CAT | Education
Imagine a problem facing a community — unemployment or homelessness, poverty or environmental degradation — and there’s a good chance a group of college students is finding a way to tackle it. At the Corporation for National and Community Service, we honor these students and their universities with the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. The Honor Roll is the highest Federal recognition a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning, and civic engagement.
Today, we are honored to announce the recipients of the 2009 Presidential Awards:
General Community Service Awardees
Lee University, Cleveland, Tennessee
Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Special Focus: Service to Youth from Disadvantaged Circumstances Awardees
Emory & Henry College, Emory, Virginia
Raritan Valley Community College, Branchburg, New Jersey
Willamette University, Salem, Oregon
In addition to these outstanding winners, 736 colleges and universities were placed on the Honor Roll, with 115 of these receiving “With Distinction” honors.
The competition was tough – the winners had to demonstrate their level of student participation in service activities; scope, level of effort, innovation and effectiveness of their service projects; and overall institutional support to service-learning and volunteerism.
The importance of service to college students is underscored by one telling statistic: in the 2008-09 academic year, more than three million college students contributed over 300 million hours of service. College students take on community challenges by running after school programs, tutoring at-risk youth, building and weatherizing homes, offering computer classes, restoring natural parks, and much more.
I cannot overstate the important role that colleges and universities play in the broader national service movement. These institutions’ commitment to service can have an impact on students throughout their entire lives.
The Honor Roll is one of many ways that we promote student service-learning and civic engagement. Our Learn and Serve America program works with schools across the country to promote academic achievement and civic responsibility for more than one million students each year, and AmeriCorps annually engages thousands of college students in making a difference in their communities while earning money for their education.
I want to express my sincere congratulations to the recipients of the Presidential Award and the more than 700 additional schools that applied. I encourage every college and university to apply for the 2010 Honor Roll, and to find new and creative ways to engage their students in service throughout the year. Read more about all the colleges and universities that received the Honor Roll.
Patrick Corvington is the Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service
This evening, President Obama will call the astronaut crews of the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle Endeavour from the Roosevelt Room of the White House and congratulate the astronauts on their successful ongoing mission. The call will be livestreamed at 5:15pm EST on WhiteHouse.gov/live.
Building on the "Educate to Innovate" campaign, the President will be joined by middle school students from Michigan, Florida, North Carolina and Nebraska who are visiting for the “Future City” engineering competition — an event that drew 34,000 7th and 8th graders from across the nation to Washington, D.C. this week to discuss innovative ideas and designs for a city of tomorrow.
Watch the event live at 5:15pm EST right here on WhiteHouse.gov. [Update: This event has concluded. Watch the video here]
On January 25th, the Middle Class Task Force unveiled several initiatives designed to relieve the strain on family budgets, including a cap on student loan payments. A few days later, the President talked about this student loan proposal during his State of the Union address. The President’s words generated a lot of interest and excitement, so we wanted to tell you a little more about our plan.
Over the past three decades, college tuition has grown ten times faster than real median incomes for families with children. So it’s no surprise that about two-thirds of graduates take out loans to pay for college and their average debt is over $23,000. But we didn’t need statistics to understand how challenging it can be to pay for college; the Vice President and other members of the Task Force heard about it directly from students, parents, faculty and administrators when we held meetings at Syracuse University and the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
We are proposing to make federal student loans more affordable by limiting a borrower’s payments to 10 percent of the income he or she has left over after covering basic expenses. Here is an example: The monthly payment for a single borrower earning $30,000 who owes $20,000 in loans would be $115 a month, compared to $228 a month under the standard 10-year repayment plan.
Our proposal has been praised by a number of student aid experts. According to Dr. Michael Lomax, the President and CEO of UNCF, this change “will decrease the loan payments of hundreds of thousands of low-income borrowers with significant student loan debt, lightening the load of many Americans and enabling them to get the education they need, and our nation needs them to have.”
Debt can be especially difficult to manage for borrowers in low-paying public service careers, as well as those who have lost their jobs. Lauren Asher, the President of the Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) noted that “this is a well-targeted and well-timed change that would help people who are struggling to stay afloat financially.”
In addition to lowering monthly payments, we are proposing to keep the total cost of loan repayment manageable by forgiving all remaining debt after 20 years of payments, or 10 years of payments for those in public service work. As Mark Kantrowitz, the publisher of finaid.org said, the “acceleration of the loan forgiveness will ensure that borrowers are not still paying back their own federal student loans when their children enroll in college.”
