A Child's Letter on the Education Bill

January 22, 2002 --

Dear President George W. Bush and Senator Edward Kennedy,

My teacher in social studies told us to write a letter to you about your new law about schools.

The TV said the new law means you will make my teachers make better tests and you will look at our scores. Will the FBI come to look at our scores? I’ve never seen a real FBI guy.

Also President Bush and Senator Kennedy, please send me your home phone numbers. My Dad sometimes calls Mr. Callahan at his house. Mr. Callahan is on the Board of Education. He is real good and I wish he was my principal! So my Dad will need your phone numbers so if there is a problem at the school he can call you at your houses in Washington and you can come here and fix it.

I don’t know much about laws, so I went to the library and asked the librarian about this. And he said the Constitution is the law of America. It is kind of like the rules of a game. We never read the Constitution in social studies. We read about how the world will burn up in the future.

Anyway, I got a book that had the Constitution. I read it and I understood a lot of it! It talked about the President and the Congress. It talked about the states. I visited our state capital two times. It said the Congress can have an Army and a Navy. I think the Army and the Navy are doing a real good job about the terrorists. Tell them I like them a lot! But I did not read the part about the schools. But you are the President and the Senator. Maybe you can tell me where there is the part about the schools in the Constitution.

My school is not really that good. I like my science class a lot. The teacher showed us how you can use arithmetic to know how fast planets and rockets go. But some of my teachers are not good. Also some of the bigger kids pick on me and my friends. I do not want them to be in my school. But the school can not get them expelled. At the hobby store where I buy models, Mr. Ward keeps the bad kids out of the store. So I like to go to that store.

I asked my Mom and Dad if I could go to another school. They said it would cost too much. But I remember when Mom did not like the grocery store that is near us in the Town Center Mall. Mom started to go to the store that is down in the new Plaza. It was a better store Mom said. And they have the cereal I like and Mom said the price is better. So I said to Mom and Dad, take your money and take me to the good school, the one by the big park, and pay the teachers at that school to teach me! But they said that the government takes their money whether I go to the public school or not, so we have to pay extra for me to go to another school. I don’t get it. Why do you do that?

Then I had another idea. The grocery store that was the bad one at the Town Center Mall closed. So then the people with the store in the new Plaza got to buy the store at Town Center Mall. So now they have another grocery store there, like the one in the new Plaza. So now we do not drive so far to the store.

So maybe the people with the better school down by the big park can buy my school! And then they can make my school better. And maybe Mr. Ward from the hobby store can be in the school and keep all the bad kids out!

So that is what I think about schools. I hope you like my letter! Thank you.

Your friend, Eddie

Edward L Hudgins is a senior writer for the Objectivist Center (/) in Poughkeepsie, New York. The Objectivist Center is a national not-for-profit think tank promoting the values of reason, individualism, freedom and achievement in American culture.

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