Our children are deprived of fair, informative, and unbiased education. Teachers struggle to be little more than baby sitter’s and go home broken-hearted because the government doesn’t give them the latitude and support they need to be effective in their jobs. Teachers and parents bring lawyers to conferences to clarify their sides in the event of any future news coverage. Autism and asthma have skyrocketed in recent years. We feed our children prescriptions that render them more easily manageable at the cost of their childhood. Our trade agreements accept tainted toys that damage our children and tainted food that kills our children’s pets. Every year the school system subtracts more from the daily curriculum and replaces it with standardized test preparation. The religious right contests Science, in our schools. Our teachers are afraid to touch our children for fear of harsh consequences. The history that we teach is more similar to the tales of Chris Kringle or that of the Easter Bunny. A quick investigation of the history books we provide to our children, clearly shows that those books not only empower a positive view of America’s future but also deny any trace of the negatives in our past. How can we learn from our past if we do not know it exists? We are currently raising the next generation of leaders. Shouldn’t we offer them more?

The American public is deceived with sound bites and biased distribution of information. Quotas and bad press dictate our police force and our police don’t like that fact anymore than we do. Our children learn test answers instead of substantive knowledge. The media dictates which information the public considers important based on entertainment standards. Our responsibilities have been marginalized. We are now assembly workers–each one of us focusing on our tiny part, assuming that protections protect us, rarely questioning the intent or source that delivers demands. Our abilities to think for ourselves and make decisions within context are eroding. Knowledge is invaluable. Let us not forget that strong minds make for a strong country.

• A nationwide campaign to boost the standards of education— inclusive of special needs applicants, and adequate teacher pay.

• Quality, Free and/or affordable College for the lower and middle income Americans.

• Re-introduce civics as a standard in high school education. Understanding the constitution is fundamental to enforcing the constitution.

• Re-introduce physical education requirements and extracurricular activities in our schools. Children need to learn about their bodies and test their bodies to maintain healthy lifestyles. We owe them guidance so that they may learn to balance the video game activities or American idol, or reading with good old-fashion heartbeats racing, teamwork, and challenges. Keep our children strong–make our future stronger.

• Conduct a formal and in depth public study into the rise and causes of autism, ADHD, ADD and asthma in our children, as well as the limitations and costs of and for services available to children with such diagnoses. Our children are suffering from an epidemic proportion of new asthma and autism cases. According to a synopsis for the book “Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies” written by Stauth, Cameron, Bock, and Kenneth: “Autism.. has spiked 1,500 percent in the last twenty years. ADHD, asthma and allergies have also skyrocketed over the same time period. One of these conditions now strikes one in every three children in America.” It is clear that something in our environment has changed and is affecting our children. It’s time that we pay national attention to this new reality so that we may learn from our mistakes and put an end to the frequency with which our children are diagnosed with these diseases.

• An end to the government sponsored abstinence education to be replaced by an introduction of age appropriate sex education. 1-4 teenagers have a sexually transmitted disease. Studies show that Teens now turn to oral and anal sex in an attempt to save their virginity. AIDS still exists. The longer we keep our children in the dark about their bodies, the longer these facts will continue to be true. The longer we endanger the very children we seek to protect. Sex WILL happen. As adults our own histories have proven that. It is wrong to expect more from our children than we could from ourselves. We can, however, help them to understand the consequences and beauties of the decisions they choose to make. I do NOT imply that sex education will solve the world’s problems. I DO mean to imply that when teenagers understand the gravity of what they possess and all of its dangers they will make decisions that are more adult in nature. Sex is an adult decision. I agree. I also agree that the decision to not have sex is also an adult decision. Informing our youth is part of helping them grow. We cripple them with fear tactics, when we could instead empower them to live safe, responsible lives.

• Implement early child development programs. According to the World Health organization “Among all the social determinants of health, ECD is the easiest for societies’ economic leaders to understand because improved ECD not only means better health, but a more productive labor force, reduced criminal justice costs, and reductions in other strains on the social safety net. National and international fiscal and monetary institutions need to recognize that spending on early child development is an investment and incorporate it into policy accordingly.” The American dream is to pass on a better life to your children then the life you had growing up. Show our children the support they can thrive on.

• Universal pre-kindergarten is needed to insure the stable development of our children.

• We need more afterschool programs. Afterschool Programs are disappearing across the country due to lack of funding. Parents work day and night to provide for their children and still have no savings. In this economy, time is THE commodity in the lives of working class families. Afterschool programs keep children safe and engaged while the parents earn their living. Can there be anything more important?

• Intelligent design is a theory disproven by science. The current trend in our society to fear science is tragic. Science is what has taught us to love and cherish the beauty we are surrounded by, rather than fear it. Science is what keeps us healthy. Science is what has taught us to better care for our children. Science has protected us against disease and extreme weather. Science has provided leverage for international negotiations. The existence of science does not invalidate the existence of God. Science is vital to our standing in the global community. We cannot allow our schools to replace the verified science of evolution with theories of creationism and intelligent design. While we must encourage tolerance for diversity, we cannot allow theory unsupported by facts to replace science that has already proven to be true. We must honor our children by teaching them the difference between fact and theory. The knowledge that we impart to this generation of children is the same knowledge that will be recycled in the future, as they raise their own children. As members of the older generations, this imparting of knowledge is our responsibility.

