A while ago I attended a Republican campaign event at Reid Park. The three Republican candidates for city council were there, and each spoke. All spoke well, but Margaret Burkholder drew everyone’s attention away from their cheeseburgers and chips.
Her story highlighted lessons learned from childhood to her tenure on the Vail school board. When she was a child, she struggled with math. She told her mother that it was hard, and her mother said, “That’s OK, we’re not all good at math.” Lesson: Don’t offer a child an excuse. She always wanted to teach, so when heading off to college, she decided to major in education and history or language arts – none of which were mathematics. Everything was fine until her history professor told her not to major in history, but to major in math, explaining that there were plenty of history teachers but not enough math teachers. She said, “But I’m not good at math.” He said, “Why did you struggle?” She said, “Because I had a bad teacher.” He said, “Exactly.” Four years later, she graduated with a degree in education and mathematics. Lesson: If you are going to serve, fulfill the need, not your desires.
Burkholder served as a math teacher for ten years before taking time off to raise her children. During that time she was elected to the Vail school board. She became a member of the board that took the district from a rating of around the 50th percentile to numero uno. Then the board members identified the key targets that lead to success and offered the info to other districts. The school districts in the towns of Benson and Ash Forks adopted the practices and they excelled too.
At a later date, I asked her what her life was like growing up. As a military kid, Burkholder moved a lot attending eighteen different schools by the time she graduated high school. From the military, her father went to work for U.S. Customs and she lived along the southern border, mostly in the west. She met her husband, John, in college.
Having had no real home as a child, Burkholder values roots in a community. It is her underlying motivation for her candidacy. She would like to have a place in our community for her children and her children’s children. She sees an important role for grandparents in the lives of their grandchildren. She thinks about a couple, friends of her family, who, after having a beautiful wedding for their child, helped the couple pack to move to Texas where the jobs are. What will their grandparenting experience be? She wants Tucson to be a place where people – like her children – can sink those roots. She sees Tucson as becoming something other than that place.
I asked her what she would do upon assuming office. She said that she would “look at the budget”. She would prioritize spending on those things enumerated in the city charter, then look at the rest. When asked what she held as a vision for Tucson, she (not surprisingly) spoke of an “education pipeline” that ran from elementary education through college including an emphasis on J-TED type programs. Burkholder believes that education, including both vocational and higher education, will attract new business and help create more local businesses that will help lower poverty and generally support Tucson families.
She was approached a number of times by Republicans to run for the Ward IV council seat. She repeatedly refused. Finally, they said, “OK, if not you, who?” That’s when she took on the candidacy. Lesson: If you are going to serve, fulfill the need, not your desires.
This article appears in Oct 1-7, 2015.
Great story. I’m glad to see she’s running.
Great story. I’m glad to see she’s running.
One would hope, wouldn’t one, that a candidate for City Council, a long time resident of the community and already active in governance as a school board member, would have a bit more beef to offer when given the opportunity by a friendly interviewer to expand on her vision and goals. I’m delighted to know that Ms. Burkholder sees education as key to a better tomorrow. Mr. Hoffman might have asked her how education in Tucson — the direct responsibility of several school boards, on one of whom she has sat for ten years — can be improved while a Republican governor and legislature deny the importance of education by their actions. Will she as a member of the City Council of Tucson — the city the Republicans of the rest of Arizona either ignore or beat up on every chance they get — be able to get more money and better treatment for local education?
What has the current mayor and council done to improve education in Tucson? It’s much more than just funding. Doesn’t TUSD spend more on non classroom expenses than almost every other school district?
What has the current mayor and council done to improve education in Tucson? It’s much more than just funding. Doesn’t TUSD spend more on non classroom expenses than almost every other school district?
I get so tired of would-be politicians who plan to involve govt. in Tucson schools while seeking office in a position which has ZERO authority over the school systems and school finance. It is an ingenuous way to appeal to recent transplants from the East Coast where cities actually bear fiscal responsibility and authority over the schools. Our Mayor has done his possible by providing feet on the ground to bring dropouts back to school through persuasion. Shirley Scott has provided support for schools for the last twenty years by building public libraries, the Back to School Bash for students to receive free school supplies donated by private sources, and frequent donations to school groups seeking excellence. She is a frequent speaker at public schools. Shirley builds neighborhoods and works on making small businesses more possible, while at the same time supporting KIDCO which provides after school opportunities for kids who would be on the street otherwise. The city has reentered an agreement for SROs to help our schools be safe. That’s pretty much it, folks, under that famous city charter.
Margaret Burkholder is a bright and well-spoken woman. Her background would make so much more sense in an attempt to win a seat in the Legislature, where she could ACTUALLY show her ability to influence her party to improve education by properly funding it. She is silent as to her efforts to support public school funding and to influence the Republicans to do a better job on building an economy, or to improve the City of Tucson in its relations with the Legislation. That is the basis of what we should be voting for. This is not Margaret’s job.
20 years of building libraries and the Mayor has to go look for dropouts? Is there any connection there, or is it the ever changing TUSD? Weren’t they opening a law school in Santa Rita HS? How did that work out?
I was at this event and I’ve spoken to Margaret a few times , there is no doubt she will do good for Tucson. She has spoken on many other issues this interview was just one small fasit of her campaign . Scott has done nothing, I live right by the ward four office, the parks in the area have no playground equipment, the roads are terrible, and all the schools in the area have been closed. Scott did nothing to help the neighborhoods surrounding her office, our property values have gone down and families are leaving, Santa Rita High School will close soon, it is ignored by TUSD administration , we need real leadership , not Do Nothing Shirley .
I am getting along now in my years all my children have been educated in the Flowing Wells School system. All Attended college all have gone on to prosperous careers. My son @35 is a Vice President of a billion dollar a year company in Seattle Daughters have moved away for opportunities that we don’t have here anymore. Soon I will sell and move away to be closer to successful children regretting all the time of thinking I would finish my life here. But I am happy that so many can point a finger at the bogus republicans in PHX. When it’s been the representatives from Tucson that have sold the farm for special interests. We can go back all the way to co Supervisor ED Moore that had to bring suit over the disparity of the property tax formula and the representative said don’t cause an issue we will take care of it in session. Well what we have is what we get they will take care of it for us. Vote for the next bond election so they can be taken care of.
I am tired of those getting tired then QUIT!
Amen Robert. Tucson is on the verge of going under. And it had so much potential until the radical left stole it’s future.