Dear Future President:

Uneducated people are not free people. Uneducated people are not equal. Uneducated people cannot effectively provide for the general welfare or common defense of our nation, yet a complete or proper education is not a right guaranteed in our Constitution.

Uneducated citizens question change instead of embracing the policies created to create equal opportunities for learning and success, were the United States to guarantee the education of its citizenry many changes would have to be made. Desegregation of public schools would need to become a priority. Many students across the United States grow up isolated from other cultures which breeds an atmosphere of insensitivity, racism, fear, and intolerance all of which prevent unity within our nation causing mass unrest. If taught at a young age to respect cultural, religious, regional, and familial traditions and values then the youth in our country would have a much better start after leaving the education system. Requiring students to be taught how to be fiscally responsible is an important part of teaching them about our nation and our government; overtime it will be a natural stimuli for our economy. It is a fact that personal finance should not be an elective, personal finance should be equated to US History or Civics, a requirement for graduation. Many high school graduates do not have any experience with a balancing a checkbook or using a bank account, skills they will need as soon as they are on their own whether or not it be in college, the military, or in the workforce. By requiring students to learn how to be financially responsible and give them opportunities to interact with different cultures and ideas than their own.

Our students are being sent into the world unprepared for the racial, cultural, economic, and regional tensions that assault us each day in the news. Protests, panic, and paranoia ignite each time a new report comes to light about a police involved shooting, the state of our economy, or the race riots that result. Protests erupted when schools were first integrated, and now 62 years after the Brown vs Board of Ed decision and 51 years after the Little Rock 9 were introduced into an all white school system. Having separate schools for different races was ruled unconstitutional, yet integration is still far from achieved. In New England there are plenty of schools containing all white or all black populations and the magnet school system was created and is utilized in Hartford, Connecticut to introduce diversity into the city. Sheff vs O'Neill is another case which has been attacking the point of educational inequality for 26 years now. In 2015, magnet schools were ruled as a solution to equalize education in Hartford and some other states have adopted it since its institution. Panic erupts when parents think their child's education is at stake, and many Americans fear change to the education system will work against their child preventing success. Integration is a simple solution to equalize education and paired with requiring personal finance as a course to graduate, our future citizens will be geared to be more successful, tolerant, and responsible people.

It is a fact that all lives matter. All lives matter in our nation, in our world, and more specifically in education. Please allow our citizens to become better educated so they can handle the constant shifting of our economy and the tensions racial and otherwise throughout the United States. We are the United States and it is time to present the greatest equalizer of them all by making education a right and an amendment guaranteed by our Constitution.

Thank you for your time,

Kim L.