This link was sent to me at the end of the last school year: https://msg.schoolmessenger.com/m/?s=P7Mxhkr5lN8
When I first began to think about running for public office, I asked friends, already in office, what moved them to take the leap into the political arena. They all had different sets of priorities with regard to issues, but all had one thing in common. They all said, in varying ways: “There was one issue that stood above all others, that told me that something has to be done. Now.”
That resonated clearly with me. And the answer to that question, for me, was: Education.
Education is the issue that I believe defines economics, opportunity, progress and quality of life. Education is essential to our representative democracy, to our ingenuity, production, and stability. The creation of thinking minds is the foundation of justice, equality, civility, and freedom. Furthermore, great schools are what attract businesses and promote the highest standards of quality. In long and in short, our educational system, from the buildings themselves to the curriculum, teachers, and students that occupy them, are what lead us to greatness.
Education in Iowa has been marginalized by budgets that don’t meet the needs of our schools and force regent universities to increase tuitions, making them less affordable. The education crisis is exacerbated by our Governor’s (and complicit members of the Iowa Legislature) insistence on increasing corporate welfare and reducing what Iowa needs to support its infrastructure; ironically, the very things that attract businesses. It is a state imposed Catch-22 where special interests have cut off the nose of our greatest special interest: Our future.
Here is that link again: https://msg.schoolmessenger.com/m/?s=P7Mxhkr5lN8
The Cedar Rapids School System is articulating the entire issue right here. And this is a paramount reason as to why I am running for the Iowa House of Representatives:
