The Will of One (Wishful Thinking)

Written on 9/1/2010

We were talking about magical realism today. I have a great story idea. Here's the journal:

"If you were President, what changes would you make while in office?"

I don't feel like I know enough about the current state of our country (or the world) to answer this well. In terms of teenage bloggers who I follow (and there are what, only four of them/you?) it's more suited for The Liberal Rocker (yep, I'm taking a small break to promote you. Now you owe me. Haha)

That being the case, these are the views of one not-really-average citizen of America.

I would (try to) pass a law limiting the salaries of CEOs, like they have in some parts of Europe. They could still have high salaries, but not to the ridiculously exorbitant extent that is currently common. Yes, I'll be called a Communist for it. No, I'm not a Communist.

And now, since I'm realizing that I'm pretty sure the President doesn't have as much power as we're raised to believe, I will simply make a list of things I want to happen while I'm in office, and we can ignore whether or not that's actually possible and the How of it.

• Decreasing of national debt
• Getting out of the Middle East as soon as possible but not leaving it in a state of ruin
• Making gay marriage completely legal in the entire country
• Changing the education system somewhat

And now because out of all of those things, I'm the most familiar with education, I'll make a separate list about that. Ignore the fact that these require lots of money:

• Higher standards for graduation from high school (we currently only need 26 credits, and if you pass ALL of your classes, you get 32). This includes more arts (and other types of) classes required as well as just more credits.
• When the education system of a given state is low on money, Honors and AP classes are NOT CUT. They can be down-sized, so there'll just be one teacher offering it instead of two or more. The money for this stuff will come out of the Education Executive's salaries, with percentages done based on the amount of money those people make. 
• Classes like Marching Band won't be Honors-level. Yes, there's loads of time put into it, but it doesn't take an Honors student to put in the time, even though most band kids are also honors students.
• Teachers will be paid more.
• There will be no more "teaching to the test." The entire attitude of education will somehow be re-vamped so that it becomes about Learning and not Graduating. (Any deities listening, if you could help with that, I'd be very grateful. But I still won't worship you. Nothing personal. I just have issues with worship in general.)
• There will be one additional optional period at the end of the school day. Any teacher who volunteers to do this will receive a bonus.
• "Busy work" will be eliminated. If you're not going to be learning at school, WHAT IS THE POINT OF GOING??? See bullet 5.
• Education will be more individualized. If a kid has potential in a certain area, that kid will be given the opportunities to fulfill that potential. I guess this means there will have to be more placement tests instead of just in college.

Pretty much all of this is impossible to implement, but this was my journal prompt, and these are my thoughts.