The don’t want abortion - but treat the children who live terribly - neither helping in their living expenses nor their education - thus concentrate survivors to substandard levels of living.
Truth. I see it here in WI, ties in with the need for manufacturing workers. Can be hard to support a family on those wages, plus, a lot of them aren't safety conscious, to put it mildly. Have also seen an increase in 'faith based' schools.
I can’t believe how dire this situation is and that you seem to be the only voice breaking through. Why isn’t this covered more in the media? Thank you for your advocacy. Your work is so important and powerful.
Your views and writings are amazingly inspirational. A true north star. Thank you so much. Coming from Colorado was a shock politically for me. You give me such hope. #VOTEBLUE
I grew up in rural Nebraska and many of my family still live there. People in rural areas have always felt neglected and abandoned and angry. We had very few amenities when I went to school and my relatives children have even fewer today. I don’t think people who live in more populated areas have a clue as to what life is like in our rural areas. Unaffordable Internet that frequently is out of service. I could go on and on. I almost cry when I read your blogs because you really know what is going on and it seems like so few care. Thank you for trying to spread the word.
Some probably do but I think it is because most progressive politicians just assume that they feel that way and don’t bother to talk to the people. Many people I grew up with who still live in rural areas are generous, compassionate people who don’t really understand what their taxes pay for and how the system works. Rural areas already believe in the “common good” and community. You should see how they rally to help their neighbors - any of them who need help. They just don’t see that with Medicare for all they wouldn’t have to do fundraisers to help people who have no insurance. And I think the idea of independence or individuality is an American value that is just as common in urban areas as in rural. I live in an urban area and my neighbors value their independence greatly I.e no Covid shots, no vaccinations for their kids in school, anti-immigrant, and don’t even think about building apartments near their property. I see it as changing the hearts of all people to value the common good.
I am so thankful to have found your Substack. I live on the west coast and admit that since reading your stories my view of this country and its regional politics has been changed forever. You are a must read for all my family members who have had my same insulated view on America. Thank you so much, I am always educated and inspired by your work.
How is tax money distributed in Missouri? My property tax is very high and rising every year as MY county refuses to implement the senior citizen property tax freeze. I am not in my earning years anymore and there just is no money in my budget for more funding. How many big businesses get tax credits for being here? It seems like the whole city of St. Louis is owned by schools, churches, and universities, and they are likely tax exempt as they would qualify as “non-profits” because they are religious and educational organizations. Tax them for a change! This year public money is available to religious institutions, further stripping the public schools. Tax them! Tax the rich!
You should look into "proposed tax freeze". They are lying, again, about what it WILL do. To stay safe from Republicans BS, just know it is exactly the opposite of what they say.
Re: Seniors property tax. Here in BC Canada where I live, once you are 55, you can apply for Property tax deferment. The Provincial Government will pay your property tax for you. Once your house is sold, the money owed is repaid. The interest rate is very very low. Also it is assumed that your home will appreciate.
This is a fantastic program that helps to prevent poverty and allows folks to stay in their homes.
It’s not free money. It’s using the equity in your home to pay your yearly property tax. You are obligated to repay it (including interest) when you sell your home.
And yet, our income in old age must come from somewhere. Many of us, even with advanced degrees, made barely above minimum wage during our working lives. Many of us did not marry men with money, or have children who will care for us in our old age. Assisted living here is about $6000 per month. On Social Security income of about 14500 per year, and property tax of $3800 and growing, how else would we hold onto our housing? Rents are insanely expensive. Property tax here is based on comparable sales of nearby homes, rather than the purchase price of your individual home; there are some states that do this better.
Yes, property taxes here where I live are also based on the assessed present day value of the house. It’s really not fair. Nowadays housing has been commodified, rather than something everyone requires in order to live a full and happy life. Not like when we were young!
I graduated in 1976 from a high school in one of the poorest counties in North Carolina. We had very little, and in fact, by the time I reached my senior year, I went to work because there were no classes left for me to take. Around 2000, a student sued the state for providing inadequate resources to some schools while providing extra resources to others. The last I heard, that lawsuit is still ongoing. Meanwhile, the county my high school is in deteriorates in every way - high poverty, high crime, high illegal drug use, etc.
