Start With The Children

Dear Mr. President:

In the State of the Union message you talked about how to approach the problems of our economy. I wonder if we realize that our children are our economy. It is our children without whom we have neither future nor economy.

I was grateful for the focus on high-quality pre-K for every 4-year-old. This is probably the most important thing we could do to ensure a future of equality for all.

Two issues with this proposal need serious consideration. First, an adequate amount food essential for a young child’s growth. Vast numbers of the four year olds who will show up at the pre-K schools do not get enough food to eat.

Food is fuel for our children. Take the $4 billion a year from the bloated fossil fuel industries and invest it in food/fuel for our hungry future, our children. Veto the Farm Bill if it reaches your desk with the insane $8 billion cuts to the FS program. It is irrational to start a pre-K program for four year olds and to eliminate the fuel that large numbers of them need to run on.

The other issue is that “reaching more kids” means more teachers. More qualified teachers is probably the most significant problem we face in building our future. Our educational systems which drive the entire economy are in a deplorable state. We have millions of children who need to be educated. We have maybe one teacher for every couple hundred children. Many of these teachers are woefully under educated themselves and lack any real understanding of what children are, how they grow, what the need.

To make the envisioned pre-K program work, we need to recruit, educate and pay many thousands of teachers. This will be hard because the position of teacher has been denigrated to a point where only the most heart driven individuals will choose a discounted, third class job.

You have spoken to the need to produce individuals for our technological industries. The place to start such a program is to resurrect the teaching profession to point of respectability. The ignorance which fails to understand the essential role that teachers fill in shaping the consciousness of our children is a major source of our problems.

I guess what I am trying to say is that our children are Humanities’ first priority. Children need fuel/guidance or food/teachers, teachers that understand what “Teacher” means and signifies.

Fix this and the rest will follow.

-tom