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Send this letter to the television networks sponsoring the debates.
Click here for an address listing.
Dear Sir or Madam:
First, I would like to congratulate your network for sponsoring many of the presidential debates. The free exchange of ideas is a hallmark of the electoral process that makes our democracy so valuable.
We have welcomed the questions your moderators have asked during the debates about the many pressing issues facing our nation, including the war in Iraq, the economy, and health care. Still, there's one issue vital to our country's security, prosperity and future that, for all of the good intentions of your moderators, have barely been raised as candidate questions. That issue is education.
Nearly 50 million of our nation's children attend public schools, yet none of the debate moderators (including those at other networks) have asked much at all about what candidates would do about public education.
The need for your moderators to ask the candidates to tell us what they will do to reform our public schools has never been greater. Only 74 percent of students in high school graduate on time (within four years) with a regular diploma. Native American, Latino, and African American young people have little more than a 50 percent chance of getting a high school diploma. These are abysmal figures for a land in which public education is the cornerstone of our democracy and our prosperity.
Here are four key questions I have for free and unfettered use by your moderators regarding public education (and maybe you saw these in the op-ed recently published in USA Today by Public Education Network President Wendy D. Puriefoy):
School safety is a huge concern in many cities. How will you ensure that children attend schools that are places of teaching and learning, not violence and crime? Teacher recruitment, retention and quality are major problems in many public school districts. How will you work to make teaching a more attractive career? A child who cannot read nor do math to grade level has little hope of finishing high school. What will you do to make sure children master all subjects, including science and social studies, to grade level? The obligation to educate all our nationﾒs children falls on each American, even if only 25 percent of Americans have school-age children. From your presidency's bully pulpit, what will you do to persuade more voters, including those without kids, to become more involved in the education of their community's children?
In the not too distant past, public education quality was a major issue for candidates and presidents alike. The problems we face as a country today are far more serious than those we faced 50 years ago when the Soviets launched Sputnik and Americans demanded improvements to our education system. Surely your moderators, all of whom are astute observers of this nation's political landscape, can see how a quality public education system that is open and available to all children is even more necessary in todayﾒs world.
I look forward to hearing many more questions about public education reform from debate moderators. Our nation's future security and prosperity depends on the answers such questions must bring forth.
Sincerely,
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