Letter to Senator Hutchinson re: Education
Senator,
I received your standard response, dated 28 February, where you claimed, "I will work to ensure adequate federal funding of programs that support local education to make certain our children receive the best education possible. I will also continue to work hard to reduce the tax burden on American families to let them keep more of their own money and use it to make their own education choices, rather than have the federal government decide what is best for them."
America's public education system was always structured to be a community affair -- not individual or family. It is when communities work together that all young people are best educated. Obviously, if a family prefers to send a child to private or parochial school, that is there option.
But to imply, as you do, that reducing the tax burden on American families will somehow be balanced with an effective education system is to deny over a hundred years of public education in this country and to be blind to the future of public schools. If schools are not funded fully, then the impoverished families will always be disadvantaged; they will then continue to be poor and continue to burden all taxpayers for generations to come.
Instead, by building our schools (smaller, by the way, as all research shows smaller schools have higher graduation rates) with better-qualified teachers, better text books, and better educational resources, we can help those who want to be helped. To claim that reducing "the tax burden on American families to let them keep more of their own money" is good for America is simply short-sighted.
Fund education. Texans have some of the worst schools in the country. More funding is needed. Fund education. The United States continues to fail in the industrialized world. Fund education. Our teachers rotate in and out because of poor conditions and the deaf ears of our legislature.
We can fix America's schools. But not by defunding.
I urge you to reconsider your priorities and make educational funding a higher priority than tax relief.
I received your standard response, dated 28 February, where you claimed, "I will work to ensure adequate federal funding of programs that support local education to make certain our children receive the best education possible. I will also continue to work hard to reduce the tax burden on American families to let them keep more of their own money and use it to make their own education choices, rather than have the federal government decide what is best for them."
America's public education system was always structured to be a community affair -- not individual or family. It is when communities work together that all young people are best educated. Obviously, if a family prefers to send a child to private or parochial school, that is there option.
But to imply, as you do, that reducing the tax burden on American families will somehow be balanced with an effective education system is to deny over a hundred years of public education in this country and to be blind to the future of public schools. If schools are not funded fully, then the impoverished families will always be disadvantaged; they will then continue to be poor and continue to burden all taxpayers for generations to come.
Instead, by building our schools (smaller, by the way, as all research shows smaller schools have higher graduation rates) with better-qualified teachers, better text books, and better educational resources, we can help those who want to be helped. To claim that reducing "the tax burden on American families to let them keep more of their own money" is good for America is simply short-sighted.
Fund education. Texans have some of the worst schools in the country. More funding is needed. Fund education. The United States continues to fail in the industrialized world. Fund education. Our teachers rotate in and out because of poor conditions and the deaf ears of our legislature.
We can fix America's schools. But not by defunding.
I urge you to reconsider your priorities and make educational funding a higher priority than tax relief.