Six suggestions for improving education in the country are offered. The case is made first that unless children's health care is improved, educational achievement among the poor will not improve. The second point is that poverty limits school achievement as well. Without work on these two issues, neither the nation nor the nation's schools will be in better places at the end of the next president's term in office. The third and fourth suggestions for improvement are inside the school factors that the president can influence. It is argued that higher-quality teachers are required than the nation now has and that school accountability systems now in use undermine the professionalism of the teaching force. The fifth and sixth suggestions are about how to improve the funding of educational research, suggestions easily implemented by the next president.