Education -- Obama's Focus for Re-engineering the Economy

President-Elect Obama gave a state of the economy address less than an hour ago and one of his two key focuses will be on – guess what – EDUCATION!

PEP and community members of like-mindedness have been onto this for some time now! PEP’s reputation has gone through a permutation of accusations and feelings that range from mutual respect, suspicion/ulterior motives, negativity, self-servitude, and philanthropy. But -- no matter what the opinions of the opine’rs have been – PEP has always had its center of gravity rooted in the cause of improving the education of our children in this city. Whether you’ve agreed with some of the tactics or not…the end really does justify the means.

I have been spending my time as President of this organization trying to instill, install and advance the empowerment of parents and community in cooperation with our school district to bring about the much needed change in not just the content and rigor of the education in this city but the overall context of how education is viewed in our city.

Yes – we all know of the legal obligations a parent and government is under to make sure children go to school, but if Plainfield’s past and current academic rankings hasn’t proven anything else – it should be clear to all members of society that just having a kid in the classroom doesn’t effectuate the learning that will enable him or her to be a contributing member of society.
Plainfield is at a very exciting juncture in our quest for educational excellence in that we have the opportunity to bring together all the many and varying moving parts of this community in such a way that we can provide the perfect example of what “working together” looks like and most important what tangible and measurable results can be obtained.

The key here and although rather corny -- but quite appropriate – is UNITY!

Hey Plainfield we are up to bat…what position will you play?