Fifty percent of black children don't make it through school. In a recent Gallup poll only 50 percent of blacks surveyed felt black children had as good an opportunity for a good education as white children.
Does John Edwards really think that he can design a public school system that is equally appropriate for rich white children and for poor black children?
Regardless of questions of income status or race, suppose parents don't want their children in mixed sex education classes? Suppose they don't like the teaching techniques, priorities, or the moral tone of the school their child attends. Will they be dividers rather than uniters if they suggest that they should have control of where to send their kids to school?
It appears that the Kerry/Edwards idea of one America is an America that they design and control. Their campaign is about convincing Americans to elect them and to give them the power to do it. They'll decide who should earn what, where companies should do business, what size fits all health care systems, and what education should be.
We already have plenty of history in our own country and in many places around the world showing that the road to poverty and moral bankruptcy is political control of private lives.
We also have plenty of evidence at this point that the best anti-poverty program is freedom and personal responsibility.
Fortunately, freedom is what unites our country. We are united by the very core principles that enabled John Edwards to rise from a modest background to become one of America's wealthiest men. It is the politics of envy and social engineering that causes divisions in our nation.