68 EBONY | SEPTEMBER 2010

eDUCATION SPeCIALe

FOR THE PRESIDENT, IT’S PERSONAL.For the country, it’s critical. For African-Americans, it’s the civilrights issue of the 21st century.Nationwide, three out of every 10 students drop out of high school.For Blacks, that number is near half—and growing. Further, it isestimated that every 46 seconds of every school day, a Black malestudent drops out of high school. That’s enough students to fill twoclassrooms every hour and an entire high school each week. Ineffective teaching strategies, off-the-shelf tests, outdated equipment,dilapidated buildings and a host of other ills have been allowed tofester so long in schools nationwide that it seems as if expectations ofsuccess no longer exist. With American schools failing—and countriesincluding China, India and an increasingly capitalistic Russia knockingat the door—the American Dream is being threatened like never before.Many now believe that small changes here and there won’t work.Education in America is in such a crisis, and at such a crossroads, thatthe country needs to totally rethink how it educates its children. In fact, President Obama is so frustrated with the quality of ourschools that he has taken the stand, controversial in many liber-al circles, of supporting the expansion of charter schools. TheWhite House has spearheaded $4.35 billion in “Race to the Top”competitive grants that reward states that propose the best out-of-the-box solutions. In doing so, the president is encouragingthe innovative spirit that spurred the growth of charter schoolsin the first place, and is supporting parents who want to shoparound for a public school that is producing results.The president has also made it clear that he has little time for parentswho don’t put in the effort needed to foster learning in their children,and no patience for teachers and administrators who care more aboutjob security than educating students.But if educational success is the marriage of motivation and preparationon the part of students, parents, teachers and administrators, apresident—even one named Obama—can only do so much. Ultimately, the best education system may be one that simplyholds both its students and its teachers to strict standards, aimsto prevent as many students as possible from falling through thecracks, and catches as many as possible that do. President Obama recently sat down in the White House’s OvalOffice with EBONY Editor-in-Chief Amy DuBois Barnett andWhite House Correspondent Kevin Chappell to talk about what hisadministration is doing to turn around the education system, andwhy he is committed to having America graduate the highestproportion of students from college in the world by 2020.

PRESIDENT OBAMAISON A

MISSION

WHEN IT COMES TOPROVIDING AN

ENVIRONMENT INWHICH EVERY

CHILD CAN LEARN,

BY AMY DUBOIS BARNETTAND KEVIN CHAPPELL

NATIONEDUCATION

0910_Cover Story PresObama 7/19/10 7:41 PM Page 68

70 EBONY | SEPTEMBER 2010 SEPTEMBER 2010 l EBONY 71

eDUCATION SPeCIALeEBONY: MR. PRESIDENT, WHAT DOES IT MEAN FORTHE UNITED STATES THAT A SIGNIFICANT PORTIONOF OUR AFRICAN-AMERICAN POPULATION IS UNABLETO COMPETE AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS BECAUSE OFTHE WIDENING ACHIEVEMENT GAP BETWEENWHITE AND BLACK STUDENTS?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: It’s a huge problem … obviouslyfor the students themselves most importantly, because it means thattheir incomes are going to be capped. But it’s bad for the economyas a whole. One of the strengths of the United States is that we’ve

got a relatively young population and a growing population. That’snot true for most developed countries, but it’s only an advantage ifthose young people … are proficient in math and science and cancommunicate effectively. And our fastest-growing populations areAfrican-Americans and Hispanics.This achievement gap is going to be an albatross around the neck of oureconomy if we don’t solve it. You’re increasingly seeing a mismatchbetween the jobs that are being created and the skill sets that are avail-able. A lot of companies out there are saying, “We’re ready to hire, butwe’re not hiring somebody who didn’t graduate from high school. We’re

not going to hire somebody who doesn’t have at least decent mathskills.” So one of our highest priorities is closing that achievement gap.

EBONY: The achievement gap goes beyond demographics andpolicy. Do you think that there needs to be a fundamental shift in whatwe value as a people and how we perceive academic achievement? Howcan we make education, achievement and success cool again?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, this is something that I’vebeen preaching for years. Look, the government has obligations thatit has to meet. We have to properly fund our schools and we’re stillnot doing that in a lot of communities. One of the top priorities of

this administration has been making sure, during the recession, thatwe’re providing stabilization funds to local school districts so that theycan keep their doors open. But the bottom line is, if we don’t haveparents who are constantly emphasizing high levels of achievement,if we don’t as a community … tell kids that their primary focus is tolearn and that … they’re letting themselves down and letting theircommunities down and letting their country down when they don’tsucceed … we’re not going to be able to compete. When you lookat the success of immigrant kids, for example, a lot of them … evenif they’re in relatively poor schools, oftentimes are succeeding at the

highest levels. And the reason is because they’ve got a network of fam-ily and community that is constantly reinforcing, “Your number-onejob is to succeed in school.” And we just don’t do that.And that goes to everything from making sure our kids read andwrite, to turning off the TV, to reading to them, to putting away thevideo games. You know, all of those things are hard to do for a lot offamilies where maybe a single mom is working all day, coming homeand having to cook, having to take care of a household. Michelle feltlike a single mom when I was off campaigning … so she’s very sym-pathetic about how hard this is. But the issue is, what are your pri-orities? And it doesn’t require money. It requires a sense of commit-

ment. Every African-American knows some family where the momnever graduated from high school, did some sort of domestic workor worked in a factory, but was so geared up on education that, youknow, she’s got five kids and they’re all doctors or lawyers.

