THE STRATEGIES OF DAVID

We have heard the stories of David and Goliath. David’s strategy was to aim at Goliath’s one point of weakness, the spot on the giant that wasn’t armored.

The American school system was such a Goliath, heavily armored in layers of bureaucracy that resisted the calls for change. An education reformer and former New York City teacher said it best: “The American education system is broken, failing too many children,” according to John Taylor Gatto. Impersonal bureaucracies and cookie-cutter approaches left far too many children behind, particularly in America’s largest cities.

Gatto wrote that reform would take nothing less than “blowing up the system.” Fortunately, it didn’t come to that. It instead took the slingshots of passionate individuals driven with a singular purpose, “to provide educational opportunities for all children.” The proverbial stone in David’s sling was an idea so powerful that it built a nationwide network for educational change.

BIPARTISAN STRENGTH AND SINGULAR FOCUS

The Wisconsin Charter School Association represented every area of the state, every political faction and every network concerned with children and education. What gave this unfunded charter school movement strength at a time when there was no cash to buy political influence was simple: courage.

The sheer number of grandparents, parents, teachers, administrators, community groups and individuals together, all determined to put children’s lives first, made that difference. Our phone calling trees, faxes, and routine visits to state legislators’ offices made that difference. We didn’t need to be paid to do the right thing. It was simply the right thing to do!

Those of us in the charter school movement in the early 1990s raised our voices with such clarity of purpose and passion that lawmakers had no choice but to listen. We spoke with one voice and gave one message that was easy to understand: children in impossible educational systems deserved a way out.

Technology would create an opportunity to reach all legislators and leaders in a position to call for a vote on our legislation. The automatic fax dial-ups on our computers made hundreds, of supporters appear to be thousands of supporters, which then grew into tens of thousands of supporters overnight. The political muscle of the people (more specifically, parents and community leaders) was unwavering in the fight for the rights of children to have quality education.

The sincerity of parents who were fighting for the survival of their families could not be denied. No political need for power or control, no position of power or control, and no heavily funded union, association or political machine could stand up to the conviction of a family’s right to fight for its own survival. Education equates to survival for families whose children have fallen through the cracks of public schoolhouses.

State constitutions across this country guarantee every child’s “right to an education.” This political and legal argument became so powerful that it indeed swayed even the most reluctant politicians. Even those who dreaded the recourse from the union’s political action committee monies that would rain down against them, come election time.

And, as they say, “The rest is history.”  Today, Wisconsin has well over thirty thousand students in public charter schools—many of them in my own backyard.

Senn Brown, a lobbyist of the school board association, confirmed the importance of the vote and the changes in education law, as he whispered in my ear the day of the vote, “Terri, look what you have done! The charter school law is one of the most significant public school reforms in Wisconsin’s history.”

I had the honor of leading and being a part of one of the most important movements in the history of the state of Wisconsin—a civil rights movement to many, and my core conviction as a citizen leader. We had done it! Zero dollars to lobby politicians, and the results were priceless; we would touch countless families and future generations, even though we would never meet.

To continue reading this chapter, get your copy of “What Sex is a Republican in paperback or Kindle edition on Amazon.

About the Author:

Terri McCormick is an author, policy expert, educator, and former state representative to the Wisconsin State Legislature. Today, she offers her expertise in public and government relations through McCormick Dawson CPG Ltd., a trusted consultancy of independent contractors.

Ms. McCormick serves as president and CEO of the company, drawing from more than two decades of professional experience, a strong educational foundation, a host of industry-related publications, and a multitude of accolades, awards and formal recognitions. Holding a Master of Arts in administrative leadership from Marian University, and a Bachelor of Science in political science and public administration from the University of Wisconsin, Ms. McCormick received both degrees with high honors.

“What Sex is a Republican?” is sold on Amazon in both the paperback edition as well as Kindle edition.  Read reviews on Amazon here.

The source of resistance to change is human emotion. In the political environment, reaction and perception are reality.

COALITION BUILDING

Since the Charter School Association had no money, it was time to build a broad statewide coalition of integrity-driven citizen leaders. With uncertain support from politicians, we would need a multifront strategy.

My motivation was twofold: my passion to help children caught in ineffective educational systems, and the fact that time was running out on my commitment to Howard Fuller—six months was up at the end of the 1994 legislative session.

WASB

We managed to create a strong alliance from an unlikely source: the Wisconsin Association of School Boards (WASB). Admittedly, the WASB was a reluctant ally in the process of defining and writing laws for self-governing public charter schools. Due to the power of the teachers union, however, the WASB found itself at a crossroads.

