This 2008 election edition reopens today's critical issues in public education. Once again speaking to the next president, this stellar collection of more than thirty letters speaks to the future of American students and the need for an educated and engaged citizenry. Top education experts, elected officials, business and community leaders, teachers, principals, students, and parents discuss the dangerous shortcomings of current state and federal policies and offer suggestions for what can be done about it. Read these poignant, inspiring, and often provocative letters and make your voice heard!

Introduction

I Wish It Wasn't So . . . Now Make Us Proud

Carl Glickman

I wish it wasn't so! I wish we did not need another edition of Letters to the Next President. The first edition came out in early spring of 2004, just as the presidential primaries were being contested. I wrote then: "These letters from students; great elementary, middle, and secondary school teachers; principals who lead some of the most outstanding schools in the country; parents who organize for their local public schools; education scholars, reformers, and activists on the leading edge of what is possible for all students; and current and former elected officials point us in a better and healthier direction for improving education, our schools, and our democracy." So why, 4 years later, is there a need for a second edition of this book?

As you are well aware, there is a morass in our land about the future of our country and the future of American democracy. Most of us think that participatory democracy in America today is a sham, that it is not based on the reality of what actually happens, and that it doesn't deal with decisions that affect us in our everyday lives. Most of us find politics to be distasteful and government officials to be untrustworthy. Most of us show our disdain for government through our refusal to participate at even the most minimal level of citizenship. The majority of us do not vote, do not attend a single public meeting a year, and do not exercise our first amendment rights and responsibilities. When compared with other industrialized nations, the United States ranks at or near the bottom on indicators of care and support for our citizens--including health benefits, public spaces, maternity leave, family vacation time, minimum wage, guaranteed retirement plans, child care, and equity of resources for education. Indeed, two thirds of Americans believe that "things have pretty seriously gotten off track" in this country.

Many of us seem to have given up on the American promise of decency and respect for all. And our youth follow in their parents' and grandparents' paths, continuing the decline in civic participation begun after World War II.

You, our next President, can do something about this. Deep down, we want to be proud to be Americans and, believe me, we are looking for every possible reason to be proud. We want to talk with pride about how our ancestors rose to the challenges of making a life in America, about how generous Americans are in donating to disaster relief, about how youth volunteerism is on the rise, and abouthow courageous our young soldiers fighting overseas are. But it is getting harder and harder for us, as a people, to reach across our different religious, political, ethnic, racial, socioeconomic, lifestyle, gender, and occupational lines to discuss how we can work together to improve our larger communities. We want to believe in our country, but we need to find ways to make the ideals of democracy, participation, and education the core of our future. Yet, perhaps if we rejuvenate the core mission of our schools--to educate free-thinking individuals--our schools could help to create an educated citizenry willing to share the burden of a working democracy. Thomas Jefferson, who first proposed that public schools are essential to a democracy, wrote, "Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render them safe their minds must be improved." Maybe, just maybe, if we could realize the true promise of public education, we could close the achievement gap and foster an America whose citizens were proud to use their minds to participate in civic life.

To read a letter in the book from teacher Karen Hankins, click here.