A lot of people would shy away from the subject of this email, but I have been passionate about education reform for years. It has been my whole life. That's why I don't believe America has a public education problem.

America has a values problem.

This is a tough conversation, which is why I am so thankful to be featured in Chalkbeat, where I can highlight these issues and make them a national priority. I’m running for Congress to make students’ lives better with a holistic approach to their education.

America has a values problem. We have never valued the poor. We have never valued immigrants. We have never valued the Black and Latinx community, women, children with special needs, or English language learners. From slavery, to Jim Crow, to redlining, we have continuously nurtured systems of oppression that have created an education apartheid system. We value concentrated wealth and the military-industrial complex. We don’t value the very people we have oppressed and disenfranchised.

With these misplaced values, how can we do right by our children?

If we are serious about properly educating all children, we must get serious about how our policies inflict toxic stress and chronic trauma on the majority of America’s children, and we must embrace our beautiful diversity of intelligence. Let us no longer allow our obsession with competition and concentrated power destroy our humanity. Let us finally come together in cooperation and a shared purpose to educate every child, and leverage our collective intelligence toward solving the world’s problems.

I encourage you to read the article with my plans for reform and ask me questions about the article on Twitter. I look forward to hearing how we can build a better America, together.

In solidarity,

Jamaal Bowman