Texans should take great pride in the Texas Capitol building and grounds. It is a stunning building — 11.64 feet taller than the U.S. Capitol, and it is a monument to democracy. Any citizen can enter the building, take a tour, participate in a hearing, visit a legislator, and watch our Legislature in action from the gallery. It is truly “The People’s” building, and it reflects our values as a society.
As a history nerd, I love walking around to see the many beautiful historical paintings and statues, hear about the political lore, and look at the many monuments on the Capitol grounds. We have many inspiring monuments like Heroes of the Alamo, Disabled Veterans, the Texas Cowboy, Pioneer Women, the Price of Liberty, African American History, Tejano and all kinds of military and war monuments, and many others. We even have a monument to Texas children in honor of the 70,000 who visit on field trips each year, which I love.
One monument is lacking from the grounds, though. There is no monument to public school teachers who accompany those children on those field trips and serve 5.5 million students each day.
In my opinion, as inspiring as the other monuments can be, I bet most everyone being honored had at least one inspiring teacher, probably many more, who encouraged them to the greatness we now honor. This lack of recognition for our teachers needs to change, don’t you think? Where would our state be if we didn’t have public school teachers? Where would we be without inspiring, competent teachers like those honored at our 2025 Texas Teacher of the Year awards luncheon?
In fact, Article 7 Section 1 of the Texas Constitution, written in 1876, says: “A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”
Who is responsible for the “diffusion of knowledge that is essential to preserving our liberties and rights?” Our public school teachers.
Now, I believe the best thing our Legislature could do to honor teachers is to support them by ensuring higher pay, and good benefits and working conditions. Give them the freedom, resources and support to be their best. It would be great if all our state leaders used their power and influence to remind people how important teachers are and the schools in which they work. No monument can take the place of that. But count me as one person who thinks that we can do both. A monument is society’s public demonstration of its values.
So is the state’s budget, and we are working on that, too.
Meanwhile, I have put in a call to the Texas State Preservation Board to see how we can get this done. Let me know if you want to help.
-TASA Executive Director Kevin Brown, Ed.D.
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