An Open Letter to Jay-Z

Dear Mr. Carter,

I want to first thank you for the amazing contributions you have made over the past five years towards the lessons I teach in my high school classroom. I've used "99 Problems" to discuss the need we all have to name our issues. When my students were learning about allusions, we spent a day studying "Empire State of Mind."  And, just this semester, I've been teaching the concept that words matter, that they have value, so when my Midwestern male high school students use the word SWAG over and over again in an effort to establish they have swagger, I remind them that you are the poster boy for swagger in part because you never need to say you have confidence or infuence. You have it, so people know you have it and, conversely, people know you have it because you do.

I read today that you recently told reporters you would be happy to pay higher taxes if the cause were a just one: education, children in poverty, etc. I impressed with your specificity here, making our poorest children and the intellectual concerns of our American children such an important piece of you life.

As a high school teacher (with a masters degree in my content area--English), I make less than $50k a year and am crippled by student loan debt. This letter, Mr. Carter is my way of asking your charity to start smaller.  No need to rush to the IRS to amend a return, there is a faster way to begin contributing to education.

I'm asking you to choose ten teachers from around the country who owe over $100k in student loans, and then you pay off their debt.  It would cost over a million dollars, but you would be guaranteeing decades of lower stress for people doing one of the country's most exhausting and thankless jobs.

I recognize that you are busy with your own child on the way, you are on the throne so many of us are watching, and I am certain you have many projects to address at this time. I only ask that, now, at the holidays, you consider giving a gift very few people are capable of giving. Give ten teachers their lives back, keep us from scrambling paycheck to paycheck, let us love what we do without that love crippling us financially.

Finally, you could have read anything else in the world today, but you read this from me, and I appreciate that.

---Ms. D