Obama

Posted to Obama's website, per their claim that they listen to the public


"Your viewpoint on education is admirable, but the reality is the education system is fundamentally broken, and socially backward. Our cultural drive to make all student's "Reach their full potential" has been corrupted to mean "get into college". This is sickening, frankly, as it undermines the inescapable value of labor, service, and support industries, and promotes the view that those who's "potential" is not college related are second or third rate citizens.

When you address education, it is my hope that you consider a drastic and sweeping change to the system over all. One needs only to review the lack of basic knowledge in the american youth to understand that simply holding higher critical standards (based on test scores) is clearly not the answer.

I believe we need to culturally reevaluate the purpose of our education. Is it a vehicle to prepare citizens for "better" jobs, or does it help young citizens determine which jobs they enjoy and are good at and provide them the skills needed to achieve those jobs during their youth?

If it is a stepping stone to better jobs, we must acknowledge that those students who do not climb as hard or as high will hold 'lover value' jobs, and thus be of lover value to society, and should be categorically treated thusly. In this case, we have little to change, as all of our focus must be placed on testing, scoring, and ranking our students and placing the best into the best, most important jobs.

If education is a vehicle for children to learn about the greater world, their place in it, and those skills that they enjoy developing, and the occupations which employ those skills for financial gain, we must rebirth our system entirely. We must abort the focus on grades, as they have no relationship with the student finding a skill to enjoy. We must also expand our base teacher and teacher support system in order to accommodate the wealth of curriculum options needed, and to ensure that each student's voice is heard, and that their interests have an opportunity to be realized."