I don't know how we're, as a society, supposed to reduce poverty, crime, illegal drug use without education. It starts there. Republicans are creating a perpetual class of "serfs" who exist only to do as they are told with no ability to think for themselves. It's EVIL.
I attended 3 Lincoln County "Democratic" Party club meetings! I was appalled. They are helping the Republicans. They have no community outreach & they constantly defer to the patriarchy's asinine comments like they need some kind of appeasement. I think they are out of touch & focusing on the wrong things. I am at a loss of where to concentrate my activism. Maybe "Planned Parenthood of STL"?
Hi, Carol! I work for Blue Missouri. We crowdfund resources for rural and underfunded races in Missouri. We are the only org that specifically raises money for down-ballot races who are often forgotten. I really believe this is the say forward. Here's the link...solidarity!
I don't have any extra $$$ for "Blue MO". I gave what I could afford to you, Jess. All I have to offer is my vast medical training & Constitutional knowledge, well until the Republicans started violating the US & MO constitutions, & my time. Wish I had some $$$. I know who I want to help. monetarily. I'm retired, so $$$ is limited.
Jess, another excellent essay on the current state of education in not only Missouri but in too many other places in our country. A majority of my school years were spent in rural Missouri schools. I had a couple of really good teachers, but the funding was abysmal. Due to my own drive and passion for reading and learning, I turned out ok if I do say so myself. 2 bachelor's degrees and a master's. But not because of the schools in Missouri. I think it was in spite of the educational system. God gifted me with a very good brain and my mom encouraged me to use it and imposed no limitations on what I could do with it. My brothers - 4 and 6 years younger - barely graduated high school and couldn't read at a middle school level. But they kept being pushed through the system. So sad. Thanks for your spotlight.
I totally relate to this story. I grew up in the USAF that punished us bc my mother died, when I was 5&1/2 & my brother was 9, & our Dad couldn't go to war. Dad was cheated out of so much. THE REPUBLICANS DID THIS, TOO! I learned bc I pushed myself, especially when the PATRIARCHY said, "You can't, your just a girl". My entire FAMILY let me down. I am doing better in spite of them. My mother taught me better. She taught me to speed read at the age of 3, before it was a thing. By 5 YO I was to smart for kindergarten. By 6 I could read & comprehend at a 5th grade level. My mom had died & my depressed father let society ruin my possibilities. I had to work harder because of them. They said, "She won't be able to relate to her peers." I ALREADY DIDN"T RELATE, not at the same level. So THE PATRIARCHY HAS NO IDEA WTH THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT! Still do not have many real friends.
My 2 boys got an excellent education in the St. Louis County Parkway school district. I want to remind Jess’s readers that she is focused on the educational inequities in rural Missouri specifically and not public schools in general.
I plan to do my part by supporting Blue Missouri as she suggests.
NOT TRUE! Glad it worked out for you. Not typical if you are marginalized, struggling or suffering effects of trauma. Stop only thinking of yourself, only. They were boys & you are white. NO WONDER YOU THINK IT WORKED OUT FOR YOU. Did you review the books they were learning from. OUT OF DATE & so is your boys education. Jess explained that in the beginning. Did you skip that part? Glad you are going to support Democrats. They want to make this FAIR FOR ALL!
I lived in suburban ST Louis while my daughter was in public school. Our community had the highest ratio of churches to population. We paid tuition for her to go to another district’s public high school because her middle school teachers wouldn’t teach evolution (but they did teach creationism), and one history teacher spent a whole semester on cowboy life (not Native Americans or the politics around western expansion) so that she avoided anything controversial in the nation’s history. Oh, and on weekends and during the summer the Catholic schools used the public school facilities like gyms and fields, because “they paid for them with their taxes.” So of course the district voted down every school bond issue, since most residents were paying Catholic school tuition for all their kids. Absolutely no sense of shared responsibility for the next generation. It’s shameful and morally malignant.
