The document proposes "The Education Amnesty", which aims to make education reform the central policy discussion during the 2012 US election. It argues that the current education system is not adequately developing creative and critical thinking skills needed for future jobs. The initiative calls for participation across all sectors of society, including corporations, media outlets, educators, politicians and citizens, to have open and honest conversations about improving arts education and acknowledging both successes and failures in the education system to avoid repeating mistakes. It aims to provide Americans with tools to raise awareness and discussion around education reform leading up to the 2012 election.

1. The Education Amnesty ‘If you don’t know you’ve got a problem then what’s the problem?’

2. Wouldn't it be great if we could make the most important part of the 2012 election a debate about our children's futures and the way that they are taught, so that it becomes the number one policy making discussion during the election? Instead of lipstick on pigs and surname spoonerisms, we concentrate on the matters that will affect the future economic performance of the country and the well being of it’s inhabitants.

3. Wouldn't it be great if we could make the most important part of the 2012 election a debate about our children's futures and the way that they are taught, so that it becomes the number one policy making discussion during the election? Instead of lipstick on pigs and surname spoonerisms, we concentrate on the matters that will affect the future economic performance of the country and the well being of its inhabitants.

4. The future of the American economy will be entirely dependent upon the IDEAS that we create not the goods that we manufacture, yet America faces a "future gap" between what we anticipate are the challenges of the future and the homegrown talent that we'll have on hand to take them on. Many experts, educators and business leaders agree that there is a growing deficit of creative thinkers coming out of the U.S. education system. What's worse is that most Americans are not aware of this, while teachers and business leaders are calling out for help. If we want our children to prosper, then we'll need to insure that they have the creative skills to meet the challenges of the future.

5. The Education Amnesty. We're taking the lead because no one else is doing it. We need all corners of our communities to participate in a debate and conversation about what works and what doesn't work. We need to talk about the role of art education in helping students cultivate their creativity. We need to highlight our success stories so that others in our community can learn from them and apply it to their approaches, while we need to acknowledge our collective failures so that we are not destined to repeat them.

6. In short: corporate help, citizen action, school board participation. We start with a series of high profile conversations on major media venues, such as the Oprah Winfrey network, CNN, and Facebook, while we will ask Fortune 500 companies, such as Google, Time Warner, Walmart, Disney and McDonalds, to support the initiative through their shared expertise and media properties. We need everyone to be on board, from Jack Welch, Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg, Carly Fiorina and Bill Gates; to Tim O'Reilly, Bill O'Reilly, Oprah, Anderson Cooper and the folks at Boing Boing; from our greatest teachers at every level to the principals and members of school boards across the country, to the Parent Teacher Associations and every day working Americans and, of course, America's students as well as America's politicians.

7. We need to make this the most important policy discussion in 2012. It has to be the debate during next year's election cycle. As part of this national initiative, we will provide Americans with a "hijack the election" tool kit to show them how to raise awareness to a much higher level so that this topic is on everyone's mind during this extremely crucial period. Social media will play a major role, while there should be town hall-like discussions in every community in the country. We need to get everyone involved, young and old, working class and wealthy, urban and rural.