Parents and administrators alike voiced the need for more public school options to meet the needs of their diverse school communities. It was this convergence of voices from all constituencies within school districts that empowered the superintendent’s ranks, which began to see public charter schools as a part of their arsenal in educating children who were underserved and struggling.

The support of public charter schools, however, came with a hefty personal and professional price. Back in 1994, the radical idea of “public charter schools” was a political hot potato. The Wisconsin Association of School Boards magazine told the story in an article titled “The Ten Who Dared.”

This denoted the ten superintendents who dared to step forward to support the public charter school alternative for their schools. Those ten superintendents would soon become the seven … and then the five … and then, ultimately, the three who dared, due to the overwhelming pressure and hard-ball politics played by the state’s largest teachers union.

The teachers union was a powerful lobby, garnering the support of legislators in my state who were motivated by fear and were then moved to inaction. Any attempt to effect change within the public school system was quickly quashed because the union itself had other ideas. Members didn’t want to, as they put it, “lose power and control” by adopting a charter school program.

There was so much political angst from union stewards that those teachers who dared to teach in a public charter school were punished. The common penalty was to lose all seniority within the public school system, and with that, they forfeited their pensions and benefits. Soon, teachers unions forced charter school teachers out of their retirement and benefits packages altogether. This was the price they paid for stepping outside the ranks of union protection. It was an overt attempt to strangle the public charter school movement.

In one case, a school administrator who had moved to Wisconsin from Colorado confided in me as a member of the Wisconsin Charter School Association. With more emotion than I usually heard from a grown man, he told me, “I can’t lose my job. I need to be able to feed my family.”

My response consisted of two words: “I understand.” As difficult as it was to see him go, I did understand, on a personal level, what he was going through.

“I am sorry,” he continued. “I have to drop out of the charter school movement.” He sounded tired and beaten. This was my first taste of the politics of fear and intimidation. This was the price a public school teacher or administrator would pay for supporting something as “radical” as public charter schools.

A PERSONAL PRICE

My children were subject to pressure and added criticism in their public elementary schools. Worse, I received a warning on my home phone, telling me, “Stop supporting these charters—or else.” Unshaken, I asked, “Or else what?” The voice on the other end of the phone pushed further. “Check underneath your car before strapping your children in their car seats.”

That is the price one pays for being a “change agent,” a “reformer.” It was a personal price, one that tested my convictions and my ability to see past the smokescreens and the fear tactics, even those introduced to my own children.

I had a choice to make—curl up in a ball and be a victim, or stand tall and continue to do the right thing. This was a difficult decision for me. Any number of fears ran through my mind as a parent of young children—guilt, panic, anger, indignation, remorse.

Incidents of intimidation were reported at my daughter Kellie’s elementary school. One such report occurred in the form of a personal phone call to me from another parent, who was volunteering at the front desk at Kellie’s school.

This parent was so disturbed by the treatment my daughter received that she phoned me at home. My immediate response was to get the principal on the phone—he clearly loved children, and I trusted him to verify for me what was happening in my daughter’s fifth-grade classroom.

The principal’s response was as follows: “Yes, Terri, Kellie’s desk has been pulled out of the row and pushed to the far back corner of the room.”

“Would you tell me if there are boxes on it and a plant, so that she may not even have a seat in her classroom?” I asked, wanting clarification of the report I had received.

“Yes,” he admitted, “there were boxes on her desk, and I removed them so she has a place to sit.” If the principal thought to pacify me with that statement, didn’t work.

“I am leaving my meeting, and I am driving directly to school so that we may chat,” I declared. Later, the principal and I discussed the options that lay before me: pull my children out of public school, confront the teacher, see to it that Kellie was not singled out for no reason again. This was a stupid act by a teacher who was either told to intimidate the child of the president of the Wisconsin Charter School Association, or it was a thoughtless act of a teacher who needed help.

After that incident, I consulted a close friend and colleague, who gave me the words that I needed to hear: “Intimidation by those who do not want change will continue, Terri. Are you willing to back away from what you know is important to so many children and let this continue?”

My children needed to know that they would be protected. And at the same time, they needed to know that we, as a family, would not back down to fear. Undaunted, I continued to lead the charter school movement through the passage of the public charter school bill, signed in 1996. More determined than before, I set out to impress upon the politicians that public charter schools had widespread support.

