Dear Educators...

I can never admit something…I will never be able to say this thing: I am a former teacher.

I can’t say it because I don’t think it’s true. I taught in the classroom for 16 years, and I have the scars to prove it, but I don’t feel like I have ever truly walked away from the profession.

Photo by Sarah Haney / Iola Register

Every time I present on schools or GOP supermajorities or the plight of rural America, I am always teaching at least a few in the audience. Folks often tell me they had no idea what is happening in red states or why they are happening or what we could still do to stop it. I walk away from every event feeling like I did after a great lesson in my classroom.

I love to blow the doors off when I speak at events just like I liked to blow the minds of my students. I like to excite people. I like to see them light up and shake their heads in agreement or disbelief. I like to see people learn something new in real time.

It’s the teacher in me.

I am currently in Columbus, Ohio for an educational conference. I am a keynote speaker this year. I spoke right after one of my role models, Diane Ravitch. To say that I feel honored doesn’t quite cut it.

Here is a summary of my remarks:

Hello, friends.

My name is Jess and I have been summoned from the bean fields and the corn fields of Northwest Missouri to speak to you today. I am so happy to be in the room full of educators — I wouldn’t be here without public schools.

I was a rural kid. A poor kid. I went from poverty to a graduate degree thanks to public schools, teachers, and Pell Grants.

We need public schools. We need to fund higher education.

I can look around America and I know exactly what’s going on because it’s already happened in rural spaces. To rural towns. To rural jobs. To rural farms. To rural schools. We have been decimated and it was done with purpose.

If you want to look into the future, do it by reading Project 2025. Our legislators are following it to the letter.

Missouri has been running the pilot project for decades. Under current policies enacted by our supermajority, we have defunded schools and pay our teachers at 50th in the nation. These policies have us funding classrooms at 49th in the country. 33% of Missouri schools run a four-day week due to defunding.

Missouri is the canary in the coal mine. Do not follow our example.

We stripped public schools of funding while legislators worked in a system for ESAs (Educational Savings Accounts) which eventually turned into vouchers. These legislators couldn’t find the money to fully-fund public schools, but they damn sure found a way to send taxpayer money to private religious schools.

We are in the fight for the soul of America. Public schools are the backbone of our democracy.

You know, I was born and raised a Southern Baptist. I saw the world through a white, rural lens. I never had a Black teacher through high school. I didn’t have a Black professor until my Sophomore year in college. I took a Black History class and my world changed. I couldn’t believe I didn’t know what I didn’t know and I couldn’t wait to tell others.

This is exactly why some want to whitewash history. Why they want to ban books. Why they want to do away with diversity and equity and inclusion. They don’t want folks like me to have their eyes opened to our history and our shame. They don’t want folks like me to teach others what they don’t know.

Schools are losing funding. Libraries are losing funding. Education is taking hit after hit from this administration.

Sucker punches.

I was a pretty good teacher for many years, but I became a much better teacher due to summer studies with the National Endowment for the Humanities. I learned history in place — I traveled to New York and Atlanta and Charleston and Mount Vernon and Simi Valley. I studied with scholars from across the country and wrote new lessons and units of study after my NEH experiences. I got my students excited to learn new material because of my time with NEH.

Yesterday, NEH and several other agencies were defunded. My teacher friends who had been accepted to study all across the nation were notified that they will not have a summer institute. That the professors and teachers who worked for years to create these seminars had the rug pulled out from under them.

Devastation in an email.

The Department of Education is currently being dismantled by the new Secretary of Education. There is no debate on this topic. By Executive Order, Linda McMahon will “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education.”

There it is.

They want to erase civil rights provisions under the Department of Education. The department enforces anti-discrimination laws in schools ensuring equal access to education regardless of race or gender or disability or socioeconomic status. Dismantling the department weakens protections for already marginalized students.

This is purposeful and we can read about it in Project 2025. They weren’t kidding about its implementation. They are doing it.

I know it is hard to be in education right now. I know it is hard to stand up. I know it is difficult, but it is not impossible and it is not partisan.

It is moral. It is right. It is just.

How many things in history have changed for the better when people stopped fighting? When people looked away? When people decided to disengage?

Nothing is better when we do nothing. That’s when the bad things start to coalesce. That’s when bad folks with bad intentions can push in even further.

Friends, we stand with marginalized students. We stand with oppressed students. We stand with poor students. We stand with trans students who are under very specific attacks.

We stand with all of our students.

Link arms. Stand up. Speak out. Draw that line in the sand.

For your students. For all students.

~Jess