Dear Mr. President

In her song “Dear Mr. President” Pink—a popular hip-hop and rock artist in the 21^st century—questions the unsuccessful governmental measures such as the no child left behind act. She asserts, “How can you say no child is left behind? We’re not dumb we’re not blind. They’re all sitting in your cells, while you pave the road to hell.” She attempts to stress through her lyrics that the government’s insufficient response to problems occurring in contemporary society foreshadows a life of “hard work” for adolescents as adults, giving them a bleak future to look forward to. This contributes to their unwillingness to want to partake in this bleak adulthood. In contrast, Nancy Lesko—a professor at Columbia University specializing in curriculum, sociology of education, and youth studies—would attribute this unwillingness to grow up to the unsuccessful middle school structures which do not adequately cater to and foster young adolescents, and inefficaciously prepare youth for adolescence’s transitional phase. Though Lesko makes a reasonable call for education through her academic argument, she ignores the mainstream source where youth are getting the bulk of their life messages from and fails to address the depth of the emerging adulthood problem.