Dear Future President,

The Founding Fathers of our country who wrote the Constitution, were intent to create a fair, equal, and just society that will be maintained for many future generations of children to enjoy.  The issue is, how you enjoy our society mainly depends on what social class you are born into, which is almost opposing the message that the Founding Fathers worked so hard to achieve.  I think during your presidency, you should develop ways that children in poor neighborhoods can receive good education, go to college, and get a job without drugs in between.  The bottom line is, you need to make sure developing children in America don't have to worry about not having an adequate education.

"And no matter which of these three measures of teacher quality they used, guess what? They got the same result. Disadvantaged students across the state's elementary, middle and high schools ended up with the worst teachers – the ones who not only produced the smallest test score gains, but also had the fewest years of experience and the lowest licensure exam scores."

This quote is great proof from U.S news how unprivileged kids have much less of a chance of improving their education.  From this quote, you could come to the conclusion that inflation and the cost of living affect the teachers that students get, which represents a great portion of the quality of a student's education.  Below, there is a graph of how the income of student's families affect their SAT scores, which is one of the most important tests in a student's educational career.  Personally, I am very fortunate to not have run into any kids who have thrown out their academic career because of discouragement knowing they aren't adequately prepared for college.  But, I believe this discouragement is the base of most crime in America.  Therefore, I believe that giving kids equal opportunities through education will greatly reduce crime rates, and make our country much more manageable.  

"Again, the statistics were worse for young African-American dropouts, whose unemployment rate last year was 69 percent, compared with 54 percent for whites and 47 percent for Hispanics. The unemployment rate among young Hispanics was lower, the report said, because included in that category were many illegal immigrants, who compete successfully for jobs with native-born youths."

Mr./Mrs. President, I have two solutions to attempt to fix underachieving school systems.  One way would to use REACH task assessments more, to access teachers on what information they need to teach to their students.  This will let school boards know what districts need more money to provide better resources and teachers for the students.  Another good way to solve the problem is to use more tax dollars for schools, so technology can be updated so that learning can be at peak efficiency. These ideas would not solve the problem, but might give schools more information and some resources to help fix the problem.

I think another part of the problem is getting some kids to like and appreciate school, and for students to know that knowledge can lead them wherever they want to be led.  To do this, poorer schools should get the resources to create after school programs, so that kids who don't have places to go after school have a good, safe environment.  In these after school programs, kids should be able to have help with homework and be able to participate in good activities.  But, overall future president, it's up to you to decide how American children should be taught.

Your's Truly,

Ryan J. Southward

Alexander Graham Bell Elementary School

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/education/09dropout.html

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2009/08/27/business/economy/allscores.jpg

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/07/13/study-low-income-minorities-get-worst-teachers-in-washington-state