Sunday, September 6, 2009

A Letter to My School Board

NEISD School Board Members:

The circus sideshow that has surrounded the President’s planned talk with students and the decision by the NEISD Superintendent to censor him is disgraceful. When Dr. Middleton made his unilateral decision to banish President Obama from the classroom, did he stop and consider the Civics lesson he would be teaching. As a consequence of his capitulation to the racist rabble, children will accept as doctrine that an uninformed intimidating marginal minority armed with fear and bigotry trump the ballot box.

Without citing existing policy or precedent, Dr. Middleton yielded the Districts standards to single-minded ideologues bent on denouncing and destroying the lawfully elected President of the United States. What reasons did the alarmed citizenry present as dire need to protect everyone’s children from such an evil person? Let me guess, they claimed the President would use the address as a political vehicle to indoctrinate the young minds to his socialist agenda.

My wife and I are homeowners and taxpayers in the North East Independent School District and, although we have no children, we have never objected to paying school taxes. We have voted to approve every District Bond Issue. We agree with Thomas Jefferson when he asserts that an educated populace is an essential prerequisite for a successful democratic society. Every citizen receives benefit from sharing the cost of educating of all the children of the community; in other words, a Socialist School System.

Dr. Middleton should have recognized that those objecting to the President and his policies consider the public school system to be an evil socialist institution. They consider taxes of any sort to be intolerable; they vote no in every bond election. The name of their shepherd organization should have been a clue: Taxed Enough Already. With his decision, Mr. Middleton has established a new reprehensible district policy. He has aligned the School District with the TEA Party activists and the School Board will soon experience budget shortfalls resulting from their anti-tax dogma.

Have you ascertained if Dr. Middleton’s has an alternate program to finance future improvements, renovations and expansion? The ironic consequence of his decision is that now we have common ground to share with TEA Party troglodytes. For as long as Dr. Middleton is Superintendent, my wife and I will vote against every bond issue. We will work vigorously to defeat any referendum for funding the District’s new policy of endorsing censorship, hatred, bigotry, ignorance and racism.