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An Economic Issue: Obama Defends his Education Plan



President Obama defended his educational program at the 100th anniversary of the National Urban League on Thursday. His plan has come under recent attack from some minority and teacher groups. Teacher unions have objected to the program which places a significant emphasis on teacher evaluations. Minority groups have expressed concern over the extent to which a competition based plan will help black and Latino students.

Obama framed the challenges facing education in the larger economic context. “Education is an economic issue, if not the economic issue of our time. It’s an economic issue,” he went on to say, “when the unemployment rate for folks who’ve never gone to college is almost double what it is for those who have. It’s an economic issue when eight in 10 new jobs will require workforce training or a higher education by the end of this decade. It’s an economic issue when we know countries that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow.”

Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 4, 2010 at 8:46 PM

    i will consider this a preemptive halfway shout out for my readership since obama talks about how much philadelphia mastery charter schools kick butt in this speech. love, Ms. K-A
    ps. i seriously considered not commenting so you could enjoy thinking that your readership had expanded to random folk in atlanta where i am at the moment

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousAugust 15, 2010 at 10:31 AM

    A first comment and from a reader outside of my of immediate family! This is all very exciting. Thanks for reading! Mastery Charter Schools certainly do kick butt.

    Best,
    Julia

    ReplyDelete

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