On the recordMarch 7, 2023
Just a few weeks ago, I declared this year the year of the child. In the course of that moment, I have seen the abuse of children around the world. In Ukraine, Russia has stolen 700,000 children, all the way to the United States of America and the State of Texas, where the State education agency is attempting to take over the seventh-largest school district in the Nation, the Houston Independent School District, where the children have been performing at their very best, even in spite of the pandemic. There has been a law that was passed that suggested that if the schools had a number of years of what we call failing grades, then it would immediately throw them into the hands of the State agency that has no capability of running a school system; no capability of dealing with teachers and raising their salaries; no capability of dealing with parents, support staff, and excellent children and their performance. I am asking the U.S. Department of Education and President Biden to step in to protect school districts across America and to keep them from the political football that happens with Republican Governors who are attempting to make an example of these school districts. These children are brilliant. They can learn. They are majority- minority, and they can learn. I believe it is important that school districts be allowed to teach with the teachers' and parents' lead and not to be taken over by a board of managers that answers to no one. ____________________
