distinctly different from what you might hear from a Democrat. He wants to get rid of state minimums and maximums for teacher salaries, to leave those decisions to local districts and to let competition between districts and between teachers within districts balance the pay scales. He is vague on the details of how he would keep the rich districts from outrunning the poor ones, but he says there ought to be a way to make teachers the highest-paid school workers. This is a bad piece of road for Texas officeholders. They have promised their price-sensitive constituents they will not raise taxes, and they have promised not to undermine things like public education when they are holding the line on spending. If those voters turn their attention from one thing to the other - from taxes, say, to education - Mr. Isaac and his colleagues have to pivot with them. Look at State Representative Stefani Carter, a Dallas Republican who, like Mr. Isaac, was elected in 2010"s conservative wave. She, too, insists that more of the education money should be spent in classrooms. She, too, voted for the budget and its cuts, though she and Mr. Isaac took opposite sides on legislation allowing local districts to lower teacher pay (he was for it, she was against it). She also has a Democratic opponent who is endorsed by the teachers" association, and she also finds herself talking about education this year. The political interest in public education is coming into bloom as the state enters its latest round of budget-driving lawsuits over how schools are financed. Student accountability testing is a hot topic too. The price of government programs and services is still critically important in political contests, but it is not the only thing driving the debate.