Quit being sucked in to Wedge Issues as your predominant political alliance & voting factor. Give more proportionate WEIGHT to the meaningful issues, and LESS WEIGHT to truly LESS meaningful issues. Know what's meaningful, and know what's meaningless. Love your country & future more, and hate less... far, far less. Don't be greedy, self-serving. Be magnanomous, be giving, be charitable, be kind. BE SMART. Take citizenship seriously. Know the issues. Demand far better of leaders. "Pay as you go" via taxes for projects and policies. Don't bankrupt our kids & grandkids. Trade & Budget deficits and debt are evil and counter-productive to your voting goals. Be skeptical of politicians telling you what you want to hear. Be informed. Demand speical interest free politicians to do the public's work, not corporate welfare favortism.

Who doesn't believe that our young Americans are our future? Unfortunately a lot of people making decisions, cut teachers salaries, cut school programs, cut & gut education is what we see all around the US. Why are we always cutting education? It doesn't make sense or make us safe for the future. We need major overhaul of the most basic right of the US people. We need to get everyone involved and start now. Lets look long term for a change. Kids just starting school will be in the job market in 12-14 years and if we don't start today, the country will be less competitive.

Imagine a nation where its local city councils, county board of supervisors, local agencies, obscure state agencies RARELY get visited by professional journalists -- our nation's Fourth Estate. That is tragically where we are headed as a nation due to local newspapers being up against FREE internet news, FREE internet classified ads, and dwindling subscribers; once their domain & life blood. Corruption THRIVES where journalists don't, we all know that, but that's what's ahead. Supporting the Fourth Estate of our democracy is indeed patriotic... and that is being lost on Americans. Our presidents, govenors, all public leaders should tout the PATRIOTISM of supporting our nation's Fourth Estate at the local level.

How about we get real about education? First of all, we must understand that our best schools in the US are some of the best in the world. If your kids go to school in Massachusetts, only Singapore is giving students a better education in Math and Science. We need to recognize that problems of entrenched poverty, hopelessness, and abysmal parenting cannot be solved by schools alone. Some fixes would help--for instance more vocational education. But we are kidding ourselves if we think merit pay for teachers, or testing, or new standards, are going to make up for a broken social safety net and dangerous inner cities. Our educational problems are simply a symptom of a general malaise, not the cause, and in the end, only part of the solution.

The children of America are our future. The future relies on them and what they are taught about how to be a part of a successful society.

We have to provide them with the skills and necessary training to ensure their ability to steer the nation when they get older.

Children in grades 2 through 5 should have a new curriculum on how to be creative and innovative and make good decisions for the greater good for the greater number.

Also, any and all children older than that must have particular curriculums that explain and teach technology, finance, economy, business, change, and cultural diversity (globalization). We should start to teach them NOW before it's their turn to drive. They need to know how to steer America.

Furthermore, environmental ideas need to be acted upon so that they can live longer. They have to make it a priority and HABIT to contribute to the Earth by recycling, and becoming more innovative so that they can save money. We need them to bring back meaning to the dollar!

High school is the last level of education that we require our so-called adults (18+ years old) to have. Yet the average graduate from American public high schools today can in no way be said to have been prepared for an effective, productive life as an American citizen. We train these youth to be able to solve complicated calculus and trigonometry problems, balance chemical equations, and write essays on Shakespeare, but we send them out into the world without teaching them what a mortgage is, how to file for insurance, what laws they are subject to, or how to think critically about messages they receive from the media. We spend so much time preparing our high schools grads for college entrance exams (despite the fact that the majority do not attend and/or finish college) that we fail to prepare them for real, everyday life. Schools should have the goal of preparing our new adults for civic participation and seamless functioning in an ever more complicated and regulated society, not for college exams they may never take. Fix the education system by changing what we are educating kids about. Curricula need to encourage more practical skills and critical thinking abilities, and less purely academic specialization. Most kids won't go on to be professional academics, so why do we teach as if they will?

Poverty, Lack of knowledge and resources, And the laws created to keep the oppressed behind bars and the rich free is the primary reason that Americas prison population is overcrowded and the tax payers are paying for it. There is a huge conflict of interest when it comes to the justice system in keeping the prisons and jails crowded because of the fact that states aquire more funds based on the ammount of prisoners they have. Might I add that they are grossly overpaid for the cost per person.The criminal justice system is criminal, It profits from crime. Contrary to popular belief the prisons are filled with some of the most intelligent and motivated people in the country who's knowledge and tallents are being wasted and human rights are being violated daily. My idea is to help solve the root of the problem. Donate Non fiction educational empowering reading material. This will help better educate the prison population and expand poeple's minds, Have you ever heard the term "Knowledge is power" Give these people more practical knowledge that can be used to change thier own lives and contribute to society.Send your used College or Trade school books or books on ecconomics, entrepenourship and business development. This will help create a passion for learning and knowledge of how to put action behind constructive ideas. This will inspire creativity instead on crime by creating hope instead of hopelessness. The only way to solve the "crime problem" is to take a look at the root of the problem.