Georgia's education system - a letter to my republican state senator

I just got an email newsletter from my rightwing state senator, Bill Heath, which talks about how he's going to fight for tighter immigration laws in the state and cites some BS statistics about the number of births to undocumented immigrants at one particular hospital in Texas (as if what happens in Texas directly effects Georgia - plus I'm sure it was a hospital that takes in an abundance of poor people with no insurance). I've been pretty pissed off lately at our local school system, my daughter needs my help in science and math but can't even bring home textbooks because of budget cuts. Here's the response I sent, and I would like to urge other Georgians here to start calling out our House and Senate on our dismal education system.



Senator Heath,

I received your email newsletter regarding illegal immigration, and am glad you invited your constituents to offer suggestions for future newsletters. I must admit that I am far more concerned about my children's education than immigration.

I just looked up some national rankings for various criteria measuring the quality of our educational system. According to what I found Georgia ranks 45th in SAT scores and 47th in averaged freshman graduation rate, pretty dismal numbers.

Currently my daughter can not bring home textbooks for science and math, there's only one set that has to stay in the classroom because of the tight budget. I'm sorry, but that is just not a productive way for students to learn these important subjects, yet Georgia is still offering tax breaks to businesses at the same time teachers are being furloughed and the education budget is being cut.

I'd love to hear how we're going to fix our horrible education system without finding new sources of funding for it. Personally I don't believe it can be done. If improving our state's schools means raising taxes, then so be it - just be sure to be fair and not do it on the shoulders of the middle class.

Thank You,

:applause:


My state senator is pro-education, but I should write a letter reminding him to fight the good fight against those who damage our state's meager educational system.