The success of the United States is contingent upon the success of the nation’s education system. This was the message President Barack Obama sent to the nation Thursday in his speech at the 100th Anniversary of the National Urban League in Washington.
“Some argue that as we emerge from a recession, my administration should focus solely on economic issues,” Obama said. “Education is an economic issue, if not the economic issue of our time.”
Obama said that education is a “prerequisite for prosperity” and credited “Race to the Top” for motivating schools across the country to believe in the same message.
“The single most important thing we’ve done is to launch Race to the Top,” he said.
The program is designed to encourage reform and change in state and local K-12 education. Schools that meet specific criteria are awarded grants, increasing funding to help implement some of the changes they have made and increasing opportunities for their students.
In collaboration with reform at the school level, Obama made certain that teachers gain the recognition they deserve but asserted that they must also be true to their responsibility to the nation’s students.
“Our goal is accountability,” he said. “It’s to provide teachers with the support they need to be as effective as they can be and to create a better environment for teachers and students alike.”
Standards in America’s education system are rising and it is being flooded with funding in an effort to yield positive results from teachers and students, but Obama said that there are schools that will need a little more for them to make that turnaround.
“If we want success for our country, we can’t accept failure in our schools decade after decade,” he said. “That’s why we’re challenging states to turn around our 5,00 lowest performing school and I don’t think it’s any secret that most of those are serving African-American or Hispanic kids.”
The president said that $4 billion is being invested into assisting these turnarounds.