You know, I just had a conversation with someone at the Florida regional who told me that
high schools in the U.S. spend $
millions on their
football stadiums and sport arenas. It's pretty shocking when you consider that 'non-sport activities' keep having their budgets cut, and cut, and cut. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the community that supports something will pay for something, regardless of what it takes. To realign things for academia (including Band, Arts, Music, Wood Shop, Robotics, etc), there has to be local culture shifts before we can do a nationwide culture shift.
I think the next political step isn't just to have Congress appropriate funds for FIRST; actually if you understand the way federal educational appropriations work, you would know that the funds MUST be for federal programs
only. Since education is a state-level line item, it would be up to all of us in FIRST to get to our district representatives for the state we live in, and get them involved. Then the step after that is to get the school boards involved, which is, I believe, the hardest part because the communities we live in directly interact with the school board on a daily basis. Hence, if you truly influence your community, you will eventually change your school board's mind. Obama's words are a start to get a spark going nationwide, but don't think for a second that they alone change anything.