EBONY: Let’s talk about your administration’s efforts to bringhigh standards back to public education: the Race to the Top initia-tive. What’s the time line, and what are the expectations for measur-able goals to be achieved?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, just to describe what Race to

the Top does: Essentially, we carved out $4.35 billion dollars, and wesaid to states and local school districts, “This money you don’t getjust because it’s part of a formula. You get this money only if you arecompeting with other states to show us how you’re reforming yourschool system along with a couple of key indicators. Are you train-ing teachers effectively? Are you keeping track of your schools’ per-formance so that there’s accountability? Are you looking at the low-est-performing schools, and do you have a plan to make sure thoselow-performing schools are ramped up?”The good news is that 46 states and the District of Columbia allapplied for the money. Not all of them got funding in that first year,

but because they all were competing for it, they all ended up chang-ing their laws and strengthening reform efforts. So what we’ve alreadyseen is a much more aggressive reform agenda at the local level witha relatively small amount of money. How fast we start seeing results… is going to depend on how aggressive that particular school districtis. But what we’re seeing already is that in some states and local schooldistricts, just paying attention to what works and best practices isalready starting to yield results in terms of improved studentperformance. This is not going to be a one- or two-year issue,partly because we’re already dealing with a bunch of kids who are

”

“If we don’t have parents who are constantly emphasizinghigh levels of achievement,

if we don’t … tell kids that their primary focus is tolearn and THAT THEY’RELETTING THEMSELVESDOWN and …letting their country downwhen they don’t succeed,we’re not going to be able to compete.

LEA

D S

PR

EA

D: TIM

ES

-PIC

AYU

NE

/LAN

DO

V;

DU

DLE

Y M

. BR

OO

KS

0910_Cover Story PresObama 7/19/10 7:41 PM Page 70

72 EBONY | SEPTEMBER 2010SEPTEMBER 2010 l EBONY 73

DU

DLE

Y M

. BR

OO

KS

eDUCATION SPeCIALe

behind; we’re going to have to sustain this for a decade or 15 years.We’ve got another round of [Race to the Top] competitions comingup and then we’re going to see, even in these tight budgetary times,whether we can get additional funding.

EBONY: Well, while we need to develop our brain trust to be inter-nationally competitive, we also need to motivate our youth toward service.This idea is that we all have a debt to society is something that you’ve talkeda lot about. How can we encourage and inspire our kids to give back?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: First of all, it starts at home. Oneof the things that Michelle and I always emphasize to our kids is,“You’ve got responsibilities to the family. Your first responsibility isto do your work at school and bring home good grades, and payattention and behave yourself. But you’ve also got responsibilities interms of taking care of your business, whether it’s walking your dogor [cleaning up] your room.” Some of those kinds of demands madeon children in the home … carry over to a sense of responsibility andobligation outside the home.I think structuring service opportunities for kids, even in elementaryschool … even if the contributions are modest, gets young people inthat mindset that they’ve got responsibilities. And that then carriesover into how they do their homework, how they treat theirboyfriends or girlfriends. Just having a sense of, “It’s not just aboutme, it’s about something else—other people,” is one of the mostimportant aspects of educating young people, period.And what I’d tell young people is that service is actually a great oppor-tunity to network and get exposure to a wider group of people whocan end up being helpful to you, even if that’s not your intention.Everybody I know who gets involved with a not-for-profit, who vol-unteers … ends up meeting people who, at some point in their lives,open doors. And that’s true especially for young people. [However,]we’re very mindful of the fact that some kids who are more privilegedcan afford to do things that are not-for-profit. And other kids [can-not], and I include myself in this. I had to work at Baskin-Robbins... just to make money. So it’s not always an even playing field. But Ithink the general principle applies.

EBONY: Let’s talk about violence. Violence seems to have, unfor-tunately, been normalized in many of our nation’s schools. As youwell know, in Chicago alone, 19 kids under the age of 18 were killedby gun violence this year. How do you propose to address the vio-lence that endangers our children and certainly impedes their abilityto get a quality education?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, you’ve got to have an allhands on deck approach. Federal, state, local, criminal justice sys-tems, schools, community, churches: Everybody’s got to be involvedin thinking about these issues because they’re complicated. Obviously,it starts with making sure that kids and families have the structure andthe support to make them less vulnerable to drugs, make them lessvulnerable to communities that are rife with crime. So … we’ve triedto take [steps] to improve job opportunities, to have drug treatmentprograms, to have affordable housing.You have to have a strong criminal justice effort. One of the reasonsthat New York [City], for example, has been able to drive down itsmurder rate significantly is that they just have more cops on the beat.They have more police officers per capita than any other major cityin the country. And that makes a difference, having a police presence.We’ve [also] got the Department of Justice and my attorney gener-al, Eric Holder, working with local communities to find programsthat work effectively . . . to intervene before gang violence starts tohelp train young people on issues of conflict to avoid. So there is awhole range of things that we, at a federal level, are doing to help rein-force what the state and local communities can do.And one of the things we have to do is not get numb to the tragedies For additional information and resources, log on to ebony.com.

