President Barack Obama presented his second State of the Union speech (SOTU) to our Nation last night (transcript), he emphasized that our economic future will rely on our investment in innovation and our investment in our children’s education.
He said that China and India start educating their children "earlier and longer, with greater emphasis on math and science. They're investing in research and new technologies."
President Obama: "We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world".
In his SOTU speech, President Obama talked about a new program for our education system called "Race to the Top", which will replace the failed education system "No Child Left Behind", which was promoted and signed into law by former President Bush.
Excerpt from President Obama’s State of the Union Speech
"The future is ours to win. But to get there, we can't just stand still. As Robert Kennedy told us, "The future is not a gift. It is an achievement." Sustaining the American Dream has never been about standing pat. It has required each generation to sacrifice, and struggle, and meet the demands of a new age."
"Our schools share this responsibility. When a child walks into a classroom, it should be a place of high expectations and high performance. But too many schools don't meet this test. That's why instead of just pouring money into a system that's not working, we launched a competition called Race to the Top. To all 50 states, we said, "If you show us the most innovative plans to improve teacher quality and student achievement, we'll show you the money."
"Race to the Top is the most meaningful reform of our public schools in a generation. For less than 1 percent of what we spend on education each year, it has led over 40 states to raise their standards for teaching and learning. And these standards were developed, by the way, not by Washington, but by Republican and Democratic governors throughout the country. And Race to the Top should be the approach we follow this year as we replace No Child Left Behind with a law that's more flexible and focused on what's best for our kids."
An opportunity for a good education for the children in our nation truly is THE silver bullet, the fix, the cure, for our nations economic woes. States that invest the least in their children such as Nevada, which has one of the nations worst graduation rates, will find it the hardest to turn their economies around and provide the higher paying jobs that come to States and local communities that take the time to invest in K-12 schools and higher education for their kids.
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