Warriors for a Great Cause

This is my father, Eugene Everett Strait.  Many of you who follow my blog, or are from Bridgeport, know how much I respect and admire him.  He passed away at 91 on September 22, 2013, but his influence, his love, his caring, will live with me forever.

My father dedicated much of his life to public education.  He was an excellent teacher, skilled in math, and teaching it not just to college prep students, but also to low achievers who had little interest or motivation to do well.  And yet, his techniques and caring turned many of those students around, achieving at levels no one thought possible.

He was a proponent of team teaching, and Bridgeport High School was built to accommodate that. Honestly, the technique didn't always work as well in real life as it did on paper.  But he wasn't so stubborn and full of himself that he kept advocating a flawed system.  He learned to adapt and adjust wherever needed.  Because he knew his ego wasn't as important as the successful education of his students.

He was Principal of  Bridgeport High School for many years, and was recognized as an education leader in the state.  He loved public schools and he helped make them work.

This is my sister, Carol Easlick, with her arm around her lifelong best friend, Peggy Kwater.


My sister wanted to be a teacher.  She graduated at a time when teaching jobs were difficult to come by.  She found positions with private companies first, and it seemed like public education would not be in her life.  Her husband was a brilliant teacher and coach, her father an outstanding school administrator, but she seemed destined to stand outside of her chosen profession.

But living near the state capitol, Lansing, she finally got an opportunity to participate in Education. She worked for the State Secretary of Education, and over time, became the legislative assistant, helping research and prepare laws and regulations, coordinating between the legislative and executive branch.  In other words, she got the kind of job that I can only dream about getting.

She worked on both sides of the aisles, and had both Republican and Democratic friends and allies. She struggled hard, under both Governor Granholm and Governor Snyder, to help make public education better.

It became harder and more frustrating as one of the political parties became more ideological, and more and more invested into a dislike of public education, some actively trying to dismantle and weaken it.  It became particularly difficult when the legislature was awash with outside money influencing them to put in charter schools, run by private interests that would not be subject to the same regulations and rules as public schools.

My sister has retired from the fight, but I am as proud as I can be of the contributions she made.  Like my father, she dedicated much of her life to the betterment of public schools.

And now we have selected a US Secretary of Education who is dedicated to the destruction of public education, someone who was in large part responsible for the decline and collapse of the educational system that existed in the state I grew up in, Michigan.  She has bought her way in, just as she did with the Michigan legislature, and she plans wreaking the same destruction on the nation as she did in Michigan.

Betsy DeVos is a betrayal to my father and sister, and to everyone who has worked hard for public education -  the very backbone of American democracy.

But I promise you this.  It won't happen without  fight.  Dad and Carol, you have been warriors for a great cause.  And now it is time for me to take up the cause of public education.  It is time for me to do my part.

Because, like both of you, I believe that public education is worth the fight.  And I am ready to fight.