The Network for Public Education Action Fund endorses Tina Bojanowski, who is running for the Kentucky House of Representatives, District 32.
Instead of complaining about the legislature, she is running for a seat.
She has no primary challenger, but needs your help in the general election in November.
The Network for Public Education Action has endorsed special education teacher Tina Bojanowski for the District 32 seat in Kentucky’s House of Representatives. Since 2010, Tina has been a special education teacher for Jefferson County Public Schools. She recently completed a Ph.D. in education and social change, and wants to use her knowledge and experience to ensure a high quality public education for all children.
Tina considered becoming a research professor, but realized that legislators seldomly read academic literature when making policy decisions. She decided to run for the legislature instead because having a voice on the floor and a vote will have more direct impact. She told NPE Action that her intention is to “bring the voice of a special education teacher to the floor of the state capitol to speak for public education.”
Tina’s positions on public education are in line with NPE Action. She is against high-stakes standardized testing as a way to evaluate teachers or measure student achievement. She supports sufficiently funding schools. She wants to ensure that education is a desirable profession both financially (living wages, pensions, and benefits) and professionally (treating educators as professionals).
She is strongly against the use of vouchers and tax credits to fund private or parochial schools with public funds. She also supports legislation that would repeal the 2017 charter school law passed in Kentucky. Until the law is repealed, Tina said she “would require charter schools (and the companies that manage the charter schools) to be completely transparent regarding the spending of public money.” She is also against virtual and/or online charter schools.
Tina understands that when privatization schemes like charter and vouchers divert funds away from public education, it is the most vulnerable students that are the most severely impacted.
Tina does not have a challenger in the primary election, but needs your support for the general election on November 6, 2018. Please do everything you can to help Tina bring her knowledge and experience to Frankfort to ensure a high quality public education for all children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I am very much in support of a teacher running for a seat in Kentucky’s State Legislature. I’m a student aide working with special needs students in Northern California, and I know first-hand the unbelievable amount of physical and mental dedication these teachers give to their students. These teachers work from kindness, and a mindset of morality that every student deserves an equitable and equal public school education. These children whose parents depend on public schools to teach and develop their children education standards they can build a future on.
Privatization of public schools is not moral dedication to getting equity and equality in education to all students. It is another way for business to profit from tax-writeoffs which, in this case, involve the nation’s students. Teaching is a moral ambition; that is where the profession’s credibility lies, and no amount of rationalization from education corporations can alter that principle.
I think it’s about time the teaching profession had not just one but many of their own running for their state’s House of Reps. That is where legislation is created, and that is where the teacher’s voice can finally be heard. For me, making money from taxpayers’ efforts is an incredible sham. Taxpayers expect the money from their taxes that goes into public schools to be used to develop and further a quality and equal education for all students, no matter what their socio-economic level in society is. School remains the place for opportunity, for a future, for all students, and parents from these economic levels believe this. To tamper with that credibility in order to make a profit is immoral.
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I am ecstatic to hear that a teacher, especially one that is a special education teacher, is running for a seat in the senate. This is very important to me, especially after reading “Tina considered becoming a research professor, but realized that legislators seldomly read academic literature when making policy decisions. She decided to run for the legislature instead because having a voice on the floor and a vote will have more direct impact. She told NPE Action that her intention is to “bring the voice of a special education teacher to the floor of the state capitol to speak for public education”.
An active approach to changing out school systems is a giant step for educators. There are so many issues with the public school system and I am so happy to see that so many educators are finally taking the chance to fix it. Having a teacher with a voice in the senate will hopefully inspire so many more of us educators and future educators to follow suit and really bring on the change that is needed.
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