My kids received excellent public school educations, first in Michigan, then in Illinois. My son, now grown, was practically apologetic when he told me last year he was taking his kids out of Missouri public schools and placing them in private ones. He said they realized during the pandemic how little their kids were actually learning in the public schools. The kids are now thriving in private schools. It is a sad statement about how our public school system is failing.
NO! The public schools are being defunded. STOP BLAMING THE SCHOOL! Vouchers are a scam. I hope your son is rich, or he's in for a big surprise once they are done illegally defunding public schools. I HAVE BEEN SCREAMING THIS SINCE IT STARTED. WTH isn't anyone listening. Hope your grandkids don't have any issues. THEY REFUSE MANY CHILDREN, You alright with that? ONLY WORRIED ABOUT YOUR OWN is selfish & short sided.
Keep them stupid and ignorant is the Republican mantra - because ,otherwise, they wouldn’t win elections. Wake up. Earning a decent living requires education nowadays. You need to learn in order to earn. Never realized how horrible the educational system was in Missouri. BuIt thanks for opening my eyes. Good luck .
Feeling every bit of this in Tennessee as my “aw shucks” HVAC governor makes Friday evening deals with members of the Republican Good Ol’ Boy Supermajority to get school vouchers over on their constituents who want nothing to do with school vouchers. William “Lapdog” Lamberth rammed it through a session again on a deal to make harsher sentences for juveniles offenders. Because what’s the bedrock of a class system that seeks to limit access to education? The school to prison pipeline, that’s what.
Bless you for doing the work of writing about these horrors that republican’s consistently produce.
I was an elementary teacher, raised and educated in upstate New York, went to college on a Regents scholarship.
Then I moved to Arizona.
Because they required AZ history and government classes, I took a job teaching kindergarten in a Catholic school & stayed there for three years until my 1st child was born. The elementary school in our middle class neighborhood was fine.
It wasn’t until the kids hit middle school & high school that I realized how bad Arizona schools often are. They had a 50% drop out rate! And that was still in a pretty good area. I substituted in schools all over. Big disparities.
Arizona was one of the first to start voucher programs. I heard horror stories from teacher friends. I had moved into counseling, but was out of schools at that point.
Now I’m torn as my young grandchildren are almost school age. My kids are looking at private schools with help from vouchers. And the older ones are at charter style schools, both taking taxpayer dollars from the public schools.
I am still loyal to the public schools, but I understand them wanting a better education for their children than they were offered.
Arizona is turning purple! So maybe there’s hope here. But I do feel your pain, Jess.
1) Parents have always been free to choose whatever form of education they wish for their kids. What is new is attitude that they can demand that others pay for it.
2) These schools don’t do anything special or innovative in their educational practices. The main difference is that they can control who gets in and who stays in. In other words, THEY get to choose you - you don’t choose them.
3) The basic premise of charter schools is that they are “relieved of burdensome regulations”. You always need to ask why, if these regulations so burden academic performance, why place them on the public schools? Why regulate differently?
I understand the dilemma parents must feel. Not only in terms of the education they can’t get in a poorly resourced public school, but also in terms of the concerns about school shootings! I do think the Republicans are clearly pursuing policies that keep poorer communities ignorant. The less people learn to think for themselves, the easier they are to manipulate.
Charter schools are a scam. They will make it seem like you can afford it. Then when the public school is illegally defunded & shut down, they will raise the part you have to pay so high you can no longer afford it. So NO EDUCATION FOR YOUR KIDS! It's welfare for the rich that CAN afford any school they want. Get it? It's bad for anyone NOT rich.
The republicans have a huge amount to answer for
The don’t want abortion - but treat the children who live terribly - neither helping in their living expenses nor their education - thus concentrate survivors to substandard levels of living.
Just evil.
Exactly.
Easier to control when poor und undereducated.
Truth. I see it here in WI, ties in with the need for manufacturing workers. Can be hard to support a family on those wages, plus, a lot of them aren't safety conscious, to put it mildly. Have also seen an increase in 'faith based' schools.