TOP FIVE WAYS TO HELP YOUR CHILDREN ACHIEVE:◗ Expect the best from your children,

and tell them that their primary focus is to learn.

◗ Turn off the TV, read to your kids, prioritize their education.

◗ Inspire your children to give backto their community by finding service opportunities for them.

◗ Don’t get numb to the violence in our communities, and support drug treatment and anti-violence programs.

◗ Help your kids understand the power and independence that knowledge will bring them.

THE TAKEAWAY…PRESIDENT OBAMA’S

U.S. Secretary of EducationArne Duncan has said that “As a country, we should beembarrassed and ashamed that less than 2 percent, lessthan one in 50, teachers areAfrican-American males.”

In an attempt to recruit more Blackmales into the teaching profession,this month the Department ofEducation is unveiling its newTeacher Education Assistance forCollege and Higher Education(TEACH) awareness campaign. Itincludes an aggressive marketingdrive across television, radio, printpublications and the Web. The fed-eral government is working withNike marketing execs, who havevolunteered their services, as wellas with celebrities including OprahWinfrey, who will appear in publicservice announcements.

The primary goal of TEACH is tohighlight the great sense of pur-pose and fulfillment that comesfrom teaching. Duncan says thathe also wants to stress the upwardmobility possible in the educationprofession by clearly laying outhow teachers can be promoted tomaster teachers, principals andsuperintendents.

Duncan recently sat down withEBONY to discuss his plans forencouraging more African-Americanmales to become teachers.

EBONY: How much of a need isthere for more African-Americanmale teachers?

DUNCAN: It is hugely important.

I talk about it everywhere I go. If weare serious about eliminating theachievement gap, we have to closewhat I call the opportunity gap. Ahuge piece of the strategy is to getmore African-American males inthe nation’s classroom. We allknow the challenges our youngAfrican-American boys face. Weknow the challenges around single-parent households and dads beingabsent from their lives. Our youngboys desperately need role mod-els, they need mentors, they needmen who they can look up to andsay, “If they did it, so can I.” Blackboys will gravitate to Black maleteachers . . . [which can] affecthundreds of thousands of lives.You cannot overstate the impact.

EBONY: Specifically, how wouldthe TEACH campaign get moreBlack males into the classroom?

DUNCAN: Right now, we are notgraduating enough African-American males from high school.There are not enough going to col-lege. We don’t have enough gradu-ating from college. Those who doget through have significant loansand they feel like they can’t go intoteaching. There is not one easyanswer here. What we have to dois build our own pipeline. This isnot a self-correcting problem. Andif we don’t do something, thisthing is actually going to getworse. It’s a multifacetedapproach. The big change is ourincome-based repayment plan, inwhich we are dramatically reduc-ing loan repayment, and after 10years of public service, such asteaching, your loans are forgiven.

BY KEVIN CHAPPELLTEACHing Black Men

that are happening on our streets every day. As you said, [violence] can get normal-ized in a way that we just have to fight against.

EBONY: Mr. President, this year EBONY is celebrating its 65th anniversary. Asthe oldest Black magazine in the country, we would like to be part of the solution tothese issues. How can EBONY’s help you to solve these issues? How can we help ourchildren succeed in school and in life? Please share your wish list from us.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, the most important thing for me is thatevery single EBONY reader help to parent our kids and set very high expectations forthem. Number two, EBONY, and all our media outlets, have to start glamorizing edu-cational achievement as much as we glamorize athletes and actors. Look, Malia andSasha, if given a choice, would rather listen to Beyoncé than they would do fractions.But what Michelle and I are able to do is to say, “Your work now, your willingness todefer gratification, is going to put you in a position where you can choose a career,raise a family, afford a Beyoncé concert ticket. [Your work] gives you control over yourlife.” And so the girls have made that connection. We always have dinner together, Michelle, the girls and me. [Last year over dinner,]Malia was explaining to us something about how electromagnetic waves were work-ing, and Michelle and I were listening and trying to remember all this stuff we hadlearned a while back. At the end of it, Malia said, “You know, I like having knowl-edge.” She said it just like that. “I like having knowledge. You know, it’s good to knowstuff.” And when your kid feels that way, then half the battle is won. Then you don’thave to nag them all the time because they’ve now decided … “To know stuff givesme power. It gives me strength. It gives me a way to move through the world.”

EBONY: Did that make you feel good?PRESIDENT OBAMA: Oh, it made me feel great. You’re only as happy asyour least-happy child!

0910_Cover Story PresObama 7/19/10 7:41 PM Page 72