The Denton County Democratic Party hosted a Friday breakfast fundraiser for state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor on the Nov. 4 general election ballot.
During her brief campaign appearance in Denton, Van de Putte promoted her policy positions on reducing high-stakes testing in public schools, increasing funding for public schools and making Texas a better place for women.
“It’s education,” Van de Putte told a crowd of 40 people gathered at the home of Rudy and Rosemary Rodriguez. “It’s health care. It’s the environment. People have decided to give Democrats a second look because guess what, all we want is what most Texans agree on.”
Texans agree that education policy and practice should be decentralized to give more power back to classroom teachers, she said. The focus should be on critical thinking skills and creative reasoning instead of on test-taking skills, she added. State funding also should be increased for students who want to attend a community college or technical school, she said.
“You know the opportunities for the future can be built today,” said Van de Putte, a veteran lawmaker and San Antonio pharmacist. “But not if you have candidates and leaders whose only answer is ‘No.’”
Van de Putte is opposed by state Sen. Dan Patrick, a Republican businessman from Houston. They are vying to see who will replace Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. The lieutenant governor’s main job is presiding over the state senate.
Van de Putte said Patrick has voted against funding pre-kindergarten programs in Texas and against providing veterans with opportunities to start their own businesses as part of a veteran job program.
“[Patrick was] the only ‘no’ vote in the senate,” she said. “And when I asked him, I said, ‘Dan, what gives? This is a program that helps veterans. It’s a job program.’ And he said, ‘I’m voting against everything that expands government. We need to strip government, not expand it.’ I said, ‘it’s three employees.’”
Today that job program has helped 1,600 soldiers start a business and get access to capital, according to Van de Putte.
During recent debates, Patrick has painted Van de Putte as a free-spending liberal who supports abortion rights and who is not tough enough on border security.
But Van de Putte is stressing giving women more rights in Texas.
“[Patrick] says ‘no’ to women all the time,” Sen. de Putte said. “He said if he’s lieutenant governor, he would not even allow an ‘equal pay for equal work’ bill to come to the senate floor.”
Van de Putte recalled that Patrick also had voted against a non-controversial bill — supported by Republicans and Democrats — that extends a statute of limitations on when women can file lawsuits after discovering they may have been victims of discrimination. He also voted against providing funds to reduce the backlog of rape-kit tests that some critics say keep sex crimes from being prosecuted.
“It’s this pattern of thinking that it’s okay that somehow women are valued less,” she said. “So I have to win this race for the future generations. I want to make sure they have those opportunities.”
The audience, many associated with public education, cheered Van de Putte as she spoke.
Sylvia Sosa is a retired teacher who taught for 30 years. She calls herself a “late bloomer.” This means she stayed home to raise kids and returned to school later in life.
Like many in the audience, Sosa agreed with giving the classroom back to the teachers. At the time she taught school, teachers controlled the classroom and enhanced learning by using everyday items such as candy and food to teach math, or used personal experiences from children’s lives to teach history and English.
“I would teach the lesson,” Sosa explained, “and prove to them how it works.”
One of the many examples Sosa provided involved a student whose dog died. When it was time for the math lesson, she’d use dogs to teach fractions. Then she’d teach history, using the dog’s origin as a starting point. For English, she asked students to write how they felt about the dog’s death and explain why it affected them.
“In other words, we were teaching them the lesson and compassion,” she said. “We need to let teachers close the door.”
