Marie Corfield: My open letter to President Obama about public education and his legacy

Marie Corfield: My open letter to President Obama about public education and his legacy:

My open letter to President Obama about public education and his legacy

Dear President Obama,

Along with millions of Americans, I proudly and joyously voted for you in 2008. I believed that finally our nation was living up to its promise of a land where 'all men [and women] are created equal'. I have continually admired your resolve and poise in the face of birthers and other racists who have purposefully jeopardized the best interests of our nation as they plot your political demise. And I voted for you again in 2012, albeit without the same level of enthusiasm. In many ways I'm still happy you are my president. The economy is heading in the right direction, millions of previously uninsured people now have access to affordable healthcare, and our troops are coming home from over a decade of war. But to be perfectly honest, in certain ways it's more about what an alternate McCain or Romney universe would have looked like, and less about what yours looks like now because theirs would have been exponentially worse for people like me and those whom I serve.

You see, I'm an educator, and I see first hand the devastating effects your education policies, and by proxy, those of state and local officials, have on the very people whose hopes and dreams carried you to victory; whose hopes and dreams you hold so close to your heart: the people who waited hundreds of years, and waited hours in line to cast their vote so that someone just like them could finally sit in the Oval Office. Mr. President, you have let them—and all of us—down. And in light of all the good that you have accomplished, in light of what your presidency means to the history and the moral conscience of this nation, what a terrible, ironic tragedy it would be if your legacy turns out to be the further marginalization of those who have lived their lives in the margins.

Now you may wonder what a middle class, white woman from the suburbs knows about racial inequality. And that's a fair question. While I could never walk a mile in your shoes, I walked many miles in other shoes. I was raised by Roman Catholic Republicans who Marie Corfield: My open letter to President Obama about public education and his legacy: