Tuesday, August 24, 2010

OMG! A Free Political Event

Don’t tell me that someone finally listened... Better late than never I guess. If you want to fight the good fight for low income people like teachers and parent the first step is to get to know them by showing up at community events where they can vent their anger. Yes, at you… These people are not VIPs and they don’t have hundreds of dollars to hand out like candy to politicians at invitation only events.

They spend most of the few dollars they had this month on back to school supplies. They work 40 plus hours a week just to put food on the table and a roof over their children’s head. Administration takes every opportunity to cut their pay while hiring yet another a new vice-president.

The second step is to listen, really honestly listen to what they are saying and then reach out to help them on issue that get killed through normal channels. They already know that administration does not care about what works for them or their students. They have been dealing with a failed overpaid administration most of their adult life. When .39 cents out of every dollar spent on education in this state goes to paid overpriced administration what else can you expect. Our system should be about the students and what is good for them. Not a new shiny building too far away to help them or to provide services. Not yet another level of administration who never even speak to a student during the day.

Hearing and listening are two entirely different activates. Politicians should learn the difference between the two activities. Just a few short weeks ago I had someone tell me that he was listening but the truth was that although he heard what I said, he was far from listening to what I was telling him. Still he did manage to help out a little.

We need people running our state government who listen and act on the issues that hold this state back everyday. We need someone that will support people from the ground up and not from the top down.