I appealed directly to the people of the state through editorial boards, letters to the editor and, most important, through the statewide network of faith-filled, heart-filled parents and families who were fighting for the survival of their children, students and communities.

Building a strong grassroots base of support was critical if we were to take on what was feared to be an unmoving union. The Wisconsin Charter School Association and its members met monthly and spoke via the Internet and on the telephone frequently, as challenges and crises intervened. Listening to the concerns and feedback of the charter school organizers from around the state, we created communication strategies that kept our organization energized and filled with hope.

To continue reading this chapter, get your copy of “What Sex is a Republican in paperback or Kindle edition on Amazon.

About the Author:

Terri McCormick is an author, policy expert, educator, and former state representative to the Wisconsin State Legislature. Today, she offers her expertise in public and government relations through McCormick Dawson CPG Ltd., a trusted consultancy of independent contractors.

Ms. McCormick serves as president and CEO of the company, drawing from more than two decades of professional experience, a strong educational foundation, a host of industry-related publications, and a multitude of accolades, awards and formal recognitions. Holding a Master of Arts in administrative leadership from Marian University, and a Bachelor of Science in political science and public administration from the University of Wisconsin, Ms. McCormick received both degrees with high honors.

“What Sex is a Republican?” is sold on Amazon in both the paperback edition as well as Kindle edition.  Read reviews on Amazon here.

CITIZEN LEADERS

It’s funny how an idea can turn quickly into a passion.

Throughout most of my professional and volunteer career, I have been hired because I have been considered a “change agent.” I became comfortable with the term in 1996, when Bill O’Brien, the former executive director of an Appleton Catholic school district, suggested that I work with middle-school students.

Creative and innovative, Bill O’Brien was looking for outside-the-box ideas in providing a curriculum for his financially strapped school district. More important, he had a class in one of his middle schools that had a reputation for chasing good teachers out of the teaching profession.

O’Brien recruited me, as he said, “because you just spent time getting the charter school law passed, and the teachers union is going to come after you like you cannot believe.”

(Charter schools operate with freedom from many of the regulations that apply to traditional public schools. The “charter” establishing each such school is a performance contract that details the school’s mission, program, goals, students served, methods of assessment and ways to measure success.)

I knew O’Brien was right, as he went on, “We need you for these kids, and be honest—you need us right now.”

With Appleton newspaper headlines such as “McCormick to Ruin Public Education with Controversial Charter School Law,” I couldn’t deny a word he was saying. Neither the teachers union, nor reporters with family members inside that union, was pleased with the change in the traditional education. A target was clearly on my back as the founder of public charter schools.

O’Brien went on, “If anyone can reach these kids, you can!” As he appealed to my need to make a difference, I couldn’t say no. I had ideas—it seemed like I could think my way out of most challenges that life dropped on my doorstep.

I would write a leadership curriculum to empower students, rather than simply talk at them. The ideas came one after the other—communications skills, speaking, decision making. I would give to those students a recipe for leadership. Through a series of leadership classes, I would find myself healing through my new career as a teacher and then a student of administration. It would take time to heal from the “charter wars,” as they were called.

START WITH VOLUNTEERISM ON THE LOCAL LEVEL

In the early 1990s, I was recruited to chair a new Citizens Advisory Council for the Appleton Public School District. My children attended the public primary school down the street, so I believed it was my responsibility to give of my time to the public school district. Education, as luck would have it, became one of the hottest policy issues of the day. It attracted intense emotion and passion in our local community. Parents understood that the stakes were high; their children’s futures were on the line.

At the same time, the business community struggled with finding an adequate workforce—one that was literate. Community growth and livelihood hung in the balance. Through the countless meetings, subcommittee meetings and phone calls, I began to find patterns in what parents, administrators and school board members were saying. That pattern was literacy; specifically, learning differences. Children with dyslexia, scotopic sensitivity (another visual perception issue) and other remedial learning differences were being left behind.

Parents phoned me looking for help: “My child cannot read.” It didn’t matter the age or the IQ, these children were not learning to read and comprehend.

There were plenty of labels floating around to explain the phenomenon of nonliterate educated students. Some of those labels sent chills up my spine: learning disabled, emotionally disordered, troubled family, at risk, low socioeconomic background, divorced parents, trouble at home. It was fascinating to me that the phrase dyslexic or scotopic sensitivity or any other method-specific learning difference was not mentioned.

It was as though my mother’s teacher in that one-room schoolhouse in northern Minnesota was tapping me on the shoulder, saying, “What are you going to do about it?” By 1992 I had been accepted into the education certificate program at Lawrence University. Encouraged by independent and gifted professor Ken Sager, I began what was to lead me to become one of the state’s founders of the charter school movement.

