Josh Carter Failed a Student

Josh Carter, who recently added Guerra to his last name, is a candidate for the Montwood feeder pattern on Socorro ISD. Now full disclosure, I seriously hate the incumbent Hector Gonzalez. He’s a self-hating racist, homophobe, anti-immigrant Republican extremist. 

But as bad as Gonzalez is for the district, Carter is worse. 

Let me explain why. 

At least with Gonzalez, you know what you’re getting. 

Carter drives me nuts, so this is gonna take awhile so be patient. 

Walk with me…

Josh Carter was part of a mentorship program that is part of an initiative of the office of State Board of Education District 1 Member Georgina Perez. The program is an initiative that is purposely not meant for the all-star students in the top ten in their class. Those kids are gonna be fine and will have no trouble getting into good schools for college. 

Perez’s program is geared toward that “C” student, who has huge potential but is probably dealing with a range of barriers to success that other students don’t have to deal with. Perez likes to help those students because no one else does. I’ll explain why a little later. 

Anywho, Josh Carter was assigned a student. I won’t give the kid’s name, but he had a particular rough set of circumstances. He just lost his dad in a freak farm accident and was from out in a rural area. 

Perez entrusted the kid with a mentor she thought would be beneficial to the young man. Now let me make a quick sidebar here. Perez spends a lot of time recruiting mentors into the program. She tries to get the best folks in the field she can find. She’s constantly on them to make sure they are keeping up with they mentees and that they understand the commitment they are making. She really tries to make sure that she connects students with the very best people in the field they want to pursue. 

Cream of the crop people from all sectors, government, non-profits, journalists, business, scientists, etc. 

She puts a lot of effort in it because these are kids that you can’t fail. They’ve had other people fail them in their life before. These kids are barely squeaking by and being in a mentorship program like this is often their only chance of making it into college or that next big step in their lives. The stake are high and you just can’t afford to fail these kids.

Well Josh Carter failed this young man. The poor kid was never called or contacted by Josh Carter. He was left hanging. No explanation given. 

Nothing. 

He just got ghosted by a guy who now wants you to vote for him to put him on the school board after he’s already demonstrated that he’ll fail a student. 

But despite Josh Carter I-recently-added-Guerra’s failure to meet his commitment to the student, Perez found another mentor for the student. 

Its not the kid’s fault that Josh Carter failed him, so Perez wasn’t going to leave that boy hanging. 

Let me explain why Perez takes this program so seriously. She didn’t have an easy life. She grew up in the system. She bounced from family member to family member, foster home to foster home, during her formative years. She was emancipated in her teens and worked to afford her own apartment while she attended Eastwood. 

Be honest, how much trouble would all of us have been in if we were on our own in high school with our own place? Well, Perez finished school and went on to college. Thats why she cares so much about the kids that aren’t the “A” students on the fast track to college. 

Now again, full disclosure - I’ve worked with Josh Carter. When I worked for Commissioner Perez he was working with State Rep Mary Gonzalez. We had a waste water project that we all worked on in Montana Vista. Josh was by far the laziest worker I ever came across - and that is saying a lot for government work.

His colleague in the office, who was a single mother of two girls and lived all the way out in Fabens, worked her ass off. She didn’t mind putting in the long hours, doing the physically demanding work, getting her hands dirty, and trust me inspecting waste water systems in Montana vista is about as nasty of a job as you can imagine. 

Josh however couldn't’ be bothered to get his little hands dirty. First chance he got to bounce, he took it, leaving all the work to his colleague. I always thought it was culo how a single guy with no family obligations would stand by and get out-worked like that. No team spirit. No understanding of what it is like to juggle family and work, so he constantly left his coworker hanging. 

Unless there was a camera around. He loves to be in pictures. 

And if you’ve ever been on Carter’s FB page, you know the vato loves to poverty pimp. 

And that shit REALLY gets on my nerves.  The Montwood area is kind of the westside of the eastside. Its a wealthy community. The Loya family lives there. In fact when you go see the lights in their neighborhood, you park at Montwood High School. Nobody in the Montwood area grew up suffering, I’ll put it that way. 

So naturally a guy like me who grew up poor really resents seeing a guy like Carter poverty-pimp on his social media. He’s that guy that whenever he does anything for someone else, makes sure there’s some documentation of it on social media. He wants people to know when he does something for someone less fortunate. 

Like I said, poverty pimping.

Here’s an example in this screenshot, where he pats himself on the shoulder for all the great charity work he does and he has the audacity to talk about mentoring kids. Funny, you don’t see the kid he flaked out on in that picture.   

And he has the audacity to talk about how every child deserves to be fought for? Where was that fight for the student entrusted to your mentorship you brag about so much?

"Its not about me, its about we..." Said the guy that is poverty-pimping.

So again, full discourse - I think Dr. Melissa Ortega is the best candidate in the race. She’s an accomplished Latina leader, with her own story of over-coming adversity. She has a doctorate in education. She’s got kids in the district. She’s been a teacher in the district. She’s trained and certified on being an administrator. 

She’s the total package. 

Hell, she was even the Homecoming Queen at UTEP. (I’m not making that up). 

But guess what? She was ALSO selected to be a mentor in that very same program. Instead of one mentee, she actually had three. 

She didn’t flake on any of them. She didn’t leave them hanging. 

One went to the military. 

One is at El Paso Community College. 

One is at UTEP. 

Josh Carter has failed the students in the most need. Now he wants you to put him in office where he can fail more students. If you can’t trust him to meet his obligation to one kid, why would you trust him with a seat on a school board?

Thats a terrible idea.

Our students deserve better.