A survey that may be worthwhile, though not too funny

Mrs Hot Stuff brought the following to my attention yesterday. This is a survey from change.org on 30 major issues (although I only count 29). A previous completed survey was done to obtain ideas for these issues and the top 3 ideas for each issue was carried forward to this survey. So now you can go vote for your favorite idea for each of these issues....The results of the survey will be given to President-Elect Obama on Friday (thus, voting ends tomorrow!).

Regardless, of the 29 issues (see below), education came in at #18. 9 spots after Other! Now I did not see how the order was determined, but I expect it was based on the amount of interest from the original survey. Why I think this is odd (regardless of why) is that educated individuals and an educated society is essential to address the issues in italics (and I am being conservative in my choices of issues). There's easily 12 issues that required well educated people. I would argue that 28 actually do, Ill leave Other on the shelf. You want to combat genocide, educate people into the similarities between people not the cultural differences, educate people in history, educate people about themselves.

1 Genocide
2 Gay Rights
3 Global Warming
4 Domestic Poverty
5 Immigration
6 Humanitarian Relief
7 Government Reform
8 Energy
9 Other
10 Environmental Conservation
11 Women's Rights
12 Animal Rights
13 Economy
14 Fair Trade
15 Agricultural Policy
16 Health Care
17 Social Entrepreneurship
18 Education
19 Global Health
20 Criminal Justice
21 Foreign Relations
22 Technology Policy
23 Homelessness
24 Human Trafficking
25 Peace in the Middle East
26 Race
27 Global Poverty
28 Iraq War
29 Civic Engagement

I know dealing with and solving problems associated with these issues is not that easy. However lack of a social emphasis in and on education is a serious problem just look at our country. How much time and effort was spent on Barrack Hussein Obama? How often did we hear about a million dollar projector? What time spent dealing with issues was devoted to winks and flag pins? The media is culpable, but more so are the people of this society. When most people get their policy information from The View then "Houston we have a problem." I have some other post ideas on this for another time.

However, I did touch on the choices for the Education issue:
A. Introduce Esperanto as a foreign language subject in schools to help American kids succeed
I am not sure what "succeed" means here. If it is to aid in learning a second or third language, then this is valid. But is this a major problem that needs to be solved this way? To work, Esperanto needs to be introduced early as a stepping stone to foreign language development. Should all US children learns Esperanto? Should all children have a second language? I can say that a yes here would not be a bad thing. However, how many schools are set up to teach anything other than French (mostly worthless - speaking as someone who took it for 4 years) and Spanish (definitely helpful). What about Indian, Chinese, etc. Does Esperanto help here? Will requiring a second language actually lead to more US adults speaking Chinese?
B. Mobilize Mentors, Tutors, and Citizen Teachers to Help Kids Succeed
I like this idea.
C. "The Autism Reform Act of 2009"
Is this an education issue or a societal health issue? I tend to lean towards the latter, although in no way am I down playing the educational burden parents, teachers, and the individual students have.

Personally, I would have preferred a "Teach the best science and engineering to our K-12 students so we don't waste tons of resources fighting creationists all the fucking time and have critically thinking citizens." But whatever...go vote for your top 10!