Care About Latino Kids? You Must Vote for Marshall Tuck. Here’s Why:

05Nov
by Alma V. Marquez

For fifteen years, I have worked closely with Marshall Tuck to improve public education in California. There is no one more committed to our kids and no stronger ally and advocate for our children running for State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Our kids desperately need Marshall Tuck to be elected tomorrow.

He has been one of the most incredible leaders and allies of our community in this work for each minute of the FIFTEEN years that I have known him. Do you hear me? EACH MINUTE of those fifteen years!!!!!

And many Democrats are lying and trying to align my dear friend and Compadre Marshall Tuck in the struggle for educational equity with Trump and Devos. Why? Because they’re lazy and want to demonize him. Because they want to protect the messed-up school system that worries more about protecting systems more than protecting students. And yes, some of those systems protect bad teachers at the expense of the hard working and committed teachers who work magic each and every single day.

There’s a lot of politics behind this including why the CA Teachers Association is trying to demonize him and even went so far as to BOO him at the CA Democratic Convention so no one could hear what he was saying. Why? Because he’s speaking the truth about schools and how bad they are doing. According to the Education Trust West’s research which was compiled in “The Majority Report,” not one county in CA has Latino kids proficient in reading or math. Not one county. Where is the rage and outcry over that systemic failure?

Marshall is the only candidate who has expressed outrage about this data.

Marshall Tuck is a strong Democrat and the kind of Democrat we need in education. In 2007, he supported me 100% to become the California Latino Vote Director for Obama.  He knew that President Obama shared our values for high quality public schools and should be elected. I’m so proud to know that President Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan endorsed Marshall recently. Dime con quien andas, y to dire, quien eres.

When I was out there advocating for undocumented students as VP of Green Dot Public Schools, it was because Marshall, my boss, gave me the green light and the budget to do it. No one in public schools stood up for our kids like we were- Marshall, Steve Barr, Dan Chang and me. We did it because it was the right thing to do and we were alone with just a few good leaders like the late Marco Firebaugh, his right hand, my dear friend Ricardo Lara who is running for Insurance Commissioner and someone I respect very much, in addition to then Senator Gilbert Cedillo. Marshall was steadfast is his commitment to kids, raised money and most of all, raised awareness about the injustice that Dreamers faced. This was before supporting Dreamers was accepted by the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party establishment were cowards and tried to silence us when we were out there advocating for the Dream Act.

When I decided to start La Comadre: Our Children, Our Legacy, three years ago, it was Marshall who I called first. Legit. The first call. He supported me 100%. He’s always been one of the most important thought partners in my life. And if you know me, you know I don’t allow rasquache in my energy field. So, I hope you understand what I’m saying when I say that he is my BROTHER.

In this work, we need allies. And sometimes those allies don’t come in the same ethnic background as we do. Marshall is a white man who grew up with privilege that his race and gender gives him. I’m a brown woman who grew up in a very low-income community.  But when I see him, I see the most committed Latino in a white man’s body. Better said, I see the hundreds of low income Latinas and Black women who trusted him with their children when we couldn’t even tell them where the schools we were building would be. I see them walking in Marshall. He has always used his standing to help our children.

When you see him, I want you to see my heart in his. Because my heart is absolutely his heart.

He carries love for our kids, for our future, deep in his heart. And that’s what we need in elected office. We need leaders who have both a brain and a heart for STUDENTS FIRST.

We need leaders who aren’t just positioning for their next elected office like his opponent Tony Thurmond has. He has run for 6 elected offices in 13 years. He is indebted to those special interests who fund his campaigns. Those special interests are not students. Even the San Francisco Chronicle, said about Thurmond, on April 2, 2018, he is  “A legislator who won’t stand up to the status quo when it counts does not belong in charge of the state Department of Education.”

We need a champion for Latino children in Sacramento. Marshall Tuck will be that champion! And I know because I have seen him consistently be that champion for the last 15 years of our lives.

And that’s why I’m asking you to please vote for Marshall Tuck for Superintendent of Public Instruction. Please ask your friends and family to vote for Marshall Tuck too. Marshall for our mijos and mijas!

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Alma V. Marquez

Alma V. Marquez is the founder of LaComadre.org and is the founder and CEO of Del Sol Group, a communications and public affairs firm focusing on Strategy, Outreach and Leadership in Education, Voter and Civic Engagement. She specializes in parent education, politics and community organizing. She is a proud product of California public schools. She is a graduate of Huntington Park High School in Southeast LA. She also completed her all of credit recovery classes at Maxine Waters Occupational Center in Watts in order to graduate from high school. She attended East LA College and transferred to Occidental College where she earned a Bachelor's degree in English and Comparative Literary Students and Politics. She earned a Master of Arts Degree in Urban Planning at UCLA. Her daughter is a junior in a charter school, chartered by LAUSD. She decided to start the LA Comadre blog because she wanted to create a platform for Latinas and education.

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