After seeing Miss Virginia, I just thought “wow!”
I have three kids of my own. My oldest one, my son is 12 years old and every day he goes to and from school. I look at the children and I feel that they are not challenged enough. Every day he comes home, he’s like “school is school.” He reminds me of myself when I was growing up as far as his attitude and demeanor towards school, it’s not the best. I’m scared because I was almost a high school dropout myself because I guess it wasn’t geared towards my talent and capabilities, the schools that I went to.
“School choice to me means that no matter what income we make, from the lowest to highest, should have a choice and a better opportunity because it’s not only going to prevent poverty families having more poverty families, it’s going to change our generation.”
Seeing that video, I think of my son, as Virginia’s son. I need to take action now. I guarantee you that within the next few days, I’m going to be making phone calls and I’m going to look up Families Empowered, get on that list and say, “No, my children come first,” just like they said. He is the future. Even hearing your testimony when you said you went to this other school, everyone greeted you. You had failed at your previous school and it’s like, I don’t want that to be them. I don’t want them to go the wrong direction and fall off the grid. That’s going to definitely make me take action now. For me, it’s now or never. My children come first.
School choice to me means that no matter what income we make, from the lowest to highest, should have a choice and a better opportunity because it’s not only going to prevent poverty families having more poverty families, it’s going to change our generation. It’s going to change where this whole country is going, especially here in Texas, where there are not a lot of opportunities for scholarships to go to any private school. Now, you have to get on a lottery and hope and beg that your number is picked. So school choice means having that right and freedom to quality education, which everyone here in America, you would think, should be entitled to.
I want to be part of the movement. I feel like I need to be the Miss Virginia in my own neighborhood and my apartments. Our children deserve better. They deserve what other higher-class students are entitled to. We deserve that as well. If we can change our children today, it will change their future tomorrow.