I can’t believe how dire this situation is and that you seem to be the only voice breaking through. Why isn’t this covered more in the media? Thank you for your advocacy. Your work is so important and powerful.
Your views and writings are amazingly inspirational. A true north star. Thank you so much. Coming from Colorado was a shock politically for me. You give me such hope. #VOTEBLUE
Thank you, friend!
I grew up in rural Nebraska and many of my family still live there. People in rural areas have always felt neglected and abandoned and angry. We had very few amenities when I went to school and my relatives children have even fewer today. I don’t think people who live in more populated areas have a clue as to what life is like in our rural areas. Unaffordable Internet that frequently is out of service. I could go on and on. I almost cry when I read your blogs because you really know what is going on and it seems like so few care. Thank you for trying to spread the word.
Don't they value their independence more than anything? They see the government as a threat to that.
Some probably do but I think it is because most progressive politicians just assume that they feel that way and don’t bother to talk to the people. Many people I grew up with who still live in rural areas are generous, compassionate people who don’t really understand what their taxes pay for and how the system works. Rural areas already believe in the “common good” and community. You should see how they rally to help their neighbors - any of them who need help. They just don’t see that with Medicare for all they wouldn’t have to do fundraisers to help people who have no insurance. And I think the idea of independence or individuality is an American value that is just as common in urban areas as in rural. I live in an urban area and my neighbors value their independence greatly I.e no Covid shots, no vaccinations for their kids in school, anti-immigrant, and don’t even think about building apartments near their property. I see it as changing the hearts of all people to value the common good.
well said !
Thank you
I am so thankful to have found your Substack. I live on the west coast and admit that since reading your stories my view of this country and its regional politics has been changed forever. You are a must read for all my family members who have had my same insulated view on America. Thank you so much, I am always educated and inspired by your work.
How is tax money distributed in Missouri? My property tax is very high and rising every year as MY county refuses to implement the senior citizen property tax freeze. I am not in my earning years anymore and there just is no money in my budget for more funding. How many big businesses get tax credits for being here? It seems like the whole city of St. Louis is owned by schools, churches, and universities, and they are likely tax exempt as they would qualify as “non-profits” because they are religious and educational organizations. Tax them for a change! This year public money is available to religious institutions, further stripping the public schools. Tax them! Tax the rich!
You should look into "proposed tax freeze". They are lying, again, about what it WILL do. To stay safe from Republicans BS, just know it is exactly the opposite of what they say.
That part!
Re: Seniors property tax. Here in BC Canada where I live, once you are 55, you can apply for Property tax deferment. The Provincial Government will pay your property tax for you. Once your house is sold, the money owed is repaid. The interest rate is very very low. Also it is assumed that your home will appreciate.
This is a fantastic program that helps to prevent poverty and allows folks to stay in their homes.
It’s not free money. It’s using the equity in your home to pay your yearly property tax. You are obligated to repay it (including interest) when you sell your home.
And yet, our income in old age must come from somewhere. Many of us, even with advanced degrees, made barely above minimum wage during our working lives. Many of us did not marry men with money, or have children who will care for us in our old age. Assisted living here is about $6000 per month. On Social Security income of about 14500 per year, and property tax of $3800 and growing, how else would we hold onto our housing? Rents are insanely expensive. Property tax here is based on comparable sales of nearby homes, rather than the purchase price of your individual home; there are some states that do this better.
Yes, property taxes here where I live are also based on the assessed present day value of the house. It’s really not fair. Nowadays housing has been commodified, rather than something everyone requires in order to live a full and happy life. Not like when we were young!
I graduated in 1976 from a high school in one of the poorest counties in North Carolina. We had very little, and in fact, by the time I reached my senior year, I went to work because there were no classes left for me to take. Around 2000, a student sued the state for providing inadequate resources to some schools while providing extra resources to others. The last I heard, that lawsuit is still ongoing. Meanwhile, the county my high school is in deteriorates in every way - high poverty, high crime, high illegal drug use, etc.