These changes build on the Income-Based Repayment (IBR) plan for student loans that was implemented last summer. Lauren Asher of TICAS explained that IBR “was supported by a broad coalition of student, parent, loan industry, and higher education groups to make college more affordable and accessible,” and our proposal is “a way to make the program even more helpful to responsible borrowers.”
This initiative complements other key pieces of the Administration’s agenda, like extending the American Opportunity Tax Credit for college expenses and passing legislation, which is currently before the Senate, to reform student lending to eliminate tens of billions of dollars in wasteful subsidies to banks. The savings will be used to expand Pell Grants and invest in community colleges. Together, these proposals will make it easier for millions of Americans to pursue their college dreams.
Brian Levine is the Deputy Domestic Policy Advisor to the Vice President
Cross-posted from the OSTP blog.
Yesterday the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture hosted a workshop to gather insight from leading experts in the fields of gaming and technology to inform the development of a nutrition game-design challenge. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services is preparing to launch the Innovations for Healthy Kids Challenge, a call to American entrepreneurs, software developers, and students to use a recently released USDA nutrition data set to create innovative, fun, and engaging web-based learning applications that motivate kids, especially “tweens” (aged 9-12) and their parents, to eat more healthfully and be more physically active.
Thirty-one experts joined the meeting—some via teleconference—to offer their knowledge and experience related to game design, entertainment technology, social media, and skill contests, in reaction to a previously circulated concept paper outlining key components of the contest.
Our intention here is to invite you to join this discussion. Here are some of the major design-related themes, that emerged from the Workshop, around which we’d like to get input from you:
Goal: We discussed the potential for games – powered by nutrition data – to change behavior in our target segment (“tweens” between the ages of 9-12 and their parents). Design questions focused on whether the contest should result in a finished, high-impact game or one that continually evolves over time (“gaming as a service”). How would you recommend we address this question in the design of our contest?
Incentives: We discussed government limitations on the size of the prize ($3,000 – a purse we’ve awarded in public service announcement contests as well). Design questions focused on the degree to which other stakeholders might supplement the prize with privately raised funds; develop new markets for educational games, including schools, parents, and after-school programs; and recognize finalists at the White House or other venues. What incentives would you recommend we deploy to maximize high quality participation?
Final Product: We acknowledged a spectrum of potential final products– including “back of the envelope” ideas, game story boards, working prototypes, and market-ready “final” products. In addition, we discussed the possibility of multiple phases to capture the breadth and quality of potential submissions (perhaps an early round seeking top ideas/story boards to be developed into games in round two). How should we design the competition in a manner that inspires and empowers both professionals willing to volunteer hours to the competition and students willing to build a game that doubles as a semester class assignment? How do we address the myriad game product categories – from casual games to fully developed titles?
Your Commitment: A great deal of the conversation focused on how individuals might complement the official competition with commitments they could offer from their respective positions – whether it would be incorporating nutrition data in already-developed games, faculty assigning class time towards building nutrition games, or organizations spreading the word about the contest. How might you be willing to help? Please post any commitments your firm, foundation, school or other organization might be willing to offer as we build a national movement to address childhood obesity.
Thank you in advance for your ideas on these important questions.
Aneesh Chopra is Chief Technology Officer of the United States
[Ed. note: Learn more about the Educate to Innovate campaign]
Two remarkable young women sat with First Lady Michelle Obama during the President’s State of the Union address, representing President Obama’s commitment to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education (STEM).
Li Boynton, an 18-year-old senior from Bellaire, Texas, developed a new, and possibly groundbreaking, method for testing the quality of drinking water.
Li Boynton, an 18-year-old senior from Bellaire, Texas, was a winner of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair last year for developing a new and potentially ground-breaking method for testing the quality of drinking water, an accomplishment that could someday help the one billion people around the world lacking potable water. Having learned about the limitations and significant expense of conventional chemical-specific tests, Boynton saw a need for a broader, more efficient assay for testing — and developed a bacterial bio-sensor. Li’s work has the potential to improve public health worldwide.
Li’s passion for science and innovation can be traced back to fifth grade, when she designed a solar-distillation device after reading Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, a novel involving a shipwreck. The device would come in handy, she reasoned, if she ever got stranded in the middle of the ocean.
