On a good day, education is a tough issue and often believed by candidates to be a real trap.  How much have we heard about it in this presidential election year when polls show the American public feels we are slipping behind other nations in skills development for the 21st Century?  What hiding from issues that are critical to our nation’s future does, however, is keep them unresolved and the nation stymied.  More than anything, keeping a low profile on education tells us that our leaders are out of touch.  Most legislation before Congress has focused on programs that may have rung true for our industrial age but ring hollow for a knowledge-based economy and lifestyles that are high on image, critical thinking, problem solving and manipulating information using keen judgment.  The imagination needs some nurturing and interdisciplinary approaches where they arts play a crucial role is the medicine needed to keep up with today’s multidisciplinary and complex world.