My background and credentials in public policy, international relations and foreign policy were meaningless. I now needed to start over. I would need education credentials if I were to be taken seriously as an educator and education researcher. Soon after finishing my education coursework and obtaining my credentials, I began tutoring children and adults with dyslexia, dysgraphia (deficiency in the ability to write) and scotopic sensitivity.

New patterns emerged through the research I was conducting through Educational Services, Inc., an educational research and developmental foundation. The findings were significant, and they were independently validated by neuropsychologists and specialeducation professionals. Dramatic improvement became measurable and confirmed with independent testing in the education community.

Children and adults began to thrive with methods then not available in public schools. The overarching conclusion was this: the methodology and curriculum changes introduced to the students who had been referred to me meant the difference between success or failure in school.

By 1993, parents and school board members in both public and parochial school systems began to see me as someone in whom they could confide—or maybe someone who could at long last give them hope.

Their stories were similar: “My son (or daughter) is smart, but he (or she) can’t read.” It didn’t matter if the child was seven or seventeen with a high IQ. The notion of learning differences in a one-size-fit sall school system was going against the grain of accepted educational research in the traditional schoolhouse.

The public-school parents I encountered were increasingly concerned with not having a voice in choosing the right teacher and educational fit for their children’s needs. I was asked to sit on educational assessment panels on all levels of K–12 education. One such instance provided a similar theme—a bright young man who tested at the top end of the intelligence quotient, with tremendous talent in music and art, was labeled as “difficult” by his high school teachers. My work with this gifted young man on the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test and phonemic awareness tests showed a cause for his being “difficult”—he was not only highly intelligent, but he was extremely dyslexic as well.

(He was in good company: Albert Einstein, stock broker Charles Schwab, and Thomas Edison were all dyslexic.) The new question became: “Is the traditional school system capable of change?” I was willing to hand over two years of research, study and materials that had been field-tested and pilot-tested to the public school system. For the sake of those children with learning differences who were underserved, I gathered my curriculum and research from Harvard, the Orton Foundation, the Neihaus Foundation, the Scottish Rite Hospital for Children and Learning Labs, and the International Irlen Centers for one purpose: I was determined to give away what I had learned so that children in the public schools could succeed.

I arranged a meeting with the area superintendent of schools, Tom Scullen. This man had retired from a similar position in Illinois but came out of retirement. He was either a man who had not had the ability to fulfill his dreams in his home state of Illinois, or he needed a second retirement plan; my guess was the former.

He was a roundfaced, white-haired fellow with a patient expression. He listened silently to my offer of giving the research and information I’d gathered, free of charge. Dr. Scullen agreed that the multisensory methods used at the Neihaus Education Center in Houston were classic methods from the Orton Foundation and would help tremendously in the remediation of learning differences.

“Terri, there is no doubt that what you have accomplished is accurate,” Dr. Scullen affirmed. “But … but … the methods are too teacher-intensive, and I doubt that I can get them through the teachers union.” He went on to say, “There is nothing I can do with that kind of resistance,” and then, in order to try to placate me, Dr. Scullen added, “When I was in Illinois I tried everything from at-risk programs to talented and gifted programs—you name it. We will not be able to get these methods into the classrooms.”

As I sat in shock and disbelief, I knew there was a way to provide more options for children and families who found themselves held captive by programs and methods that did not work well enough to teach children the fundamental skill of literacy.

To continue reading this chapter, get your copy of “What Sex is a Republican in paperback or Kindle edition on Amazon.

About the Author:

Terri McCormick is an author, policy expert, educator, and former state representative to the Wisconsin State Legislature. Today, she offers her expertise in public and government relations through McCormick Dawson CPG Ltd., a trusted consultancy of independent contractors.

Ms. McCormick serves as president and CEO of the company, drawing from more than two decades of professional experience, a strong educational foundation, a host of industry-related publications, and a multitude of accolades, awards and formal recognitions. Holding a Master of Arts in administrative leadership from Marian University, and a Bachelor of Science in political science and public administration from the University of Wisconsin, Ms. McCormick received both degrees with high honors.

“What Sex is a Republican?” is sold on Amazon in both the paperback edition as well as Kindle edition.  Read reviews on Amazon here.

A strict adherence to a core set of values and principles, incorruptibility is the standard for journalistic integrity of which the citizen/voter and candidate should be intimately aware.