Gabriela Farfan, a 19-year-old Stanford University freshman, conducted independent research describing why certain gemstones appear to change color when viewed from different angles.
Also sitting with the First Lady was Gabriela Farfan, a 19-year-old Stanford University freshman and geology major from Madison, Wisconsin, who won one of the top awards in the Intel Science Talent Search for her independent research describing why certain gemstones appear to change color when viewed from different angles—work that has potential applications in nanotechnology and materials science. Gabriela is also a Hispanic Scholar awardee.
After getting an invitation from the White House last week, the two young women flew to Washington on Wednesday and were immediately swept up in a whirlwind of activities leading up to the State of the Union address last night.
That included a behind-the-scenes tour of the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History, where Gabriela and Li learned about weird life forms known as foraminifera and how to calculate climate temperatures from the ancient fossil record. They also learned about the process of bone fossilization and what fossils can tell us about human-animal interaction in ancient Africa.
After the museum visit, they met with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Then it was onward to the White House, where they were greeted by OSTP Director and Presidential science advisor John Holdren and First Lady Michelle Obama. Finally the two joined other special guests to travel by motorcade to the Capitol, where they listened to the President’s speech from their prime perch in the Presidential box seats.
Even though Wednesday’s schedule left Gabriela and Li exhausted (not to mention their 5 a.m. television news gig on Thursday), they took the time Wednesday night to write a little bit about their brief and exhilarating experience here in the Nation’s capital. By Friday they will be back at their respective schools, continuing to hit the books hard to remain outstanding young leaders in the scientific community.
By Gabriela Farfan:
I am still trying to calm down from the adrenaline rush of tonight’s events. I feel deeply honored to have been invited to sit with the First Lady in her box at the State of the Union Address. I think that President Obama’s speech was inspirational and moving. It was a forceful reminder of how far we have come this year and how much more we have to go. I was particularly happy at how he stressed the importance of science and math education as the key to our future and a competitive society. I believe that government encouragement and funding of science education is essential. But it is ultimately up to the students and their parents to make the real difference. As a student, it is important to take your interests seriously and ask questions. There are so many resources out there waiting for you to grab them. As for the parents, I can say that it was my parents’ (and many other friends’) support of my interest in geology that fueled my enthusiasm and success.
As for the experience of the State of the Union itself, the room was freezing! However, everyone is packed into a room that is much smaller than what it appears to be on TV, so it warmed up quickly. Before the President took the podium, it was incredible to see the faces of people I had learned about in high school – Nancy Pelosi, Vice President Biden, Supreme Court Justices and many more. They were all in front of me at once, milling around like normal people! During the speech it was very interesting to observe the different reactions. Sometimes everyone cheered, sometimes only the Democrats and sometimes it was random. Every few sentences, we would all stand up and clap, especially when the First Lady rose. I found the entire process fascinating and truly gratifying. Sitting in the First Lady’s box made it feel like we were participating in history and democracy. After the Address, I got a picture with both Barack and Michelle Obama. The President shook my hand and the First Lady gave me a hug. I thanked Michelle Obama for being such a great role model and told the President that he did an amazing job on his speech. I could not have asked for a better evening.
By Li Boynton:
Being in the Capitol for the State of the Union Address was completely surreal. When Michelle Obama walked in the room, I was stunned. I was so used to seeing her on TV, I expected a glass screen to be right in front of me! But Michelle was so warm, down-to-earth, and inviting that I began to feel at home in the White House theater. Later on, when we met in the Presidential Box at the Capitol, she shook my hand and told me she was proud of me. I was so star-struck I whispered, “I just touched Michelle Obama!” to the guest next to me.
Even more so, I loved Obama’s speech. I think he executed his first State of the Union Address very powerfully. I probably clapped the hardest when he talked about education reform that supports students excelling in math and science, since I knew I was a role model for that. He also spent a lot of time emphasizing the need to revamp our energy infrastructure towards one of clean energy, which I believe is vital to the state of our nation and economy. His relentless belief and optimism in our nation, despite status quo hardships, was really inspiring.
But what really inspired me was all the support from people in my community, my state, and even the world. A couple days ago, a family friend from Chicago emailed me and told me he and his kids were going to have a “little watch party and pop popcorn” for me. He said his kids were also aspiring scientists and looked to me as a role model. I realized then that what inspires me most is inspiring other people. Before all the opportunities and awards Intel provided me with, I was following in the footsteps of scientists I could only dream to be. Now I realize that not only am I capable, but also I set an example for others. This is what really inspires me to keep achieving and solving problems in the world around me with science and real-life applications.
