President Obama gave a speech on education in Madison, Wisconsin on November 4th, to talk about his "Race to the Top" plan and how to revamp "No Child Left Behind." Obama claimed that "What we [the administration] want to do is try and get testing right," but also called on parents to toughen their own standards for their kids, sharing a story about how he and the First Lady pushed their daughter Malia to excell, and even revealed some of Malia's recent test scores.

In Britain, new legislation will make sex education a required course in 2011 starting at the age of five, with lessons on "different kinds of relationships, how to manage their emotions and the physical changes to their bodies in childhood," according to the Guardian. This program is being enacted to combat Britain's high teen pregnancy rate. However, although religious schools would be required to teach the courses as well, they can modify the courses according to their own "ethos," and parents can remove their children from the sex ed programs until the age of 16.

We all know that higher education tuition is skyrocketing, but there are now 58 colleges that have hit the $50,000+ marker compared to last year's 5, according to the New York Times. These colleges include Bryn Mawr, Johns Hopkins University, and Georgetown. However, costs can also be significantly more, due to textbooks, housing, and other student expenditures.

In Pakistan, where education spending remains at about 2.9% of its gross domestic product, private schools have been popping up to combat the inadequate public school system and the religiously-oriented madrassas. Though these private schools are small and still contain much religious content, Pakistani parents continue to send their children there, and the United States is sending a small amount of aid to private schools in the hopes that they will counter religious extremism often spread by madrassas.

Like many students across the country, I was unable to watch President Obama's speech to students in school yesterday. School districts had many excuses for this, according to the LA Times--from parents complaints to simply not having the technology necessary.

And of course, there were plenty of school districts where it was decided the address didn't fit into the state standards, and that was that. In my AP Biology class, we had already started our first lecture of the year, and there was no way our teacher was going to halt that to watch the president speak.

Naturally, after all the uproar regarding the so-called "socialist indoctrination" that was just bound to be present in the speech, I was disappointed I didn't have a chance to view it and see for myself what the fuss was about.

Luckily, my English teacher gave my class an assignment to read the text of the speech and analyze it. I was all set to speak in glowing terms of the astounding rhetoric which I was sure would be present in the speech, after Obama's previous speech-making triumphs.

Unfortunately, I was pretty underimpressed.

I appreciated Obama's intent and the purpose behind his speech--to encourage kids to take responsibility for their education and stay in school--but I didn't feel particularly inspired at all.

Most of the speech seemed to take on a lecturing tone, as the president echoed the old rules we know by heart--stay in school, do your homework, respect your teacher...the list goes on. Maybe I'm just a cynical high school junior who's not about to drop out of school, but the address didn't really inspire or motivate me.  

Furthermore, telling students that they should set good goals and be more responsible is probably not going to solve the high drop-out rate, low budgets, or any of the many problems that plague public schools. Like a lot of the so-called "solutions to the education crisis," the address was just a temporary band-aid fix that, especially in this case, grossly ignored the root of the problem.

But however condescending I found the speech, I didn't find a hint of "socialist indoctrination" anywhere. Whether or not the speech was effective, it seemed to be on the whole inoffensive. Yet somehow you get parents like this one from Dallas, Texas, who CNN quotes as saying, "The president's speeches tend to be [about] what's wrong with the country and what can we do to fix it. I believe this is the greatest country on Earth, and I try to teach that to my children. ... I don't want them hearing that there's a fundamental flaw with the country and the kids need to go forward to fix it."

I think this proves far more than the speech itself that we really need to ramp up America's educational system.

The full text of the speech is here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/
And you can find out more here: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-schoolkids5-2009sep05,0,2023699.story
And here: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/07/obama.school.speech/

The President of the United States of America Barack Obama has been making headlines this week for a speech he made which was broadcast to schools across the country. In this speech he encouraged children that if they want to achieve anything they will need an education to do it and that the future of the country depended on their educational achievement.

Many people in the US have been unhappy with his speech, as they believe he is trying to indoctrinate young people in to his political agenda. Instead of bringing politics in to the classroom he has brought himself in to the classroom with a motivational and inspirational message.

Now I am all for public and famous figures doing all they can to inspire and motivate young people to achieve all that they can and I think more people should use their fame or stature to do this. I think where Obama has come unstuck is when he says that the future of the country depends on you. No matter how true I think this statement is I think he should have gone down the route of encouraging young people to work hard to see what they can achieve in their own life and not tagged on the message about the country.

In the UK will we see Gordon Brown trying a similar thing and if he did what would the reaction be? I think Obama is in a unique place as I think he is one of the most liked and recognized world leaders amongst the young community that there has been so young people in America are probably more likely to listen to him than say if Gordon Brown tried the same thing over here.

Overall I think world leaders should always be doing more to help and inspire young people but it needs to be for the right reasons not for point scoring or some other hidden agenda and as Obama has found out the way the message is delivered is so important as young minds are very impressionable.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

I was so happy when i found out that Obama was president. He is such an inspirational person and in my opinion, i think he can lead America and change things for the better of this country.

His speech was very emotional and inspiring. I cried when I heard it. I loved how he at one point of his speech, he mentioned his wife : Michelle Obama. It was so sweet!

I also liked how he described all the hardships America had to go through to get to his point in history where the 1st African -American has become a president.

My friends and I at school talked about the speech for so long, i felt my mouth was going to fall out of my face 

His speech was very passionate and moving. For the first time in a long time, I am proud to be an American.