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Hi, I'd like to take the chance to wish everyone a happy new year. I hope you had the chance
to spend some time with your families and relax over the holidays. I was lucky enough
to do that and really appreciated the chance. We asked people both on Twitter and via Facebook
what their goals and aspirations, expectations and hopes were for 2012. Mike who is a teacher
said his goal was to get politics out of education. I think on the policy side, we have to work
in a bipartisan way, we have to fix No Child Left Behind together. Put aside politics,
put aside ideology. Do the right thing for children, for parents, for teachers, for schools,
and ultimately for the country. That's the only way we're going to get where we need
to go. We also have to continue to allow great teachers to be innovative and give them the
room to be creative. I think teachers have been stifled too much in the past, and as
we move forward around waivers on No Child Left Behind on the short term, and ultimately
hoping to fix the law with Congress, giving great teachers, great principals the space
and room to innovate, to make sure children have a well-rounded education, get politicians
and politics out of the way, it is the right thing to do. Alice is a mom who lives right
here in DC. She responded to us via Twitter. She has a three-year old son, and she says
she is starting to work now to make sure her middle school, her neighborhood middle school
is a great school so it will be ready when her son is of age to go to middle school.
I just want to thank Alice for her commitment, and all parents who are stepping up. We need
great teachers, we need great principals, but I don't think there are any great schools
in this country who don't have parents who are absolutely committed. Even when our babies
are two and three and four years old, getting actively engaged, bringing in other parents,
bringing in the entire community to make sure your neighborhood school is a great great
school and can be a school of choice for you, not a school of last resort, but a school
of choice, nothing is more important than active parental engagement. It's something
we are going to be talking about a lot this year as we move forward. Eugene responded
to us via Twitter. He's a high school administrator. His goal for 2012 is to get parents more engaged.
And while sometimes that's a little counterintuitive to get the parents of high school students
to be more active in the school, it is desperately desperately important. And I thank Eugene
for having the vision and the leadership to work on that. When I ran the Chicago Public
Schools, we actually surveyed our high school students on a whole host of issues to get
their pulse, and to find out what they were thinking about. What was fascinating to me,
and actually a little bit heartbreaking, that one of the things teenagers are most looking
for was more parental engagement. I think sometimes we as adults think that high school
students want more freedom, more autonomy, and want parents out of the way. Our students
in the Chicago Public Schools, our high school students were desperately looking for their
parents to be more engaged in their lives. So whether it is fun activities like a bowling
night with the school, whether it's around sports teams, or chess teams, or debate teams,
whether it's service-learning work or community service work that parents and students can
do together at the school, getting those high school parents engaged with their students,
with the school, fully participating in their learning every single day. Our students want
more structure, and I thank Eugene for his leadership there.