I must admit that I rarely watched the State of the Union Address before. But after tonight, I’m sure I’ll watch it every year. However, it certainly can’t compare to watching it live next to Michelle Obama!
Phillip Larson is a student volunteer in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Ed. note: Also watch shorter video clips from the speech, broken down by topic.
In his State of the Union Address tonight, the President laid out an agenda attempting to attack one problem from every conceivable angle: the terrible squeeze felt by America’s middle class. Fundamentally, that means prying government away from special interests and dedicating it to measures that put Americans to work and lay the foundation for a stronger economy for our country – lowering health care and tuition costs, spurring creation of the next generation of clean energy jobs. It also means putting a cop on the beat on Wall Street, so major banks can no longer take advantage of families and taxpayers.
To do all that, though, we need to change the way Washington works. Already the President has taken unprecedented steps in this direction, from releasing the names of all visitors to the White House for the first time ever to clamping down on the revolving door between government and lobbying. But as much progress was made on this front in this first year, it was still only the first year, and the President will keep pushing forward, whether that’s shining sunlight on any contact between lobbyists and the White House, or pushing Congress to disclose all earmark requests in one place for Americans to see.
This was the vision that shaped the President’s address, but this is not just a matter of rhetoric. The President made clear that there is tremendously busy agenda ahead for his second year – the policies and proposals below are just examples of the plans the President laid out in his address to put government to work for the middle class.
Here are a few initiatives you might have missed in the course of the speech:
The President called on the Senate to pass a financial reform package. “A strong, healthy financial market makes it possible for businesses to access credit and create new jobs. It channels the savings of families into investments that raise incomes. But that can only happen if we guard against the same recklessness that nearly brought down our entire economy.” Essential reforms include measures to protect consumers and investors from financial abuse; close loopholes, raise standards, and create accountability for supervision of major financial firms; restrict the size and scope of financial institutions to reign in excesses and protect taxpayers and address the ‘too big to fail’ problem; and establish comprehensive supervision of financial markets.
A vision for a clean energy economy. “…to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, and more incentives.” We will build on the historic $80 billion investment made through the Recovery Act. The President’s vision includes investments in important technologies to diversity our energy sources and reduce our dependence on foreign oil, including: the renewal of our nation’s nuclear energy industry after a 30-year hiatus, cutting edge biofuel and clean coal technologies, and additional offshore oil and gas drilling. To fully transition to a clean energy economy and create millions of new American jobs, we must pass comprehensive energy and climate legislation to promote energy independence and address climate change.
The President will continue his push to invest in the skills and education of our people. “This year, we have broken through the stalemate between left and right by launching a national competition to improve our schools. And the idea here is simple: instead of rewarding failure, we only reward success… In this country, the success of our children cannot depend more on where they live than on their potential.” The Obama Administration supports a new vision for increasing student achievement, delivering opportunity, and supporting excellence in America’s public schools. The President’s 2011 budget supports a new framework for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that will foster innovation, reward excellence, and promote reform in our schools, as well as invests an additional $1.35 billion to continue the historic Race to the Top program to open it up to districts in order to spur innovation and additional progress. At the same time, the Administration is moving to consolidate ineffective policies and practices. The President’s Budget eliminates six programs and consolidates 38 others into 11 new programs that emphasize using competition to allocate funds, giving communities more choices around activities, and using rigorous evidence to fund what works.
The President is committed to making college affordable for all Americans. “(I)n this economy, a high school diploma no longer guarantees a good job.” To increase college access and completion, the Administration will make student loans more affordable by limiting a borrower’s payments to 10 percent of his/her income and forgives remaining debt after 20 years – 10 years for public service works. We will also make permanent the American Opportunity Tax Credit. The President urges the Senate to pass the American Graduation Initiative, which invests more than $10 billion over the next decade in reforming our nation’s community colleges, promoting college completion, and moving toward the President’s goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020. The President is also asking colleges and universities to do their share to make college affordable for all Americans cutting their own costs.
