How to Encourage Your (Less Political) Friends To Get Out for Allison

Do It the Easy Way – With a Cheat Sheet!

Allison LogoAlright, you’re convinced that Allison is the credible candidate for you. So how can you help right away? Talk to your friends and acquaintances. Now, they might not be as politically sophisticated as you are, or even of the same political persuasion. Doesn’t matter. This Cheat Sheet will help you raise awareness about Allison and the importance of this election, but without causing offense, and while making you sound real smart. Here we go:

  • This is not just a big school district – it’s a Big Deal
    LAUSD has over 650,000 students. Its budget of over $6B is larger than several US states. Which pretty much makes an LAUSD board position more critical than that of many governors. Never thought of it that way, did you? Throw in the impact that good choices can make on the futures of so many children, and it matters. It matters that we vote, and it matters who we choose.
  • This is no ordinary election: it could change the balance of power
    Special interests have dominated the board, obstructed reform, and kept children’s interests form being considered first. Winning this election could tilt the board in favor of those who are committed to putting parents and children first. If we choose wisely. Allison is beholden to no special interest, and has a history of standing up for the interests of students from all over Los Angeles.
  • Allison is the Only Candidate with Real and Successful Experience
    Allison has balanced an education budget; stabilized and focused a fractious, dysfunctional school board; successfully negotiated a student-first relationship with an arm of the UTLA; and developed policies and procedures to make a high performance school run well. And she’s the only one with ground-level experience promoting diversity and fairness for all our kids.
  • Allison is a parent who has put three of her own kids through LAUSD
    Allison knows what it’s like to entrust your child to a huge, impersonal bureaucracy that often doesn’t seem to put children first. It can be scary. It doesn’t have to be.
  • Allison believes in supporting ALL models of PUBLIC schools
    Despite what you may have read in some of those nasty political mailers, Allison believes the job of the board is to become EXCELLENT at supporting ALL students in ALL types of schools. She is vehemently against privatization, vouchers, or for that matter, Betsy DeVos.
  • Allison is the Best Cross-Party Choice
    Allison is a pragmatist who believes in fiscal responsibility; facing budget problems now; and supporting all school models. Having demonstrated these qualities in the real world, she’s a candidate you can back if you lean conservative. Meanwhile, her relationship-developing negotiations with teachers, and her experience bringing quality education to children from all different backgrounds and neighborhoods, should excite your more liberal impulses. What we need is common sense, experience, and hard work. 
  • The Board Needs to Earn Back the Respect of Voters
    The recent history of the board is too much bickering, to much special interest, too much focus on trivial matters, and not enough attention given to parents and kids. Voters who pay for the system deserve a board that is responsive and a district that works.
  • Ordinary Folk Like Us Don’t Vote Enough In These Elections
    And so our children get the short end of the deal. It’s our own fault. We’ve been sitting on our hands for too long. If parents and the ordinary folk who foot the district bill will actually commit to voting, we win.
  • It’s So Easy To Actually Vote
    Some states make it hard to vote for candidates like Allison, who’ll shake things up. Not California. Let’s do this.

Well, that’s it. Now you’re fully armed. What do you do next?

  • Print out this Cheat Sheet (pdf), which contains all the above information, and give it to your friends, acquaintances and amiable-looking passers-by. Make sure you have copies on you when you go to Starbucks.
  • Call people on that telephone. That smartphone of yours does many things, including allowing you to talk, person-to-person-like. And with your considerable personal magnetism, that may be the best way to support the best candidate. Keep your cheat sheet close at hand when you do.
  • Send an email out to your friends and acquaintances. You can cut and paste the above or attach the pdf for their edification. Or you can just link them to this page.
  • Tweet one idea from the above at a time. It’ll keep the suspense rolling for your readers. 
  • Add to your Facebook feed. Your Facebook friends will admire your savoir-faire.
  • Stand on a soapbox in a public place, and read the above out loud. Sorry, we don’t presently have a source of supply for soapboxes.