Memo to Tincy: America is "A Melting Pot"

Roughly a minute into this video that I talked about in a post last month, "Tincy Miller: On Camera & Unscripted," I noticed that Mrs. Miller voiced disapproval over teaching world cultures.  The question to be fair asked if she was for world cultures being taught specifically in charter schools.

She said that American culture is superior over other cultures by mentioning the idea of American Exceptionalism repeatedly in the video.  There is no doubt our country is unique, however my disagreement with you, Tincy, is this:  America is the world's "melting pot."  American culture is really a mixture of world cultures and the modern day epicenter of world history. 

The three most obvious reasons why America is the world's "melting pot." 

1)  Our country started out as 13 British colonies that banded together and declared independence from King George III and the British Parliament in 1776.   Many our laws and traditions thus come from Great Britain and Ireland.

2)  Our country took over lands originally colonized by other nations such as purchasing Louisiana from the French in 1803, getting Florida from the Spanish in 1819, and fighting wars with Mexico to secure much of the American West in the 1840s.  Alaska was bought as a Russian territory after the Civil War.  Before that, many dozens of Native American tribes dotted the American landscape.

3)  The headquarters of the United Nations is right here in America, in New York City!  Leaders worldwide come at least to openly and peacefully express their concerns.  (Of course this is considered international territory.) 

America history was part of world history from day one.  America continues to be part of a larger story- the history of human civilization. To suggest that America has today a wholly self-contained culture from day one does Texas schoolchildren an enormous injustice!

I Help Build It (In DISD)

Long before the Dallas ISD School Board was a political stepping stone, I was on it during the dark days of the late 1990s and early 2000s.  We had races where few qualified candidates actively sought office on the Dallas school Board.  One notable example is here for this South Dallas DISD Board seat which was left vacant after Dr. Yvonne Ewell, which now Townview Center is named after, died in 1998.

As I mentioned in my previous blogs I have had called for financial reform, fighting privatization against out of state interests, and aslo my main web site discussed about the schools I arranged to built in the 2002 DISD Bond Package.  That bond package was important because DISD had not passed a bond for a whole decade-10 years prior-1992.  The bond package which was worth $1 billion, at that time the largest in DISD history. 

Many of these newer schools that came from that bond package I was able to get built in my school board District.   These schools include Jack Lowe Sr. Elementary, Sam Tasby Middle School, and Emmitt J. Conrad High School.  All of these schools are in the same "feeder pattern."  That means if a student attended Lowe Elementary or Tasby Middle School they would wind up being enrolled as a student in Conrad High School, which is today one of the most impressive schools in the District.

While Republicans tout about building things and having executive experience, these are things that Mrs. Tincy Miller does not have much experience with.  She mentioned her most significant accomplishment aside from making the state curriculum more friendly to those with learning disabilities is protecting the State Board of Education's Permanent School Fund from special interest groups.  The money from this largely unknown-fund comes from interest payments from Texas state-owned lands that have been managed by the State Education board. 

She cites a key reason she wants to come back to her old job, is to keep this fund clean of special interests.  But I wonder if she couldn't do that the first time around, why should we expect her to be successful a second time?  (Please also see this recent video.) And what is more troubling is that she can't do that working with people within her own party?  The State Board of Education has been a Republican-dominated body after all.   My answer is she never had the executive experience I've had.  After all, I was the President of the Dallas ISD Board for 2 years over a multi-cultural and economically diverse student enrollment of 162,000. 

Because she never served on a school board- Mrs. Miller never had a hand in building schools, finding and managing money to cover the day-to-day operations to fund them.  I help rebuild the reputation of Dallas ISD, I helped made it hip for business executives to work with Dallas ISD.  People of means want to put their kids in the Dallas ISD again.