Joseph Martinez is the longtime principal of Carpenter Community Charter School in Los Angeles.

And families know him as the principal who literally picks up trash in the morning and dresses up for school plays,

but also as the steady hand through fires, immigration fears, and lockdown drills.

In tonight's Brief But Spectacular, Martinez makes the case for why public

education remains a smart investment.

Public education to me is equivalent to our democracy. If we don't have a strong public education

system that will accept everyone, that will be competitive with all the private schools in

the area, then I don't see our democracy thriving as it has for the past 250 years.

I am the principal of Carpenter Community Charter in Studio City, Los Angeles, California.

I'm responsible for approximately 900 students daily.

Whatever it takes to engage children at an elementary school, I am game for.

I've been everything from Elliot, from E.T.

Willie Wonka.

I've been Woody, the Cowboy, set in the tone and embrace elementary school

for all that it has to offer. There is no job that is above or below me that's cutting the grass

or if that's picking up trash. I hope that they see that everybody has to pitch in, that they have to participate in order for their community to thrive.

So I'm born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Everybody in my family worked in the service industry.

My mother and my grandmother both worked in the kitchens at various hotels.

My father was a bellman.

So I grew up watching everybody in my family be service-oriented.

As a school administrator in Los Angeles, now I try to have that same mentality.

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