• Child violence is an obvious icon of a sick society. These days teenagers and college students are known to shoot their classmates from time to time. Sometimes their rage spills out across an entire campus and leaves nothing but bodies in its wake. Bully’s now travel in packs and inflict life-altering damage motivated by schoolyard politics. Fathers and mothers have willingly watched their child die due to their neglect. In some cases parent and child have teamed together in acts of murder. Mothers suffer from such deep depression that they drown their children. Children have difficulty being children because they have mirrored the lifestyle choices of their parents and those choices have left them overweight and lethargic. The air pollution we inflict on children leaves behind damage beyond repair. Landlords allow rodents, toxic paint, and bad water to live amongst the less fortunate of children. Children, of all ages, are taken from their parents because of incest. Numerous children are re-admitted for health care time and time again with injuries clearly inflicted by their parents. Children accidentally fire handguns and occasionally their bullets take the life of another child. Children are often used as pay checks to foster homes. In Florida, we lost a child in the foster care system and didn’t even remember she was gone until after she had died. An epidemic exists of family touching family in wrong ways. In the south, where I grew up, what happens in your yard is what happens in your yard and what happens in my yard is what happens in my yard. This unspoken law governs all acts including child abuse and incest. We don’t stop there. Alcoholic fathers and mothers rob their children of their childhood by being inadequate, and by default, requiring their children to be more adult than they are. Drug addict mothers infect their children with more painful desire than any child should have to endure. Fetal alcohol syndrome is one more example of unnecessary painful desire. Of course we have children in America who know nothing of these experiences and parents who offer those children positive living but those are the inspired mass not the uninspired minority. Be they mass or minority they are our children—our responsibility. Together, with the Iraqi Liberation/Occupation/War, we have publicly condoned hitting first. Our Commander in Chief has passed along language that fostered a community void of communication. As a country, we have made war our priority. Our children, our quality of life, and our diplomacy have taken a back seat to politics that promote war above all things. Our children are watching. We are setting examples by contradicting the lessons we traditionally teach our children. Thus far, throughout this conflict, we have expected our children to do as we say and not what we do. Child violence in America has many sources. Our conduct in war is merely one contribution. Though I would go so far to say that the effect of this war and our conduct on our children has yet to truly manifest. We ARE educating our children at all times and this does not exclude times of war. We are nothing without our children. They will build the future we live in and they will foster new generation upon new generation. If we do not protect them we have failed ourselves and we have failed them.

• Foreign languages should be an integral part of American education. The United States is one of the few countries that do not encourage multiple languages for students. In Germany, most students speak a minimum of three languages, which provides them more opportunities as well as more understanding of the world they live in. If we spend the time to teach our children several languages when they are young, we better prepare them to compete in the global job market. In doing so, we fortify the foundation of our own country. Education is our future.

• Conduct an independent public study, by state and county, that documents existing threats to our air quality, and water quality. Please include in this study a broad explanation of suspected and documented health factors elevated by current toxicity levels.

• Conduct an independent public study into what civil liberties have been manipulated or revoked in the last 10 years. Follow this report with a published Agenda of actions that will restore those liberties to their original state.

• Conduct a public study of the military as a whole in the context of what benefits our soldiers and their families have lost since the year 1990. This report should also include the ways in which we have increased our soldier’s responsibilities. Recently congress passed a New GI Bill that addresses some of the needs of our proud military through the education they have earned while serving our country. We must continue these traditions. Whether or not service is to be voluntary or mandatory in the future, understanding the need to make service beneficial to every participant is imperative.

• Conduct a public study of the positive and negative effects of NAFTA / CAFTA: These trade agreements must be re-negotiated. Local communities have seen the failures and successes of these agreements and we now have an arsenal of experience and are well-equipped to re-negotiate new trade agreements that will benefit our working class rather than dismantling them little by little.

• We must address the growing trends of unnecessary police brutality in our communities. This issue falls under the category of education because it seems clear that even those fatalities that seem to be racially motivated are inspired, above all, by a lack of education. We need our police force to be trustworthy. Police officers are intended to aid public interests in justice and safety. The public does not feel safe. Large portions of the country fear the police. Justice and safety for all Americans is the priority. Our Police will benefit from fostering this attitude throughout the country and begin to repair their relationship with the public before they lose authority in the communities they serve to protect.

• Conduct an independent comprehensive public study of the allies we, the United States, align ourselves with—not excluding Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. This study must include American assets acquired, as well as, human rights abuses. This study should give a brief summary of each country’s enemies and allies. This report should also include a brief history of how both enemies and allies were acquired. This report should be updated annually.

• Conduct an independent comprehensive public study, which lays out the full history and endeavors of the U.S. into Middle Eastern affairs, inclusive of our current and former allies. So that we might afford the entire country a more broad understanding of what brought us to this point in history. So that we may learn from our mistakes and better navigate the current conflicts.

• An independent comprehensive public study that explores the relevance of the electoral college in today’s society that includes recommendations and is followed by a public debate in Congress regarding the validity and relevance of the “Electoral College.” I am not convinced that this part of the election process has any relevance in today’s society. It seems to me that provisions such as this, inserted into how WE choose OUR government, merely serve to obscure the true voice of the people. ONE person, ONE vote does not exist so long as impediments to Democracy are perpetuated. Our country is no longer the vast unpopulated territory that it once was. The threat of secession is all but gone. Do we really need the “Electoral College?”

• An independent comprehensive public study of the current text books distributed in our school system that compares the history taught to our children to the actual history of our country. We must know our history so that we do not continue to make the same mistakes ans so that we fully appreciate the life our fore fathers struggled to provide for us. It is our responsibility to give our children the knowledge and skills they will need to make the world better and to set an example worth following.