502 E Boone Ave.
Spokane, WA 99258
President Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Hey Barack,
How’s it going? Hope you’ve been having a good time hanging out with the Chinese President. Foreign policy is quite important as the President of the United States. However, I’d like to write to you about domestic policy in this letter. I know that your administration has an interest in reforming education and that can be seen in the Blueprint for Reform of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act sent to Congress in 2010 by your administration. Or perhaps the ConnectEd initiative that is enriching K-12 learning with up-to-date technology. However, I want to discuss an issue that isn’t usually discussed when speaking about education. I would like to talk about the “school to prison pipeline”.
Although your time as president is coming to a close, you and I both know that there is much work to be done in the education system of America. The school to prison pipeline is a phenomenon in which school climates and policies push students into the juvenile and prison systems. In addressing the school to prison pipeline, there are certain factors that need to be addressed. Due to the No Child Left Behind Act there is a lot of test based accountability for schools and this creates an incentive to push out low-performing students. Additionally, punishments in the schooling system can be very harsh and unfair. Zero-tolerance policies don’t take certain circumstances into consideration and that’s crucial. Students of color, victims of bullying, and victims of abuse are all more likely to be hurt by such policies. Disciplinary alternative schools are another unfair punishment. They take students out of a comfortable environment and put them in a school with other offenders that are bad influences.
You know Barack, you and I aren’t all that different. We both attended private schools for most of our lives and we both have somewhat of an immunity toward the issues of the public school system. However, that doesn’t mitigate our responsibility to fix the problems many face in public schools around the country. Schools are supposed to be a place that sets children onto a path of education and success, not prison and poverty. Therefore, I hope that in the last year you have as president you will fight for these at-risk youth and together we can improve the way education impacts the students of America.
Sincerely,
Rudy Diaz