Does writing your elected officials really work? The common answer to this question is that it doesn’t do any good and it’s a complete waste of time. But really, who writes their elected officials anymore? Why bother, right? Well, this attitude can actually work in our favor right now. Politicians these days are not used to receiving many letters (or e-mails) from their constituents. Let alone in massive amounts.

I know this from experience.

Just about a year ago I began to fight for school funding in Texas. We were facing budget cuts on a huge scale, teachers didn’t know if they would have a job this year, and their focus was obviously not on teaching. I learned from speaking with teachers about the funding issues and most of them said the same thing, “I don’t know what to do if I lose my job, it’s next to impossible to focus on teaching with this hanging over your head”. This was also mentioned in meetings with many members of the Texas Education Association (TEA). On top of that, they were going to close schools everywhere, end programs like Head Start, and increase the amount of kids per teacher in each classroom. I found this to be extremely disturbing because I have three children in these schools.

So I began the fight.

I started the best way I knew how. I wrote my elected officials both state and federal, with a proposal to use money from the Permanent School Fund (more on that later). After a while, I started feeling a little antagonistic. So I starting e-mailing copies of my proposal to all of the elected officials from every district in Texas while asking friends to do it as well and spread the word.

It read something like this:

"I am writing to you because of the dire situation we face with funding our public school system. I implore you to vote against cutting any funding for public schools.

If you need to cut 4 billion dollars from schools, why not use some of the over 20 billion dollars in the Texas Permanent School Fund. This fund was created to assist school districts in need (over 160 years ago). I think we would both agree we have school districts in need. Taking 4 billion dollars from there would have little impact on the Permanent School Fund. Which conveniently reports how profitable there strategies are (check their website if your not familiar with the program)

Additionally, if that doesn't suit you guys. Just use some money from the Rainy-Day fund. While it's not actually raining (which would be nice), it is definitely raining from a fiscal stand-point. Honestly I don't know how much "more rain" we need in that context.

It seems as though you guys are trying to portray our Great State of Texas, as being poor and cash-strapped. All it takes is some simple looking around online, and I or anyone else can find billions of dollars within our state just sitting there... Waiting for what?

It took me 20 minutes to find the billions needed to fund education in one of the already lowest-rated states. What's it going to take for you guys to see the big picture? You guys are dumbing down our children.

Many school districts cancelled summer school. They failed to inform anyone until it was too late get a child in at an outside school district. So now people have to enroll their children into home-schooling programs like what Texas-Tech offers, so they can have what is entitled to them in the first place.

The schools failed the children as educators and are now forced to turn their backs on them and lose the opportunity to make it right. They failed the students because they didn't know if they would have a job next year. This was obviously weighing on their minds on a daily-basis (that's all the faculty talked about at the school functions), this in turn results in less focus on the job and at the task at hand... Educating our children!

This falls solely on our representatives shoulders, you guys failed our teachers, and most importantly our children.

Enough damage has been done, it's time to make it right!

VOTE NO ON CUTTING SCHOOL FUNDING AND USE THE PERMANENT SCHOOL FUND, OR THE RAINY-DAY FUND! PLEASE DON'T FAIL THE FUTURE OF OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM!

BRING UP THE PERMANENT SCHOOL FUND, THEY MIGHT ALL JUST THINK YOU'RE A GENIUS!"

Ok, so it’s truncated because if I posted the whole thing you would be here a while. But you get the point, I was a little brutal. So a week or two goes by, and I start getting response letters from all of them. Most were telling me that they don’t represent my district, and who I should contact (funny). What I found most intriguing, was how many replied saying they weren’t aware of the Permanent School Fund and what it was for. At that point, I thought to myself, how the heck did these guys get elected? I found it in 10 minutes doing a search online!

So shortly after that I made contact with the President of the TEA and presented my proposal to her. She was very interested and said she would bring it up at their next meeting. About that time, Texas State Senator Steve Ogden replied to me in a hand-written letter. I was actually shocked that my State Senator wrote me a letter! Well this is where it all gets political, Senator Ogden was pleasurable in his letter, however, he seemed like he felt helpless. He explained to me that the Federal Government controlled most of the spending on public education, and felt as though his hands were tied.

Well, with all of the continued pestering, the TEA’s lobbyists, a few state representatives, and Senator Steve Ogden, we actually had a bill! Yesterday was election day, and guess what happened? Texas House Joint Resolution 109 (Proposition 6) was passed. The people voted and successfully passed Prop 6, thus releasing more money from the Permanent School Fund. This should not only offset the federal cuts (which we did a few months ago with the “Rainy-Day” fund) but provide additional funding to keep schools open and keep programs like Head-Start.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to or want to, take credit for the passing of this bill. I will, however, take some credit for pestering the heck out of our elected officials, and even educating a few of them in the process. And I can’t leave out any of you who may have participated. Most of the representatives that had a positive response and agreed with us in principle are the ones credited for authoring the bill. These are the guys that put the pen to the paper and made it work and the best part about it is...

The Texas Legislative Budget Board issued a fiscal note about HJR 109 to the House Committee on Appropriations on April 30, 2011. According to the fiscal note:

• "No fiscal implication to the State is anticipated, other than the cost of publication."
• "The cost to the state for publication of the resolution is $105,495."
• "No fiscal implication to units of local government is anticipated."

So does writing your elected officials work? Yes, it does! Write your elected officials, as much as you can, as often as you can. It really does work, especially with huge numbers. With millions of letters, e-mails, and phone calls coming in, they will begin to see the commonality in the grievances of the people. At that point, they will be forced to act, or we will see some new faces in Washington soon!


Arturo Extreme
Contributor
New Politics Nation