The President is making investments to ensure that the middle class benefits from this economic recovery. “(T)he price of college tuition is just one of the burdens facing the middle class. That’s why last year I asked Vice President Biden to chair a task force on middle-class families.” The President has outlined immediate steps to reduce the strain on family budgets and help middle class families manage their child and elder care responsibilities, save for retirement and pay for college. He will double the child tax credit this year, make it easier to save for retirement with automatic IRAs for workers without access to existing retirement plans, provide larger tax credits to match retirement savings for millions of additional workers, and provide new safeguards to protect retirement savings.
Changing the way we do business. “To close that credibility gap we have to take action on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to end the outsized influence of lobbyists; to do our work openly; to give our people the government they deserve.” The President has called for additional new lobbyist reforms, including enhanced disclosure of lobbyist contacts, strict campaign contribution limits by lobbyists, and a single earmark database, so American taxpayers find out what earmarks are being requested, and where their money is going.
Countering Citizens United. “I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities.” Last week’s Supreme Court Citizen’s United decision opens the floodgates to special interests and foreign countries and companies bankrolling national campaigns. The President called for bipartisan support for legislation that will remedy the Supreme Court’s unprecedented and troubling decision.
The President stands by military families. “Tonight, all of our men and women in uniform…have to know that they have our respect, our gratitude, our full support.” The President’s 2011 budget announces significant new investments, totaling more than $8 billion, and protections for our nation’s military families, including increased military pay and housing allowances, increased funding for family support programs, expanded availability of affordable, high-quality child care, the renovation or replacement of schools, and expanded and improved care for wounded, ill and injured service members.
The President is establishing a National Equal Pay Enforcement Task Force. “We’re going to crack down on violations of equal pay laws -– so that women get equal pay for an equal day’s work.” To make sure we uphold our nation’s core commitment to equality of opportunity, the Obama Administration is implementing an Equal Pay initiative to improve compliance, public education, and enforcement of equal pay laws. The Task Force will ensure that the agencies with responsibility for equal pay enforcement are coordinating efforts and limiting potential gaps in enforcement. The Administration also continues to support the Paycheck Fairness Act, and is increasing funding for the agencies enforcing equal pay laws and other key civil rights statutes.
Immigration reform. “And we should continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system – to secure our borders and enforce our laws, and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nation.” The President is pleased Congress is taking steps forward on immigration reform that includes effective border security measures with a path for legalization for those who are willing to pay taxes and abide by the law. He is committed to confronting this problem in practical, effective ways, using the current tools at our disposal while we work with Congress to enact comprehensive reform.
And here are still more initiatives the President spoke to just tonight:
The President will fight to recover the money American taxpayers spent to bailout the banks. “To recover the rest, I’ve proposed a fee on the biggest banks. Now, I know Wall Street isn’t keen on this idea. But if these firms can afford to hand out big bonuses again, they can afford a modest fee to pay back the taxpayers who rescued them in their time of need.” The President has proposed the Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee, which will require the largest and most highly leveraged Wall Street firms to pay back taxpayers and provide a deterrent against excessive leverage for the largest firms. The conservative estimate for the cost of TARP in the budget is $117 billion, but the Treasury Department expects it to be much less and the fee will be in place for a minimum of ten years or however long it takes to recoup every last penny to the American taxpayer.
The President recognizes that Small Businesses will be key to our nation’s economic recovery. “I’m proposing that we take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat. I’m also proposing a new small business tax credit – one that will go to over one million small businesses who hire new workers or raise wages.” To get small businesses growing again, and growing our economy, the President has proposed a range of provisions that include tax incentives to spur investment; expanded access to capital and growth opportunities to create jobs; and increased support for entrepreneurship to foster innovation. He is proposing an employment tax credit for small businesses to encourage hiring, eliminating capital gains taxes on small business investments, extending enhanced small business expensing, and transferring $30 billion in resources from TARP to a new program to help community and smaller banks give small businesses the credit they need. The President and members of his Administration will announce additional details in the coming weeks.
The President reiterates his support for continued investment in our nation’s infrastructure. “Tomorrow, I’ll visit Tampa, Florida, where workers will soon break ground on a new high-speed railroad funded by the Recovery Act. There are projects like that all across this country that will create jobs and help move our nation’s goods, services, and information.” Through the Recovery Act, we made the largest investment in our nation’s infrastructure since President Eisenhower called for the creation of our national highway system over half a century ago. In his speech, the President announced funding to make a down-payment on a new nationwide high-speed rail system being built in-part with ARRA dollars.