In today’s society of instantaneous communications via blogs and the Internet, we must all guard against journalists who are tempted to forego the following values and principles by way of self-interest and greed. According to the Society of Professional Journalists, the ethical standard of professionalism is to “seek truth and report it.

Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering reporting and interpreting information.” Personal agendas and conflicts of interest are not only barriers to honesty and integrity in public office, but they also can be barriers to integrity-driven journalists as well.

It is the citizen’s right and responsibility to hold local newspapers, radio news journalists, television news journalists, and news agencies reporting on the Internet accountable for violating the public trust in this regard. Realize that bloggers represent their own interests and are not credible, reliable or subject to the ethics code below.

The Society of Professional Journalists’ preamble and highlights from their Code of Ethics are below:

Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of journalists is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Journalists shall serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility. Members share a dedication to ethical behavior and adopt this code to declare the Society’s principles and standards of practice.

• Seek Truth and Report It. Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information. This includes tests for accuracy. Always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity; never distort or mislead and avoid surreptitious methods of gathering information; distinguish between advocacy and news reporting; distinguish news from advertising and shun hybrids; recognize the special obligation to ensure the public’s business is conducted in the open.

• Minimize Harm. Ethical journalists treat sources, subjects and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect. Journalists should show compassion for those affected adversely by news coverage; pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance. Private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than do public officials and those seeking office.

• Act Independently. Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know. Journalists should avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived; remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility; refuse gifts; disclose unavoidable conflicts; deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage; be wary of sources offering information for favors or money.

• Be Accountable. Journalists should clarify and explain news coverage and invite dialogue with the public over journalistic conduct; encourage the public to voice grievances about the news media; admit mistakes and correct them promptly; expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media; abide by the same high standards to which they hold others.

Journalists, just as public officials, have a responsibility to the general public for ethical behavior. Integrity principles apply to all citizens, candidates and the media. Strict adherence to a core set of ethical principles, outlined above, provides the rules of engagement for the “fourth branch of government”—the press.

Citizen leaders—know your rights and responsibilities under the U.S. Constitution as they relate to freedom of the press and the first amendment, shield laws, and constitutional protections and the right to privacy, relative to the press. Tabloid journalists, bloggers and Internet voices—please know that constitutional rights and responsibilities apply to your form of media as well as to journalists.

At a time when competing sources for news and information is delivered in real time to Americans via the Internet, BlackBerries and iPhones, it is all too tempting to take shortcuts with the ethical standards listed above. It has been said that knowledge is power; it is hoped that ethical standards, as applied equally to citizens, candidates and the press, will ensure integrity leadership in getting our government back on track.

To continue reading this chapter, get your copy of “What Sex is a Republican in paperback or Kindle edition on Amazon.

About the Author:

Terri McCormick is an author, policy expert, educator, and former state representative to the Wisconsin State Legislature. Today, she offers her expertise in public and government relations through McCormick Dawson CPG Ltd., a trusted consultancy of independent contractors.

Ms. McCormick serves as president and CEO of the company, drawing from more than two decades of professional experience, a strong educational foundation, a host of industry-related publications, and a multitude of accolades, awards and formal recognitions. Holding a Master of Arts in administrative leadership from Marian University, and a Bachelor of Science in political science and public administration from the University of Wisconsin, Ms. McCormick received both degrees with high honors.

“What Sex is a Republican?” is sold on Amazon in both the paperback edition as well as Kindle edition.  Read reviews on Amazon here.

I have been asked, “Why did you choose politics?”

In truth, I didn’t. Politics chose me.

My parents both came from families that served in office and as citizen leaders. We were encouraged to talk about the issues of the day; the threat of nuclear war, the Vietnam War, and heroes coming home from the war and those who didn’t make it home.

Everything from UNICEF and world hunger to the price of gasoline and home-heating costs was shared in conversations at the dinner table; even as children, our own voices, convictions and solutions emerged.

My family was like most others in the 1970s. We coped as a family when my brother and father reached their maximums in their health insurance coverage. We all knew the cost of out-of-pocket payments for physicians and hospital expenses. We just assumed that hard work and getting a good education would improve our lives and prospects for the future.

It was this mindset that carried us forward as a family, generation after generation.

Sobering for me, at a very young age, was the realization that death was a part of life. It was the life-altering situations that I faced as a young girl that would frame my view and value of family. My father underwent a series of operations and illnesses before I finished grade school. Yet I don’t remember a day that my father was without his contagious smile or kind words. His northern Minnesota accent carried a hint of an Irish flare when he would recite his stories and sing the ballads of Ireland—“Sweet Molly O’Grady” or “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” all presented in an off-key voice, brazen with optimism and hope.

