My Path to My Passion of Politics, Part I

Politics has indirectly been my passion since I was in elementary school (I'll get to why 'indirectly' in a while.) It started when I was in elementary school when my 3rd grade teacher Mr. Kuba would tell us about all the visits he would take around the world; in particular his visits to Australia. He would go on and on about the different cultures and people and sights he’d see. My curiosity of how the world operated outside of Danbury was one that had me going to the library and looking at different pictures of the world. A few years later I remember being in Ms. Fulmer’s 5th grade social studies class and learning less about the world and more about American history. We were assigned projects on the civil war and slavery and I remember asking myself as a child “How could people let this happen?” We went to the Scott Fanton museum down the street from my elementary school once and I remember the museum representatives showing us the musket guns they’d use during the American revolution and the civil war and I remember asking myself again “Why would people fight and kill each other?”At such a young age, I was always perplexed by the reasons groups of people would bring themselves to killing others.

My constant questioning of why this and why that and why them was never fulfilled. If a teacher went over a war, I’d ask them why it happened. When they told me their answer, I’d ask what led to that. When they told me their answer, I’d ask them who started the war. When they told me that, I’d ask what led people to kill other people. When they told me that, I’d ask them more why’s and how’s and who’s than they knew how to answer. The truth is I was a pesky but inquisitive little boy. I was that kid who sat up front and asked the most questions everyday. I was never the best student when it came to grades or keeping myself focused on work, but when it came to asking the tough questions and wanting to learn, no one in any of my social studies or history classes ever came close. No answer was ever sufficient for me, because knowledge was my compensation for my lack of A’s and B’s. I remember one instance when one of my peers got into what was called the summit program in Rogers Park Middle School and gloated to me about how he was smarter than me because he got in and I didn’t. I told him “Fuck Summit, I’m still smarter than you.” Needless to say, I had a dirty mouth at a young age and maybe I didn’t take too well to being called stupid by some rich kid from King St., but the truth is I knew I was in fact smarter than him. Some kids are just better at regurgitating numbers and dates and they’re rewarded as being told they're more intelligent for it, but I saw the importance of putting rationale and meaning behind those numbers. While some of my peers were taught algebraic formulas and rewarded as being "smarter" for knowing them, I remember telling my friends those numbers wouldn’t matter when we got older. I was the kid who was always telling the teachers “I get it and I can do it, but HOW is this going to help me and my career when I'm an adult?” I was scolded every time for asking that question. Mrs. Miville yelled at me, Ms. Fulmer yelled at me, Mr. Allen yelled at me; they all got so damn mad when I asked them that very question. I’m a grown man at 24 years old and I don’t care what anyone says; at 11 and 12 and 13 years old, I was right. All but one teacher yelled at me: Mr. Scalzo. Again, I'll get to him later.

I’m a man now and I carry the same stubbornness with me today. Knowledge is less about the answers you can give and more about the questions you can ask. I didn’t need test scores or academic programs or teacher favoritism to know I was the best student in a lot of my classes. I didn’t get the A’s and B’s, but I asked the questions and got the answers. I didn’t know how to solve a quadratic formula for the life of me, but I could talk about American taxes and the importance of homeownership and world history and discrimination in America and the Vietnam war and civics and voting. I could talk about things I needed to know as an adult, at 13 years old..

Then September 11, 2001 came around… My mind, my passion and my thoughts would never be the same after that day.

Part I,
David.

Education Reform: What We Can Do Better

Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Unfortunately, our nation’s public education systems deprive our students of the very weapon Nelson Mandela spoke of.
All too often, students lack adequate accessibility to educational resources, and our communities are set back due to the plight caused by educational inequality.
Rates of poverty, drug addiction, domestic violence, homelessness, criminal activity and other social ills are directly and indirectly linked with one common factor: educational inequality.
With the proper access to a quality education and the guarantee of a more thorough understanding of their communities, their world and career prospects, students throughout the state and throughout the nation can become better informed individuals.
Our students are taught to understand the theories in calculus and chemistry, but leave high school and even college with little understanding on issues like taxes, financial budgeting or homeownership. Students are taught to memorize significant dates and names in American history, but they’re not taught or encouraged to thoroughly analyze and participate in their own political system.
The classes students are required to take are often outdated with old curricular materials and obsolete ideas. It is time that we take our educational system and comprehensively reform it from the ground up. We must keep what works, improve the things that need work, and rid our schools of what doesn’t.


One of the many, but most significant, issues with our education system is resource allocation. The amount of money a school receives tends to largely depend on the amount of property tax dollars its district collects. For areas like Greenwich, this works in their favor. For areas like Hartford and Bridgeport, however, it does not.
In communities that have substantially lower average property values due to crime and poverty, this form of resource allocation does not work. Impoverished communities with large student bodies require more funding, but the amount of funds they receive are not conducive to the student bodies’ educational needs.
Cities and states need to do away with the current form of education funding where property values dictate the quality of a student’s education. The value of any student’s education should not be determined primarily by the property values of the communities they live in, but by the drive and potential of that very student.
When it comes to laws regarding education, it is time we replace the ones currently in the books with more contemporary ones designed to improve our schools and the value of education for schools everywhere.


For starters, the dropout age can be raised from 16 to 18 to prevent minors from making the adult—yet most often detrimental—decision of prematurely dropping out of school. It does not make sense to give a minor the power to make such an influential decision at such an early stage in their life.
Requiring adequate career centers in every high school would greatly improve the career prospects of students who will eventually pursue careers of their own. Requiring a certain amount of volunteer, internship or apprenticeship hours would also improve students’ understanding of the communities and industries related to their professions of interest.
Hiring additional teachers and limiting class sizes would help guarantee that students are given the proper tools and attention for their educational needs. Reforming school calendars and schedules to allow for student, teacher and parent flexibility would also dramatically improve the educational experiences within our schools.
Finally, our schools need to update and better incorporate technologies—both in and out of the classroom—in order to better accommodate the needs of their students.
Education reform is a bold idea. It requires much thought, much research, and perhaps most daunting—much debate. The need for reform, however, is undeniable.


As our students are falling through the cracks of the current education system, they are falling behind in so many ways—but through no fault of their own. While education reform may seem extreme or difficult, it is in fact necessary and essential.
The time for a discussion on how to improve our education system is now.  There will inevitably be heated debates between parents, teachers, administrators, union leaders and government officials. These debates must not be avoided and reform must not be delayed.
Education reform will require drastic changes and a lot of work, but the worst thing we could do to our students is do nothing at all. Education reform must come first, and it must come now.