Tax breaks to keep jobs at home. “(I)t’s time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas, and give those tax breaks to companies that create jobs right here in the United States of America.” The President has called for an end for tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas to help fund tax cuts – like making the R & E credit permanent – that reward companies for investing and creating jobs in the United States.
The President also called on the Senate to pass a jobs bill that he can sign. “The House has passed a jobs bill…. As the first order of business this year, I urge the Senate to do the same, and I know they will. People are out of work. They are hurting. They need our help. And I want a jobs bill on my desk without delay.” The bold and difficult steps the President took to stabilize the financial system have reduced the cost of TARP by more than $200 billion, providing additional resources for job creation and for deficit reduction. In December, the President outlined a package of targeted measures to help further stimulate private sector hiring, including measures to facilitate small business growth, green jobs and infrastructure. The House has passed strong legislation – it is time for the Senate to do the same.
We must invest in American ingenuity and innovation. “We need to encourage American innovation.” The Obama Innovation Agenda will get us closer to the President’s long-term goal of increasing combined private and public R&D investment to three percent of GDP. The Obama 2011 budget will move us closer to restoring America to first in the world in college completion; and invest in the next generation of scientists so we will not lag behind countries like China in science and engineering graduates. More details will be announced in the coming weeks.
We need to export more of our goods around the world. “We will double our exports over the next five years, an increase that will support two million jobs in America.” To meet this goal, we’re launching a National Export Initiative that will help farmers and small businesses increase their exports and expand their markets. Details will be announced in the coming weeks, but the NEI includes the creation of the President’s Export Promotion Cabinet and an enhancement of funding for key export promotion programs. We will work to shape a Doha trade agreement that opens markets and will continue to work with key allies like South Korea, Panama, and Colombia on trade agreements that provide real benefits to our workers. The President and members of his Administration will announce additional details in the coming week.
The President remains committed to helping Americans stay in their homes and help their homes retain their value. “… we’re working to lift the value of a family’s single largest investment – their home.” Last year, we took steps allowing millions of Americans to take out new loans and save an average of $1,500 per family on mortgage payments. This year, we will step up programs that encourage re-financing so that homeowners can move into more affordable and sustainable mortgages. In addition to the changes proposed last week to ensure sound risk management, the FHA is continuing to evaluate its mortgage insurance underwriting standards and its measures to help distressed and underwater borrowers through other FHA initiatives going forward. In order to ensure American families receive the same consideration American corporations do, the Obama Administration remains supportive of efforts to allow bankruptcy proceedings to renegotiate all debts, including home mortgages.
As Americans are getting their budgets in order, the President is getting the nation’s financial house in order. “Like any cash-strapped family, we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don’t.” The President has announced the three year, non-security discretionary spending freeze, and also called for a bipartisan Fiscal Commissionto identify policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run. The President and members of his Administration will announce additional details in the coming weeks.
The President’s focus on national security includes rooting out terrorists where they hide. “Since the day I took office, we have renewed our focus on the terrorists who threaten our nation.” In the last year, hundreds of Al Qaeda’s fighters and affiliates have been captured or killed – far more than in 2008.
The President’s commitment to Non-Proliferation results. “Even as we prosecute two wars, we’re also confronting perhaps the greatest danger to the American people – the threat of nuclear weapons.” The United States and Russia are completing negotiations on the farthest-reaching arms control treaty in nearly twenty years. He will also host a Nuclear Security Summit in April, which will bring forty-four nations together behind a clear goal: to secure all loose nuclear materials around the world in four years, so that they never fall into the hands of terrorists.
The President is launching a bioterror and pandemic threat initiative. “We are launching a new initiative that will give us the capacity to respond faster and more effectively to bioterrorism or an infectious disease - a plan that will counter threats at home and strengthen public health abroad.” The President called to action key U.S. Government leaders to re-design our medical countermeasure enterprise to protect Americans from bioterror or infectious health threats. We will pursue a business model that leverages market forces and reduces risk to attract pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry collaboration with the U.S. Government.
The President announced that he will work this year to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” “I will work with Congress and the military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are.”
Mona Sutphen is Deputy Chief of Staff
When President Obama and his Cabinet took office a year ago, they faced an array of historic challenges: an economy in freefall; job losses averaging almost 700,000 a month; a middle class under assault; two wars and badly frayed global alliances; and a staggering $1.3 trillion budget deficit.