He and my mother were older than most parents in those days. Dad grew up in a single-parent household with his mother, a former schoolteacher. Grandpa McCormick made it home from WWI and built a business with his dad but died in the influenza epidemic four years later. Both of my parents were children during the Great Depression and came of age during World War II. My mother spoke of Churchill as her hero. As a young girl, she helped her mother with the farm and her sewing business. History unfolded on the radio for our greatest generation. “The only thing to fear is fear itself,” Mom would recite to us when we paused or hesitated as children.

The reality of the effect of World War II hit home for me as my mother recounted the young men in her high school class who had gone off to war. One such story centered around the impact that the Lindbergh family had in northern Minnesota. Charles Lindbergh, the famous aviator, grew up down the road from my grandmother.

It was a few years earlier when the world stood still for the first Atlantic flight of the Spirit of St. Louis. With the stories fresh in the minds of these young high school graduates and friends of my mother’s, there was a clamor to join the fight early and sign up across the Canadian border with the Royal Air Force (RAF). My mother’s voice often caught in her throat as she shared with me that none of them came home.

My mother’s history unfolded around her memories of the Great Depression and World War II on the farm in northern Minnesota. It is with a sweet sense of poetry that the last gift I would receive from my mother was, in a literal sense, what she had given me all of my life.

I was in my third year in the Wisconsin state legislature in 2003 and would return home with a full calendar of meetings with my constituents and groups back in the district. Meetings were scheduled over the course of weekend events—Friday, Saturday and Sunday that often floated into Mondays. This left very little time for my own family. It was at our last breakfast together before my mother was diagnosed with aggressive cancer that she would be insistent on giving me her surprise.

“I have something for you, and I’d like to give it to you soon,” she told me excitedly on the phone.

We met at a Perkins restaurant near her apartment in Kimberly, on the east side of Appleton. I could see that she wasn’t feeling very well; her eyes were dim as she struggled to get up to hug me.

“Mom, are you doing all right? I am sorry that I haven’t called. It has been so difficult to fit everything in these days.”

“Never mind, Terri. I have more clippings for you from the newspapers. My neighbors at the apartment building are clipping them whenever they see your picture in the paper,” she said with a smile. After we finished our lunch and it was time to go, she pulled out a package from her large purse. “I mentioned that I have something for you,” she said with a heartfelt smile.

“Mom, you really don’t need to get me things,” I told her.

I worried about her ability to cover basic costs for rent, food and prescription drugs. Then I opened the package and found a book with a title so significant and meaningful, I cherished its significance—it was a book of quotes from my mother’s hero, Winston Churchill, appropriately titled Courage.

“Carry it with you in your briefcase in the capitol,” she said. “You never know when you will need it to bring light to the dark corners in that place.”

This rich family history and the personal struggles of our family provided the backdrop for my interest in public service. It was Dad who encouraged me, early in my life, to get involved in a political campaign for his friend and neighbor, state assemblyman Rep. Earl McEssy. “We need good people in politics, Terri,” he’d told me, “men and women who care about something bigger than themselves.” And it was my mother who gave me a book about courage to strengthen my convictions while in public office.

Whether through tragedy or hardship, in fighting the Civil War, carving out a frontier, fighting in the Great War, overcoming the Great Depression, or making it home from the war, the tragedies and opportunities of this spirit have shaped me and my family. The joy and laughter of my childhood embraces my soul and provides me strength today. It is this foundation of family and ethnic spirit on which I pin my children’s hopes and dreams.

To continue reading this chapter, get your copy of “What Sex is a Republican in paperback or Kindle edition on Amazon.

About the Author:

Terri McCormick is an author, policy expert, educator, and former state representative to the Wisconsin State Legislature. Today, she offers her expertise in public and government relations through McCormick Dawson CPG Ltd., a trusted consultancy of independent contractors.

Ms. McCormick serves as president and CEO of the company, drawing from more than two decades of professional experience, a strong educational foundation, a host of industry-related publications, and a multitude of accolades, awards and formal recognitions. Holding a Master of Arts in administrative leadership from Marian University, and a Bachelor of Science in political science and public administration from the University of Wisconsin, Ms. McCormick received both degrees with high honors.

“What Sex is a Republican?” is sold on Amazon in both the paperback edition as well as Kindle edition.  Read reviews on Amazon here.