There has been a lot of talk in Texas lately about cutting spending on education. Mostly, Rick Perry does envision slicing and dicing extra-circular activities. While we all know the sacred cow of Texas High School football is safe, UIL competitions centered on academics are currently under the knife.
If they didn't have Academic Decathlon, I would be out in the chemical plants as a grunt, like my father and grandfather before me. Before that, we were share-croppers.
I still remember when I was a sophomore, the guidance counselor was concerned I had not enrolled in a trade yet, be it welding or pipe-fitting or ag. Once I made it apparent that I intended to seek high education, I was told men from our area just didn't go to college.
We either learned a trade or went into the military. I was just going to have to learn my place.
Well, I heard from a out of town friend, whom I played on an select futbol team with, about this thing called the academic decathlon.
It took a lot of convincing of the hierarchy to send my friend and I to represent our high school at the regional meet. I could tell you whatever you wanted to know about a cow, when to plant whatever crop you had in mind or how to fix just about any piece of farm equipment. Heck, I could even tell you how to predict the weather using hog fat in a mason jar of vinegar.
What we did not have was "book learning". We were a mill for workers to populate the working class. Most of us dreamed of being middle class, and maybe even having a job with air conditioning one day.
Long story short, I threatened to quit catching pig skins if we weren't allowed to go. So with no prep and very shaky knowledge of what the rules were, Coach drove my boy and I up to Houston for a challenge unexpected.
We both went to state. We did well, so well in fact they had the regional meet at our school the following year. I'd pay all the money I've earned to see the looks of the privileged class of the suburbs filing threw our hallways, realizing the tier system that the Texas education system had created.
Since I had excelled at the Speech portion of the competition the year before, so I was allowed to give the opening remarks. I'd pay the rest of earning in the future to see the look on my principal's face as I went into barnstorming down home populist speech about how the field must be leveled, otherwise we have ourselves a separate but unequal education system based on wealth instead of race.
The affluent shifted nervously in their seats, the inner-city schools and the country-side roared in approval. And on that day, we all won, inspired by the fact we were there, and we were going to show that no matter what roadblocks the system put in our way, we were going to win this for ourselves and our schools and our people back home.
We were not just fodder.
That speech got me sent to DC my senior year where I got my first taste of politics. That time in our nation's capital got me sent to college. College sent me everywhere from High Street in London to Madison Avenue in New York City.
Not bad for a kid who was suppose to know his place in the world and be content boiler-making for forty some odd years.
This is why Rick Perry cannot cut academic competitions in the state of Texas. For some kids, it is their only ticket out. Nay, it is more than that.
Rick Perry is trying to deny young Texans the American Dream.
I know, for I was that kid once. I have never forgotten the long road to where I sit now. And I will be damned if Rick Perry closes the door on the promise of America to any Texas student.