Awareness Letter

211 Elm St NW

Washington, DC 20001

November 23, 2010

Barack Obama

President

United States of America

1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW

Washington, DC 20006

Dear Mr. President:

I am a freshman at Howard University. My recent move from Texas to Washington, DC, has assimilated me into current politics. I feel it’s now my duty to know what is going on in the capital of my country since I stay here now. I have been delighted with your recent efforts while you have been in office. I even commend you of your effort to bring bipartisan policies into effect. However, I still have a problem with the education system that Americans face, and I feel that we are going the completely wrong way with trying to fix it.

During your campaign run, and also while you have been in office, you have clearly stated your opinion on education in America. You even gave reasonable solutions, but I still feel as if you’re not addressing the real problem. The greatest area of concern to me is that America focuses too much on trying to compete with other nation’s education system that we are not realizing were not reaching our full potential.

Your ideas of creating head-start programs and strengthening the core of K-12 schooling are excellent idea, but if the main goal is to try to catch up to other countries, then everything you are trying to do is pointless. I know from personal experience that other countries to reaching their full potential either. Through the diversity of Howard University, I am blessed to see many ethnicities. They have a very strong sense of education, but I feel that other ethnicities as well as we could be working a lot harder than we currently are.

President Barack Obama

Page 2

November 23, 2010

I attended one of our town hall meetings, and I know hearing other students ideas will bring new ideas to the table. I would like to request that you hold another town hall meeting soon to discuss different aspects of education reform can be presented.

Thank you for your consideration. I hope to hear from you soon, and I will be writing again within the next 3 weeks to follow up on your consideration.

Sincerely,

Derrick Simmons

Republicans Takeover

Republicans continue to gain seats in the house. Democrats are continuing to lose votes because they can not win their midterm elections. They have lost 61 seats as of today. I think it is Americans retaliation towards President Barack Obama. They are unhappy with his administrations policies, so they are trying to put opposition as a road block so President Obama can not get anything passed. Yet, what Americans don't know is that this is only going to create more gridlock in Congress. Since the Senate is still controlled by Democrats, there is a likelihood that nothing will get passed. The two bodies of Congress will constantly oppose each others ideas, and this will only effect President Obama more. With nothing getting done in Congress, ignorant Americans will probably get mad at President Obama and not reelect him. 2012 is gonna be an insanely crazy year.