I don't know how we're, as a society, supposed to reduce poverty, crime, illegal drug use without education. It starts there. Republicans are creating a perpetual class of "serfs" who exist only to do as they are told with no ability to think for themselves. It's EVIL.
The Republicans in the legislature are pushing back against the court order to adequately fund public schools in the Leandro case.
Leandro - yes. Thank you. I couldn’t think of the name. Still ongoing. Unbelievable. I went to Hoke Co. HS.
I attended 3 Lincoln County "Democratic" Party club meetings! I was appalled. They are helping the Republicans. They have no community outreach & they constantly defer to the patriarchy's asinine comments like they need some kind of appeasement. I think they are out of touch & focusing on the wrong things. I am at a loss of where to concentrate my activism. Maybe "Planned Parenthood of STL"?
Hi, Carol! I work for Blue Missouri. We crowdfund resources for rural and underfunded races in Missouri. We are the only org that specifically raises money for down-ballot races who are often forgotten. I really believe this is the say forward. Here's the link...solidarity!
https://bluemissouri.org/
*way
Ughhhhhh...
I don't have any extra $$$ for "Blue MO". I gave what I could afford to you, Jess. All I have to offer is my vast medical training & Constitutional knowledge, well until the Republicans started violating the US & MO constitutions, & my time. Wish I had some $$$. I know who I want to help. monetarily. I'm retired, so $$$ is limited.
Jess, another excellent essay on the current state of education in not only Missouri but in too many other places in our country. A majority of my school years were spent in rural Missouri schools. I had a couple of really good teachers, but the funding was abysmal. Due to my own drive and passion for reading and learning, I turned out ok if I do say so myself. 2 bachelor's degrees and a master's. But not because of the schools in Missouri. I think it was in spite of the educational system. God gifted me with a very good brain and my mom encouraged me to use it and imposed no limitations on what I could do with it. My brothers - 4 and 6 years younger - barely graduated high school and couldn't read at a middle school level. But they kept being pushed through the system. So sad. Thanks for your spotlight.
I totally relate to this story. I grew up in the USAF that punished us bc my mother died, when I was 5&1/2 & my brother was 9, & our Dad couldn't go to war. Dad was cheated out of so much. THE REPUBLICANS DID THIS, TOO! I learned bc I pushed myself, especially when the PATRIARCHY said, "You can't, your just a girl". My entire FAMILY let me down. I am doing better in spite of them. My mother taught me better. She taught me to speed read at the age of 3, before it was a thing. By 5 YO I was to smart for kindergarten. By 6 I could read & comprehend at a 5th grade level. My mom had died & my depressed father let society ruin my possibilities. I had to work harder because of them. They said, "She won't be able to relate to her peers." I ALREADY DIDN"T RELATE, not at the same level. So THE PATRIARCHY HAS NO IDEA WTH THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT! Still do not have many real friends.
My 2 boys got an excellent education in the St. Louis County Parkway school district. I want to remind Jess’s readers that she is focused on the educational inequities in rural Missouri specifically and not public schools in general.
I plan to do my part by supporting Blue Missouri as she suggests.
NOT TRUE! Glad it worked out for you. Not typical if you are marginalized, struggling or suffering effects of trauma. Stop only thinking of yourself, only. They were boys & you are white. NO WONDER YOU THINK IT WORKED OUT FOR YOU. Did you review the books they were learning from. OUT OF DATE & so is your boys education. Jess explained that in the beginning. Did you skip that part? Glad you are going to support Democrats. They want to make this FAIR FOR ALL!
I think it is you who needs to sharpen her reading skills. Your misguided anger is not helpful in any way.
You need help. Promptly.
I lived in suburban ST Louis while my daughter was in public school. Our community had the highest ratio of churches to population. We paid tuition for her to go to another district’s public high school because her middle school teachers wouldn’t teach evolution (but they did teach creationism), and one history teacher spent a whole semester on cowboy life (not Native Americans or the politics around western expansion) so that she avoided anything controversial in the nation’s history. Oh, and on weekends and during the summer the Catholic schools used the public school facilities like gyms and fields, because “they paid for them with their taxes.” So of course the district voted down every school bond issue, since most residents were paying Catholic school tuition for all their kids. Absolutely no sense of shared responsibility for the next generation. It’s shameful and morally malignant.
My kids received excellent public school educations, first in Michigan, then in Illinois. My son, now grown, was practically apologetic when he told me last year he was taking his kids out of Missouri public schools and placing them in private ones. He said they realized during the pandemic how little their kids were actually learning in the public schools. The kids are now thriving in private schools. It is a sad statement about how our public school system is failing.
NO! The public schools are being defunded. STOP BLAMING THE SCHOOL! Vouchers are a scam. I hope your son is rich, or he's in for a big surprise once they are done illegally defunding public schools. I HAVE BEEN SCREAMING THIS SINCE IT STARTED. WTH isn't anyone listening. Hope your grandkids don't have any issues. THEY REFUSE MANY CHILDREN, You alright with that? ONLY WORRIED ABOUT YOUR OWN is selfish & short sided.
Keep them stupid and ignorant is the Republican mantra - because ,otherwise, they wouldn’t win elections. Wake up. Earning a decent living requires education nowadays. You need to learn in order to earn. Never realized how horrible the educational system was in Missouri. BuIt thanks for opening my eyes. Good luck .
Feeling every bit of this in Tennessee as my “aw shucks” HVAC governor makes Friday evening deals with members of the Republican Good Ol’ Boy Supermajority to get school vouchers over on their constituents who want nothing to do with school vouchers. William “Lapdog” Lamberth rammed it through a session again on a deal to make harsher sentences for juveniles offenders. Because what’s the bedrock of a class system that seeks to limit access to education? The school to prison pipeline, that’s what.
Bless you for doing the work of writing about these horrors that republican’s consistently produce.
I also want to say that your blog is fantastic. It’s so great that you are illuminating the issues in rural America!
I was an elementary teacher, raised and educated in upstate New York, went to college on a Regents scholarship.
Then I moved to Arizona.
Because they required AZ history and government classes, I took a job teaching kindergarten in a Catholic school & stayed there for three years until my 1st child was born. The elementary school in our middle class neighborhood was fine.
It wasn’t until the kids hit middle school & high school that I realized how bad Arizona schools often are. They had a 50% drop out rate! And that was still in a pretty good area. I substituted in schools all over. Big disparities.
Arizona was one of the first to start voucher programs. I heard horror stories from teacher friends. I had moved into counseling, but was out of schools at that point.
Now I’m torn as my young grandchildren are almost school age. My kids are looking at private schools with help from vouchers. And the older ones are at charter style schools, both taking taxpayer dollars from the public schools.
I am still loyal to the public schools, but I understand them wanting a better education for their children than they were offered.
Arizona is turning purple! So maybe there’s hope here. But I do feel your pain, Jess.
A few points about non-public schools.
1) Parents have always been free to choose whatever form of education they wish for their kids. What is new is attitude that they can demand that others pay for it.
2) These schools don’t do anything special or innovative in their educational practices. The main difference is that they can control who gets in and who stays in. In other words, THEY get to choose you - you don’t choose them.
3) The basic premise of charter schools is that they are “relieved of burdensome regulations”. You always need to ask why, if these regulations so burden academic performance, why place them on the public schools? Why regulate differently?
I understand the dilemma parents must feel. Not only in terms of the education they can’t get in a poorly resourced public school, but also in terms of the concerns about school shootings! I do think the Republicans are clearly pursuing policies that keep poorer communities ignorant. The less people learn to think for themselves, the easier they are to manipulate.
Charter schools are a scam. They will make it seem like you can afford it. Then when the public school is illegally defunded & shut down, they will raise the part you have to pay so high you can no longer afford it. So NO EDUCATION FOR YOUR KIDS! It's welfare for the rich that CAN afford any school they want. Get it? It's bad for anyone NOT rich.