Edyookashun is real imporunt too me.reedin n ritin n stuf is fun.i wish evry1 wuz smrt as me.

Imagine a world where the above is common literature; where grammar no longer matters when writing anything; where simple math, two plus two, takes more than a few minutes to add up; where science is discredited as crazy talk; where music has trickled down to no more than songs about gang violence and rape, and art can only be appreciated as a bubble name tagged on the side of a building.  This world you scoff at may seem laughable and completely unrealistic, but if our educational system continues to progress in the way it has been, we may soon have a new phonetic alphabet.

I stand here, the daughter and granddaughter of teachers, watching the world spin and big breakthroughs happen.  I hear of the new alternative fuels being found, complex machines being invented, music being composed, books being written; and I long for the chance to be apart of it.  I itch to get out and do something to change the world.  I want to leave my mark.  I want to make it better.  To do this, however, I need an education.  Not just any old twelve-years-of-school education, but a real one.  One that will provide me with any and all tools I could ever need to do anything I could ever dream of.  Today, that education is harder to find that it should be.  Today, I’m not prepared to change the world.  Today needs to change so Tomorrow can give that education to anybody.

The name No Child Left Behind is a very misleading title for what that act does.  One would assume that this act helps children, helps schools when, in fact, it does not.  NCLB requires all students to reach a set standard, determined by the state.  This means more effort is put towards teaching exactly what the standard asks for instead of what makes the subject such a great one.  Instead of taking trips to parks and museums, science classes spend more time indoors memorizing pointless data, turning students off to science.  NCLB also bases its funding off which schools come closest to reaching the state standards: those closest to the standard receive more money while those farther below receive less.  This arrangement has benefit for absolutely no one, because the schools that are further below the standard are the ones who have fewer resources to teach with.  Schools are dropping lower and lower simply because they do not have enough funding to keep them academically floating in a land of competitive schools.  Punishing schools that already have a serious lack of funding by refusing them any more money is completely illogical.  This act needs to be repealed before anymore children are devastated by its actions.

College stands as another treacherous obstacle on the road of true education.  In this time, venturing out into a world past school is near impossible to do without a college degree of some sort.  In any job one will ever seek, a college degree will be required; those who do not have one will lose any opportunity of breaking into a career to one who does have a degree.  This truth makes college a necessary evil to survive in the world.  However, most colleges will ask your money in return for their knowledge, money the average eighteen-year old does not have.  How can the world ask such a young person to give so much for something that is necessary to their survival?  Something so vital, so beneficial, should be free to any who have the common sense enough to take it!  Preventing so many from something so important is pure malevolence.

One last injustice to every student in Today is the stripping away of music and arts programs.  Many deem music and art as insignificant to the education of a person.  They are wrong.  In a world without music and art, there would be nothing but numbers and science.  There would be no creativity to balance out the hard, cold facts of life.  There would be no spontaneous creation to offset the rigorous planning and detailed data-collecting.  There would be no flow and freedom and individual expression to compensate the strict regime and rules of procedure.  Music and art create a wholly rounded person.  They keep life interesting by adding a new spice to it.  Without music and art, the meaning of life would not matter because life would not matter.  In Tomorrow’s world the arts should be as firmly upheld and fought for as any core subject, for they are just as important.

Tomorrow must be different than Today.  Tomorrow must offer a real education to every child.  Every school should teach to the needs of the students, college should be a real option for ever student, no matter their fiscal status, and music and art should be taught as devoutly as any other class.  Tomorrow must meet these expectations, and continue to fly with them.  Tomorrow must truly prepare students for the future.  Tomorrow is in your hands, Mr. President.  I hope you treat it well.