Dear Mr. President,

Congratulations on winning the election to the most powerful office in the most stable democracy in the world.

I am sure lots of folks are going to be sending you letters about this or that particular issue they want dealt with right away. This is not going to be one of those letters. I am an educator, but you have chosen to not make education a central part of your campaign platform, so I can only assume education will also not be a central part of your administration. That's fine. If you don't feel right now that you are the president that is ready to tackle real accountability for our schools, real funding reform, real technology literacy, real governance reform, really eliminating the achievement gap and all the other real changes that our schools really need ... that's fine. You know what you can do? You can just say education is a state issue. Heck, that is what the constitution would tell you to do anyway. When NCLB comes up for reauthorization next year, just pass some weakened version along the same principles and say your honoring the state's role. That's the easy way out and since kids don't vote ... why try anything substantial? I get it. No worries.

So, if not education ... then what? Energy Reform? Tax Reform? Foreign Policy Reform? Reducing the Deficit? Healthcare Reform? Something Else? ... That's cool, we need all those things and we need good leaders to help us achieve them. I hope whatever your priorities are you can make some progress toward achieving them, and, let me even wish you good luck in your re-election campaign.

But, all those things that are high on your priority list right now ... they are short term problems; they are important and we need to deal with them, but they don't change the status quo all that much. America with better healthcare is still the America we know, just healthier. America burning biofuels is still the America we know, just cleaner. America with a surplus is still the America we know, just thriftier. There is certainly something to be said for making what we know better. The America that we know is a great country, so I fully understand the temptations to focus on improving on what's already in place.

But, should you in your sixth and seventh years begin to wonder whether or not you have fundamentally altered this country during your presidency, allow me to make a suggestion. Round about the time you are going to find yourself asking that question, NCLB reauthorization is going to be back on your plate. Now, again, you are going to find yourself tempted to do little. Your potential successors will be asking you to keep the status quo and to let the reauthorization fall to the next guy. Certainly you can see that is what our outgoing president did. My suggestion is at that point, though, don't give into that temptation, but instead trust your instincts and be bold. All those other policies that you are going to spend your first six or seven years improving are important and they will aid in our short term prosperity. Sir, education is not like those other policies. Education is about ensuring a future. It is fundamentally not about the status quo. For the past hundred years we have educated toward manufacturing and we built a manufacturing economy in the United States the likes of which the world has never seen. Our prosperity in the last century was built on the backs of factory workers and truck drivers and plant managers and all the people needed to service them. Both of my parents, for instance, continue to manufacture car bumpers and it allowed them to build a nice home and send their kids to college. In fact, we got so damn good at manufacturing that everyone else around the globe learned and imitated us. But, how do we assure America's prosperity in 2108? Can we expect the America we know today to be similarly prosperous then by tinkering with the status quo? That's a question I leave to you, because that is the one that you are going to be pondering about six or seven years from now. Your going to be asking yourself what did I do to ensure not just the success of my constituents, but the prosperity of their great-grandchildren?

Mr. President, at that point and in response to that question ... I urge you to be bold. To see a new future for America and build an system that helps our next generation get us there. That is the legacy that our founding fathers have left to you and that is the leadership that is entrusted in the Presidency of the United States of America. George Washington led us somewhere new. Sixty years later Abraham Lincoln led us somewhere new. Sixty years after that, Franklin Roosevelt led us somewhere new. Mr. President, it has been sixty years. Its your turn.

Good luck Sir, our future is in your hands.

(In response to Scott's Call - tagged: educationletters08).