I decided, instead of just commenting on diaries and such, even though I've been taking sort of a break, that I needed to get this off my chest. Before posting it here, I submitted it to the White House contact page. Got something to say? You should do the same.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
Mr. President,
I am a mother. I am a public school teacher. I am disappointed.
What happened to you, Mr. President? What happened to the “hope” and “change” I voted for? What happened to your promises to represent me? What happened to promises to help the working class? There is irony in the fact that when I set out to write this letter, hoping to quote you, I googled “Obama promises aid to working class” and Google helped me choose a better topic: “Did you mean ‘Obama promised aid to working class?'” And that was their emphasis.
As a mother, I have a duty to provide for my daughter, see to her education, and ensure that she has the best life and future I can give her. Unfortunately, that bright future I imagined when I set out to obtain my Bachelor’s degree and teaching license has gone a bit dim. I envisioned, like many enchanted by the age-old promise of the American Dream, that I would be able to establish myself in a career that would allow me more time to care for my daughter, and more opportunities to provide for her. However, this is not the reality that I am living. The real situation, as it stands, is that I get paid once a month, and after I pay for the necessities, my paycheck is more than half-gone, and there are still groceries and clothes and shoes to buy for a child that continues to grow literally by the month. I have to make hard choices – what are absolute necessities and what can wait? Will anyone really notice that her pants are too short? Will her feet hurt if I have to wait one more month to buy her new shoes? Should I really have to struggle to buy my daughter shoes when General Electric maintains an essential tax-free existence?
Her education, too, is of concern to me, as is the future of my own profession as a public high school teacher. My daughter attends a local public school – not a Charter – because I believe to save public education, we need to invest in it. Not only with money, but with time, with energy, and with the faith that a once-great system can become great again.
However, Mr. President, you’ve done much to concern me, as you cozy up to Jeb Bush, among others, and continue to support a policy with which you do not even agree, and to which you do not even subject your daughters. How is repeated, punitive testing a measure of my daughter’s – or my students’ – intelligence? My daughter experienced so much anxiety over the test that she came home every afternoon tired and exasperated. As a parent who does not believe in testing, I would have happily exempted her from the testing by writing a letter to the school. Contrariwise, as a teacher who knows that without a certain percentage of participation, the school’s scores don’t count toward Adequate Yearly Progress, and her school could potentially lose federal funding, I did not want to put her teacher – or the school’s principal, in that position.
Students in my own school recently completed the test mandated by our state. I proctored a group of students – not my own – for the test. The students for whom I proctored do not boast English as their first language. They attend a school – and live in an area – that has a poverty rate of 75%. Yet they were expected to complete a test that every other 9th grader – even those who attend schools – and live in areas – that have a poverty rate of only 5% complete. Tell me, Mr. President, how is that fair? Why should students with different advantages and disadvantages expected to be the same? I know well enough that they are not even close to the same. I’ve lived the difference. Teachers have to differentiate for their students every day in the classroom, why cannot the Department of Education adhere to the standards required for teachers?
All this is to bring me to the greatest disappointment. Yes, the things I mentioned above are disappointing. However, your gross ignorance to the reality of poverty in our country while pandering to those with millions of dollars is ever so disheartening. I know one of your goals was to unite the country, to see that we find ways to get along. At what expense, though, Mr. President? Do we all need to get along so that the rich can continue to get richer, while I work to pay taxes, support my child, and educate the country’s future, its children? Must we all sing “Kumbaya” as the Titanic that is our country strikes the iceberg of poverty and inequality, and rapidly sinks?
Mr. President, I voted for you because I had genuine hope in the fact that you would yes, unite, but that you would do so in a way that benefited all parties involved, not just the “ruling class,” that elite 1% of our country – the “haves.” Speaking as, in general, a “have-not,” I will need much convincing if I will believe there is any truth behind your flowery speeches, your empty promises, or any other statements made during your campaign for re-election.