Last year, we made a list of things we hoped we would hear in President Obama’s State of the Union Address. This year, not much has changed, and our wish list remains in tact:
State of the Union Wish List
Tonight, President Obama will give the first second State of the Union address of his second term in office, an opportunity for the president to raise issues critical to improving our nation’s schools, one of the most important domestic policy opportunities of our time. No other investment available can simultaneously enhance the workforce of the future, help rebuild the infrastructure of the present, and wipe out the civil rights injustices of the recent past. And while the president has a lot to cover during his speech, we hope he takes time to address education, because if we fail to fix our failing schools, if we fail to replace our public education system, We the People may soon find that we are fundamentally unequipped to govern ourselves let alone to provide governance to others we thought in greater need.
With that in mind, here’s what we hope to hear in tonight’s SOTU:
1) Work Across All Education Sectors: We hope that the president will announce plans by his administration to hear from a range of voices and ideas from cities and communities, including those who represent the grassroots in the school choice and charter school communities. In the first term, the Obama Administration talked a lot about others “collaborating” and “getting along” with unions. We urge President Obama to send a signal to all the people advocating critical school choices for children — be they digital, in private schools or public schools — that this second term will be more about good ideas, no matter where they come from, than
