Obama Wants $900 Million to Stem School "Dropout Epidemic"

Well, H1N1 swine flu "epidemic" didn't happen, but several billion dollars went to the programs to prepare for the epidemic. Giving $900 million away for another "epidemic" should be no big deal, right?

The Bush era's word was "war on ...... (fill in the blank)". The Obama era's word is "...... epidemic (fill in the blank)"?

Obama seeks money, interventions to stem dropouts
(3/1/2010 AP via Yahoo News)

"WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama took aim Monday at the nation's school dropout epidemic, proposing $900 million to states and education districts that agree to drastically change or even shutter their worst performing schools.

"Obama's move comes as many schools continue to struggle to get children to graduation, a profound problem in a rich, powerful nation. Only about 70 percent of entering high school freshmen go on to graduate. The problem affects blacks and Latinos at particularly high rates.

"Obama described the crisis as one that hurts individual kids and the nation as a whole, shattering dreams and undermining an already hurting economy." [The article continues.]

Rich, powerful nation? (Rich?) I guess this AP writer simply copied verbatim what the president said.

School dropouts undermining the weak economy? I think it's the other way around: Weak economy encouraging dropping out of schools - lack of funds, lack of support.

He wants to spend $900 million of taxpayer's money to help nation's worst 5000 schools. $180,000 per school. Let's see what that would do. Looking at how much local school administrators earn (a lot), that money wouldn't be enough to hire another bureaucrat at each school to oversee his "dropout prevention program", whatever that may be.

I am all for it if he so strongly believes in his cause that he donates his own private money and all those multimillionaire Congressmen and Senators join him.

Or he can donate to Treasury Department to reduce the government deficit, if he really cares about reducing the deficit he is expanding.

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President Obama to Address Students Across America

and the Department of Education issues a to-do list for teachers across the country.

President Obama’s Address to Students Across America September 8, 2009 (posted on Docstoc) [emphasis is mine, my comment in italic]

PreK-6 Menu of Classroom Activities: President Obama’s Address to Students Across America Produced by Teaching Ambassador Fellows, U.S. Department of Education
September 8, 2009

Before the Speech:
 Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama and motivate students by asking the following questions: Who is the President of the United States? What do you think it takes to be President? To whom do you think the President is going to be speaking? Why do you think he wants to speak to you? What do you think he will say to you?
 Teachers can ask students to imagine being the President delivering a speech to all of the students in the United States. What would you tell students? What can students do to help in our schools? Teachers can chart ideas about what they would say.
 Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?

During the Speech:
 As the President speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note-taking graphic organizer such as a Cluster Web, or students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children can draw pictures and write as appropriate. As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following: What is the President trying to tell me? What is the President asking me to do? What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?
 Students can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?
 Students can record any questions they have while he is speaking and then discuss them after the speech. Younger children may need to dictate their questions.

After the Speech:
 Teachers could ask students to share the ideas they recorded, exchange sticky notes or stick notes on a butcher paper poster in the classroom to discuss main ideas from the speech, i.e. citizenship, personal responsibility, civic duty. [citizenship??]
 Students could discuss their responses to the following questions: What do you think the President wants us to do? Does the speech make you want to do anything? Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us? What would you like to tell the President?
 Teachers could encourage students to participate in the Department of Education’s “I Am What I Learn” video contest. On September 8th the Department will invite K-12 students to submit a 2 video no longer than 2 min, explaining why education is important and how their education will help them achieve their dreams. Teachers are welcome to incorporate the same or a similar video project into an assignment. More details will be released via http://www.ed.gov/.

Extension of the Speech:
Teachers can extend learning by having students
 Create posters of their goals. Posters could be formatted in quadrants or puzzle pieces or trails marked with the labels: personal, academic, community, country. Each area could be labeled with three steps for achieving goals in those areas. It might make sense to focus on personal and academic so community and country goals come more readily.
 Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.
 Write goals on colored index cards or precut designs to post around the classroom. Interview and share about their goals with one another to create a supportive community.
 Participate in School wide incentive programs or contests for students who achieve their goals.
 Write about their goals in a variety of genres, i.e. poems, songs, personal essays.
 Create artistic projects based on the themes of their goals. [See my post on National Endowment of Arts; 3rd topic in the post]
 Graph student progress toward goals.

Who are the Teaching Ambassador Fellows? Here's the link to the Department of Education. There are 13 of them. They were appointed on August 4, so this announcement must be their very first job.

This is downright creepy to me. But the parents who have their children in public schools may tell us that this is totally in line with what the schools have been doing.

You may want to check:
http://www.billayers.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals

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