Welcome to Austin, the capital of the great state of Texas.   Today, each of you is participating in making history.  The politicians of this state say that teachers are non-voters.  The politicians say that teachers are splintered and fragmented.  The politicians say that teachers cannot unite in order to achieve a common goal.  Yet we are here today----united as one group---to prove the politicians wrong.  We refuse to be divided. 

We are not here as members of No Texas Teacher Left Behind, TSTA, ATPE, TFT, or TCTA.  We are here because we are professional educators who have dedicated our lives to public education. We are here to notify the legislators and the governor that educators will make a difference in the 2006 elections. 

We will never forget the ones who punitively denied educators a better salary and well-deserved retirement benefits, even as those officials so easily enriched their own retirements and continued to receive free health care for themselves.

The Donna Howard victory----and her victory is a victory for all of us----is just the first of many more to come. Texas teachers will vote in record numbers to neutralize the power of millionaire Texans who have attempted to disenfranchise the middle-class voter.  Texas education is not for sale. 

Texas belongs to each of you, not just to the rich and powerful. Exercise your rights and vote in the upcoming elections for the candidates who will give us respect, vote for the candidates who will increase our salaries, vote for the candidates who will provide affordable healthcare…vote for the candidates who will improve our retirement benefits.   Vote for the candidates who put our children's educations first.

Power without a conscience breeds corruption, but wide awake school people can change the landscape of Texas politics. 

Teachers love children.  Teachers love teaching those children.   Yes, we want pay raises and better benefits, but more than these, we want the future of Texas public education to be secure.  The ultimate beneficiaries of our efforts will be the children of the state of Texas for generations and generations still to come. 

Those children are the most precious resource in our state.  More precious than a trip to the Bahamas, more precious than a no-new-taxes-pledge, more precious than countless unfunded mandates, more precious than a 65% spending rule, more precious than a Trans Texas Corridor,  more precious than a voucher movement.