Part of the American tradition, is the American Dream. We have all read the stories, watched the movies, or even heard the tale of our own families. Parents do without anything and everything, to give their children a better chance. They do without luxuries, they work long hours, they suffer through miserable jobs, miserable bosses, miserable paychecks, on the determined hope that their children will have what they did not. And the unifying thread, the theme that binds all of these stories, is the same goal: education. Often, our leaders and thinkers will claim that America is her courts, her legislatures, her legal documents. They misspeak. As important as these things are they are not our country; they are simply the guardians. This country, is a country of, by, and for the people. And the people who strive for more, who sacrifice and risk all they have, and all they are, to move the next generation forward ARE America. Because as they build and enrich their lives, so America is built and enriched. It is an irony: the poor Nigerian mother working in a sweat shop, to provide the most meager food, clothing and shelter so that her children might have a better chance, is every bit as American as Washington, Jefferson, or Adams. She isn't following the American Dream; that Dream is HER. So, how can it be that sacrificing to provide and education for your children is the American Dream for individuals and their families, but it is not our collective dream? How can it be that while anyone and everyone we admire struggle to provide an education for their children, and often for all children... but that collective Dream is not realized at the level of our own government, the one we elect, the one we pay for? As individuals, we say that what is most precious to us is our children, and their education. But somehow, we when supposedly speak with one voice, education and children are given a minimal priority. Simple. We haven't put our foot down. We haven't insisted on better. We stand idly by, while lobbyists, and businesses, and bureaucracies, and the Generals, all get what they want, first. We are to blame. We haven't made it perfectly clear that the kids and our schools are the American Dream. And therefore, they must be the American priority. The American Dream is our Dream. And it is high time we insisted that our government protect that Dream, above everything else.
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