(Dear Future President)Finale Draft

Dear future President,
Exploring civil rights this week has opened my eyes. It has shown me how many harsh obstacles African Americans faced. It described what many had to do in order to pave the way for freedom for themselves and other African Americans. In today’s society, many African American, as well as other minorities are still fighting for their rights. The rights being fought are not rights for freedom, but rights for an equal education. Fifty years ago education wasn’t resourceful and wasn’t equal to a white persons' education. During the 1950’s, with the Jim Crow laws enhanced education around that time period lacked resources, and this made it hard for African Americans to have an equal education. With separate but equal laws also passed, this ensured people of color equal rights, but still remained separate from the white race. Still education wasn’t equal, during the Brown vs. Board of Education case it promised equal education among both blacks and whites and to outlaw discrimination against the colored race. In today’s society education has progressed but not the progression many were looking for. New statistics discovered that every twenty six seconds high school students have dropped out, this is for the lack of resources in public schools. Many schools are faced with harsh quarters, no textbooks, lack of teachers, lack of classrooms, lack of school supplies, computers and many more. In today’s world with so much technology emerging, education should be well resourced.Urban public schools have the majority population and should have technology such as computers to explore different ways of learning. Schools should have science labs well equipped with supplies. With technology so big in the U.S, minorities should be able to receive an equivalent education to a white student attending a suburban school as well as a student in a third world country.
As I walked into my new high school, I knew it would be a big challenge, the school had only been open for twelve months and still hasn’t recieved the resources it needs for its new freshmen class. As time progressed, it is two years and still no new changes. I know it’s optional to transfer, but this isn’t just occurring in my school it’s also occurring in other public high schools. As a minority and attending a school such as the one I do, puts more pressure on me to be the BEST. No resources located in my school makes it harder for me as a student, with no resources this makes it difficult for a teacher to teach and assign homework assignments and with the lack of homework assignments it will not prepare one for college. Sharing classrooms and lack of teacher’s work ethics puts me in a horrible situation. Many other teens are in the same situation as I am, and this is why I ask you the future president, to fix the education system. Prevent budget cuts and help make urban minority schools equal to an education given to a suburban student. I believe everyone is entitled to an equal education. High school students as well as elementary students, junior high and college students deserve the same education and many shouldn’t have to suffer because of their ethnicity and stereotypes. Education is an important part of life and should not differ based on one’s community.
Discrimination, a word often use by the majority of the minority population, experienced an incident where they have felt they were being discriminated against due to race, gender, personality and among many more. No one likes to feel as if someone is treating them differently because of certain characteristics they possess. This is a disease for which there be no cure. As a Latino and African American young lady, I have experienced discrimination because of characteristics I possess. I decided to apply to travel abroad to Spain during the spring break with ten other peers to tour the beautiful country.
The whole application process was a breeze, in that the Spanish teacher and I knew one another somewhat well, since she taught me in the sixth, ninth and eleventh grade. I was confident she know how I would appreciate traveling and would embrace the whole experience. I was also confident because of receiving better grades than half the students who applied and academic work on the weekends. Still some doubts were in the back of my head because of my parent’s great involvement in the PTA. You would think this would be a good thing for the school, but it was everyone’s worst nightmare since the staff didn’t want anyone invading their privacy and neither did they like being critiqued. Many in my school, began to discriminate against me the minute they knew whose child I was. This fact made it hard to trust anyone and hard to be involved in any activities the school offered. The day came, when we found out who would be accepted to travel abroad and I was denied. Denied? I asked myself, what foolishness is this? I approached my Spanish teacher and asked her why was I denied. She stood quiet for a moment and then I realized she was discriminating against me. I came up with this conclusion because she didn’t appreciate my voice and my speaking horribly about her teaching ethics as well as the schools. What did the other students selected have over me? I got better grades, I fought for my education in school, and I was very opinionated and did things in my free time so why did the students who did nothing? From that day forward my pride and motivation to do better in my school went out the window. Why try when they were only going to discriminate against because of whom my parents are.
When you come into presidency, I want you to address the education system. Help finally bring equal education to justice. Help all minorities get to where whites are today. Make sure all schools have the proper resources to help all succeed. Let’s take the word discrimination out of minorities’ vocabulary and let’s help decrease ability to others discriminate and feel superior to them. All I ask is the NYC school systems be fixed to help ensure better education for the youths to come, I don’t want others to suffer in their education as I did.
Sincerely,
Ronnae Douglas