My Open Letter to the Governor on D Magazine Blog, FrontBurner

http://frontburner.dmagazine.com/2011/03/30/disd-kids-plead-with-governor-not-to-axe-their-teachers/

Posted on March 30th, 2011 12:17pm by Tim Rogers

Filed under Education

A parent named Erin Ryan Burdette, whose child attends Hexter Elementary (”Home of the Rogers Situation”) has penned an open letter to Rick Perry and others, making the case that education spending should not be cut as the state seeks to balance its budget. The open letter is punctuated with remarks from kids who attend the school. After the jump, I present the letter in its entirety.


TO: GOVERNOR PERRY, LT. GOVERNOR DEWHURST, SUPERINTENDENT HINOJOSA, DISD BOARD MEMBERS, EDUCATION SUBCOMMITTEE AND/OR ANY OTHER LEADER IN TEXAS WHO WILL LISTEN.

By Erin Ryan Burdette

Dear Mr. Perry,
Teachers are like family to me. I don’t want them to get fired. Please help the schools in Texas. Don’t you want Texas to have the smartest kids in the USA? –Bryce Wolff, Hexter Elementary

When do citizens become involved at the local level? For this recently rehabilitated clueless Dallasite, it starts right about when the government decides to mess with your children. Then, Mr. Perry, Mr. Hinojosa, district representatives, Senate Education committee, you have an enormous sticky problem, like gum in your hair, and it is just as hard to get rid of. You have unleashed the mother lode, the father lode, in Texas. We are disgusted, disheartened, sickened by the budget you propose to slash funds to our already broken public school system. It doesn’t even matter if we have kids or whether they go to a school that is public or private. We have watched for years the disparity between the haves and the have nots grow, and now you brought kids into it directly, flagrantly. The future of us all.

Dear Mr. Perry,
I’ve heard one thing a lot: we are the future. I don’t understand how you can say that when we might lose our teachers. Without our teachers, we can’t learn. That means there won’t be a future, at least not a very good one. It’s not just for us, or our country, it’s for the future of our world. –David Healey, Travis Elementary, 5th grade

So now we are standing up and doing something about it. Watch while we rise and organize events at our schools, call the news, write our paper, phone senators and legislators, wear purple to support the portion of the pie chart representing teachers, travel to rally in Austin on the steps of the state Capitol building. The message is simple. These are our children. This is their education. We’re not going anywhere.

Dear Rick Perry,
Please stop the cuts. We all need our teachers. What if this happened to you? Take a picture of this happening at our school, hundreds of people here to protest. What does it tell you? You want to be re-elected? Listen to us. –Zoe Wittrock, Hexter Elementary

Hexter Elementary is a DISD neighborhood school, one of those gems within DISD. Not a magnet, just a solid neighborhood school with a dedicated principal and actively involved parents. A couple of weeks ago, our PTA hosted a letter-writing event. We set up tables and chairs with paper and crayons, added anxious kids and parents, and wrote letters to our representatives and legislators demanding a stop to the proposed budget cuts that would decimate education across Texas. The scene spoke volumes. Kids and parents—spanning age, gender, race, creed, socioeconomic status, and party affiliation—banded together by what matters more than the sum of these labels which seemingly divide us.

Dear Sir or Madam,
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, at this crucial moment in our state’s history, you and your colleagues stood together in support of the state’s teachers by investigating all sources of funding, and stated, by words and especially actions, that you value the education of your youngest citizens? The children of Texas are listening to dinner conversations, newscasts, and discussions in class, and they know that you are basically deciding their future right now. Please vote with your heart to fully fund your public schools. –Chris Reeves, Hexter Elementary parent

Some of us were asleep before—we’re not proud of it—but the spell has been broken and we’re awake now. It’s not so complicated: There are more of us than there are of you. When we band together, we are unstoppable. Look to history. Heck, look to FaceBook. Watch as we connect, person by person, school by school, committee by committee, district by district, rally by rally, demanding justice for our children. We may have never before voted in a school board election, attended a school board meeting, phoned a legislator, put together a letter-writing campaign at our child’s school, but you can bet on it. Now we will. When you attack us where we live—on the backs of our children and the teachers they love to the detriment of everyone’s future—our memories are long. We vote accordingly. Watch us.