Let’s start with a subject near and dear to our hearts. That is the education of our young people. It seems that the American youth have fallen far behind the rest of the world in education. This is a sorry state of affairs from the greatest, richest most powerful country of the world. While children in Europe can speak at the very least two languages, American youth have trouble reading and writing English. Instead of setting high standards of education to insure that we produce the next generation of world leaders, we have dumbed-down our educational standards.

So just where does Mr. Obama stand on education. His website states “Barack Obama puts children first investing in early childhood education, making sure our schools are adequately funded and led by high-quality teachers, and reforming No Child Left Behind.” In the web site they write about the Zero to Five plan, starting education in infancy and moving toward a voluntary universal pre-school. They also speak of addressing the drop out crisis by obtaining more funding for the school districts to start personal academic plans and teaching teams. There is also vague talk of improving teachers through a system of education, and rewards.

Sounds great, but let’s take a reality check. On 11/18/08 Mrs. Obama enrolled the girls in a prestigious private school in the DC area. The Obama girls will not be taking advantage of the public education offered by the DC school district. That kind of school is OK for the people, but not for the Obama’s. Now we understand that security logistics might be challenging, so we may be forced to concede on this one if it were not for a statement printed in the New York Sun of Feb. 25, 2008. On the subject of school vouchers the Obama campaign released statement which stated, “Senator Obama has always been a critic of vouchers. Throughout his career, he has voted against voucher proposals and voiced concern for siphoning off resources from our public schools.”

So it would appear that Mr. Obama wants to try to put Band-Aids on a sinking ship called American education-just don’t aspire to send your kids to school with his girls, unless, of course you can afford it. Now I do not know where your little corner of the world is going with education, but down here in sunny Florida things is not looking real good. Manatee County is considering cutting ANOTHER $6.3M from the school operating budget, with more to come, and that is on top of the $21.4M that was cut even before the school year started. That looks pretty dismal for our kids. A litter further north in Pinellas county the school district is cutting $21M this year and another $40M next year. They will be closing 5 elementary schools and shifting the students to other neighborhood schools.Mr. Obama… I think you need a bigger band-aide.

Come on America, wake up-our children are our future, we need to educate them. Call Washington, write to your leaders, and let them know that this state of affairs is unacceptable. We need to take action now. We need to be aware of where the government is spending OUR MONEY. Remember, it is our money. Remember the war that started over “TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION”. It is time for us all to speak up.

Theo

By: Peter Theophilopoulos