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Texas Educators Take Up Call to Run for Legislature

Recruiting drive nets candidates frustrated about state financing.

Sherrie Matula, a teacher in Pasadena, Texas, has more than a classroom of 5th graders inspiring her to run for the state legislature this year.

The last words of her dying father, a 37-year educator in Austin, also ring in her ears as she prepares to take on a Republican lawmaker who hasn’t been opposed since 2001. “He said, ‘Give ’em hell. They do not know what they’re doing,’ ” Ms. Matula remembers.

Feeling the same as her father about the members of the Texas legislature, the Democrat is running for the Houston-area House seat. Neither she nor her opponent, Republican John E. Davis, has a challenger in the March 7 primary, and will face off in the...