James Talarico

Going into this, when I first decided to run, I was 28, had never run for anything before.

How old are you now?

36.

I just turned 36.

And I was, like I said, a former teacher, so I didn't know about how to run for office.

Well, so I was a teacher on the west side of San Antonio, which is, for your listeners who are in San Antonio, the west side is this beautiful, historic neighborhood, Mexican-American neighborhood.

It's also one of the poorest zip codes in the whole state of Texas.

So every day I saw my students struggling to overcome poverty and these systems that were designed to hold them back.

And the school I was at was...

It was Title I school.

I taught 45 kids in one classroom, and the classroom was not that much bigger than the studio.

So you can imagine 45 kids in here.

I literally had kids sitting on the air conditioning unit because there weren't enough desks.

I mean, this is the 21st century in the United States of America.

And it pissed me off.

I mean, I...

So I had one student, I was a first year teacher.

What happens in schools, especially schools in high poverty neighborhoods where things are really hard, you know, the administration of the school will oftentimes give the kids who need the most help, the kids who have the most troubles to the first year teachers, right?

Almost like a hazing thing.

So I remember my first year of teaching, my principal told me that I was going to get this kid named Justin who had gotten kicked out of his elementary school the year before because he had brought a knife to school and threatened to stab his fifth grade teacher.