Posted on 11/12/2003 7:29:07 AM PST by Theodore R.
Richards delivers dynamite talk at TAMIU
BY TRICIA CORTEZ Times staff writer
Former Texas Governor Ann Richards delivered a scathing indictment of the Texas public education system Tuesday night, focusing on its accountability and high-stakes testing system that is now being implemented nationally under the No Child Left Behind Act.
"The current No Child Left Behind is a lie. It is a total lie. We are leaving children behind right and left," Richards told a packed house of the Fine and Performing Arts Center at Texas A&M International University.
"Do you know what the current education system is in the state of Texas?...The whole focus of the Texas public schools and now at the national-level is how to test, and how to teach to the test and how to teach teachers to teach the test," Richards said.
"The only ones making out well are those people making the tests and the money," she said, while some in the audience stood and clapped.
In her trademark brassy, blunt and salt-of-the-earth style, Richards delivered a dynamite one-hour speech as part of the A.R. Sanchez Sr. Distinguished Lecture Series, funded by Mr. and Mrs. Tony Sanchez Jr.
During her talk, Richards attacked the current Republican administrations in Washington and Austin for their deep cuts in education, health care, the environment and their lack of attention to job creation in the new global economy.
"It is no surprise what has happened to social programs at home. The federal government cuts or transfers them to the states," she said.
"You call it local control, local responsibility. They send programs, but no money to pay for them. You combine that with huge tax cuts and fiscal irresponsibility, and it's a nightmare," she added.
Richards then called South Texas "the sleeping giant of Texas" and said that a strong, active grassroots must re-emerge from the very bottom to revive the Democratic Party.
She went on to give some advice.
"We need to get back to knowing people, rather than communicating on TV, which people don't believe anyway. If you have a problem (locally), go to City Council and raise hell. Democracy is not a pretty thing, but it does require determination and hard work," she said.
"We thought we had to buy as much TV time as Republicans to compete in elections, but when we did that, we gave up the organizing of the grassroots which has always been our strength," she said.
Females and minorities form the grassroots base of the Democratic Party, Richards said.
Reviving this base will require new organization and "saying something they care about."
"It's our job to get Democrats organized, registered to vote and to the polls. When Democrats vote, we win. There are more of us. And quit paying attention to those polls. Who gives a damn what Republicans think," she said.
"There is a strong belief that Washington is controlled by big money and that both parties are out of touch with ordinary Americans," she said, describing strong similarities between the country now and 100 years ago.
"We learned that big money can not be left to do whatever it pleases-that government has to set some rules and regulations," she said, before touting basic Democratic ideals.
"Working people must have rights and government must step in to make sure they have those rights. As the last century unfolded, if Americans wanted food to be safe and the economy strong, decent health care, good public schools, money for retirement, clean air, clean land and clean water, the government had to do something," she said.
"None of those things are going to happen without government intervention. But now, we are in a time when our leaders seem to have forgotten some of the things we learned in the last 100 years," Richards argued.
"They truly created the myth that government is bad and that they are all a bunch of bloated bureaucrats....As long as that thinking continues, and cutbacks continues to take place, we will never address the issues. It will be about how low are we willing to go," she said.
Richards stressed that hard, consistent work is required to obtain the state and federal money needed to make a difference in a community.
"South Texas is the powerful sleeping giant of Texas. You have the political clout to command it, but to do it, realize that the only way people measure that is by looking at the number of people who went to the polls," she said.
"I hope you have an aggressive voter registration drive on this campus and in Laredo," she said.
Richards concluded, "What about 21st Century politics? It takes fearless leadership; it takes people going into public office who do not care whether they get elected the next time," she said while the audience clapped.
(Staff writer Tricia Cortez can be reached at 728-2568 or tricia@lmtonline.com.)
11/12/03
Can you imagine the outrage there would have been if former Governor Clements went to a TX state university and said, "Who gives a damn what Democrats think?" There would be "moral outrage." Now, in the words of Bob Dole, "Where is the outrage?"
Speking of Galveston juries, wasn't the Durst trial just dumb? It seems the prosecutors were the only guys in Galveston that could not get the cross-dressing Durst to give them any head.
In her trademark glassy eyed, slurring, smashed, incoherent, manlike voice, she reached for her second bottle of bourbon to wash down another hand full of pills and fell off the stage.
She made sure Texans did not have the right to self defense --- she vetoed the Texas concealed carry bill. --- George Bush signed it.
Even funnier is the hand she had in destroying the statewide democratic party.
IF this were true, it shows how far the Demo party has sunk from the great coalition welded together by FDR that lasted for 60 years.
However, it ain't true:
SINGLE women do vote heavily democratic, but married women tend to vote Republican, and married women with children vote about 58-42 republican.
For "minorities" read Blacks, and there is some truth there--they vote overwhelmingly democratic, but Asians split about 50-50, and Hispanics are volatile, though they do vote democratic at this time.
The real grassroots of the Demo party are the members of various special interest groups, not demographic groups.
Ann doesn't even understand her own party.
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