A Reader Writes... Our Anti-Public School Leaders - Part 1

In response to the 9/11/12 post, ”Our Anti-Public School Leaders,” a reader writes:

SC,

Prior to my 23+ years in education, I spent 13 years in the private sector. I also have both a MBA and MEd. All that to preface the statement, I am totally disappointed and disenchanted with the Republican power brokers at the state level in regard to education. I am a true-blue Reagan conservative, but you cannot run a school like a private business - it just does not work. We cannot, nor should we, control our raw materials; after all, they are human beings.

We need some new conservatives in office that truly understand public education and that will trust professional educators instead of assuming that we have to be monitored and controlled or we won't do our jobs. The vast majority of educators I know are professionals that do their best every day for the kids in their districts.

SC Response

By our nature and regardless of our party affiliation, educators are a conservative group.  I often have to remind my non-educator friends that as school people, we are a little different from the mass of society. A little more decent, I like to believe.  That’s what happens when you become the de-facto parent for 20, 40, 100, or even 200 kids a year. Which is why you have to be alert when your party of choice abandons your core belief, yet continues to take your vote for granted.  Even though I’m an Independent voter, the party that has received the majority of my votes for the past decade has done just that.  Which is why for the immediate future, my sole candidate litmus test is the willingness to support and fund public education; the most noble endeavor in our ongoing national experiment. Here is my simple, school-centric formula:

• Cut funds – I vote for your opponent
• Don’t fund – I vote for your opponent
• Unfunded mandate – I vote for your opponent
• Increase accountability without increasing support – I vote for your opponent
• Devalue educators – I vote for your opponent

Obviously, the pattern is fairly easy to recognize. The question is this, “Does a candidate care enough about my vote to respond to my crystal clear agenda?”

We'll see. However, I’m just one vote.  If we as educators don’t express our collective will at the ballot box, we will continue to get what we have always got. 

• There is still time to register to vote.  If you haven’t done so, what are you waiting for?
• Early voting is opening up all across the country.  In Texas, it will begin on 10/22/12.  I for one will be voting early.
• And circle it on your calendar, the general election date is Tuesday, November 6, 2012.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

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