Education is more than job training. We agree to educate all our children so that they may become productive citizens who maintain our grand experiment in government of, by, and for the people. Recent events threaten to turn us away from this work:

• Our nation is founded on the principle that we are to be governed by laws and not the changing whims of a particular leader. All that we at MIPFS work for — a quality education for all children — depends on the rule of law and a commitment to see that the laws are faithfully executed. The current efforts of our national government to suborn the law must end.
• Our people will not long remain free if we are never taught the whole of our own history. Current efforts to sanitize that history by fiat impoverish our children and threaten our democracy.
• Our future is at risk if we turn our backs on the effort to make real the promise of our nation’s founding. The cruel and sneering effort to suppress discussions of diversity, of equity, and of inclusion mocks our ideals and stunts the education of our children. Cynically doing so in the name of fighting discrimination is an affront to everything for which our nation stands.