Democrats care about Education Reform also

I know a lot of democrats that want change that helps our students, but they get attacked for supporting a position that has previously been only held by republicans. I grew sick of people saying we can't fix education until we fixed parental involvement and poverty. So, I am using education to fix  parental involvement and poverty rather than waiting or making excuses.

Column: It’s time for my party to stand up for students instead of stepping on them

Did you read the headline? Then you are probably already reading this story with a formed opinion, right? You have already said “This guy is wrong! He’s a traitor! He’s not a real Democrat!”

Martin Casas

I’m right aren’t I, that is what you are thinking.

Well, I’ve been a Democrat my entire career. I was the Executive Director for American for Democratic Action in Washington, DC; regional organizer for 5 states for MoveOn.org; staffer at the Democratic National Committee; field organizer in New Hampshire for Howard Dean in 2003; regional field director for AFL-CIO in 2006; president of the St. Louis Young Democrats for over 4 years; deputy field director for Congressman Chris Van Hollen (former head of the DCCC and current ranking member on the House Budget Committee); and perhaps more importantly, an early supporter of President Barack Obama.

If after a career like that, you still want to contend that I’m not a “real” Democrat, then you can probably just stop reading.

However, just because I’m a Democrat doesn’t mean I don’t see some flaws in many of my fellow Dem’s voting records/beliefs. For example, I share President Obama’s frustration over the Democrats failure to alter their stance on education reform.

My wife comes from a family of educators, both her mother and aunts have degrees in education and worked in rural Illinois as educators for over 30 years, her brother is in administration in Rockwood, and she taught in Saint Louis Public Schools for three years. While we lived in Washington DC, she worked at the National Low Income Housing Coalition. We moved to St. Louis so she could pursue her dreams of teaching. After three years, she realized that her real passion was in policy change and she left the classroom to work at Urban Strategies, a community develop nonprofit where she did education and youth policy and programming. When given the opportunity she joined a group of dissatisfied young St. Louisans as the State Director of Policy for the Children’s’ Education Alliance of Missouri.

I watched as Katie and her friends in Saint Louis classrooms struggled with the archaic and broken system. I took her dinner at 8:30pm when she was still in her classroom, I took her students to the museums and zoo on the weekends, and I supported her when she got a second job so she could buy school supplies for the students in her classroom. However, I also watched as the system failed the students that she and her colleagues were literally working day and night to save. It was in those long days and nights helping her and her students that I realized the majority of my party was on the wrong side of the education debate.

http://themissouritimes.com/1741/column-its-time-for-my-party-to-stand-up-for-students-instead-of-stepping-on-them/