Faced with these unparalleled challenges, the President and his Cabinet went straight to work. The Administration took bold steps to: rescue the country from a potential second Great Depression; rebuild the economy for the long-term by creating good-paying jobs, improving education, reducing health care costs, and promoting energy independence; and restore America’s standing and leadership in the world.
Over the past year, the Administration has made real progress towards these goals. Today, I’m pleased to announce a new interactive online feature, "The President’s Cabinet Reporting to You." Through short videos, members of the President’s Cabinet describe their agencies’ accomplishments over the past year, as well as their plans for moving the country forward.
For example:
Energy Secretary Chu highlights the thousands of green jobs that have been created through Recovery Act dollars;
Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius talks about the success in helping to prevent the spread of the H1N1 virus;
Secretary of State Clinton describes her department’s efforts to restore our global partnerships; and
Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag discusses the President’s initiative to streamline government programs that work and eliminate those that don’t.
This Friday morning, President Obama will convene the fifth Cabinet Meeting of his Administration and continue his discussions with the Cabinet about their efforts to create more jobs, rebuild the middle class, and transform our economy for the 21st Century.
Chris Lu is Assistant to the President and Cabinet Secretary
When President Obama and his Cabinet took office a year ago, they faced an array of historic challenges: an economy in freefall; job losses averaging almost 700,000 a month; a middle class under assault; two wars and badly frayed global alliances; and a staggering $1.3 trillion budget deficit.
Faced with these unparalleled challenges, the President and his Cabinet went straight to work. The Administration took bold steps to: rescue the country from a potential second Great Depression; rebuild the economy for the long-term by creating good-paying jobs, improving education, reducing health care costs, and promoting energy independence; and restore America’s standing and leadership in the world.
Over the past year, the Administration has made real progress towards these goals. Today, I’m pleased to announce a new interactive online feature, "The President’s Cabinet Reporting to You." Through short videos, members of the President’s Cabinet describe their agencies’ accomplishments over the past year, as well as their plans for moving the country forward.
For example:
Energy Secretary Chu highlights the thousands of green jobs that have been created through Recovery Act dollars;
Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius talks about the success in helping to prevent the spread of the H1N1 virus;
Secretary of State Clinton describes her department’s efforts to restore our global partnerships; and
Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag discusses the President’s initiative to streamline government programs that work and eliminate those that don’t.
This Friday morning, President Obama will convene the fifth Cabinet Meeting of his Administration and continue his discussions with the Cabinet about their efforts to create more jobs, rebuild the middle class, and transform our economy for the 21st Century.
Chris Lu is Assistant to the President and Cabinet Secretary
Ed. Note: BlogHer is soliciting questions on the Obama Administration and education from their readers for a live online video chat tomorrow here at WhiteHouse.gov. Go join their thread, and come back at 11:30AM EST tomorrow for the chat with Domestic Policy Advisor Melody Barnes.
This morning the President and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan paid a visit to Graham Road Elementary School in Falls Church, Virginia where they had a chat with about 30 6th grade students. The conversation put a face to the people they were trying to help with the President’s latest investment of more than a billion dollars in next year’s budget to amp up the President’s "Race to the Top" program – a competition to incentivize success that has already generated an overwhelming response from states, with over 30 states expected to compete for first-round funding.
You can learn more about Graham Road in the White House background release, but the school made a mark on its community by implementing a comprehensive strategy to turn around student achievement, adopting rigorous and high-quality student assessments, teacher evaluation and professional development, along with innovative and effective use of data systems to track student performance. As a result, in 2008 all of the school’s sixth-graders met Virginia’s reading standards, and 96 percent met math standards, despite being one of the lowest income schools in the county. The expansion of Race to the Top comes with a plan to encourage precisely this kind of visionary change in schools that apply for the challenge.
President Barack Obama and Sec. of Education Arne Duncan, right, take questions during a group discussion with 6th grade students at Graham Road Elementary School in Falls Church, VA.
In his remarks after the meeting with students, the President explained how it all works, and the logic behind "Race to the Top":
Last year, we set aside more than $4 billion to improve our schools — one of the largest investments in reform in our nation’s history. But we didn’t just hand this money out to states that wanted it; we challenged them to compete for it. And it’s the competitive nature of this initiative that we believe helps make it so effective. We laid out a few key criteria and said if you meet these tests, we’ll reward you by helping you reform your schools.
First, we encouraged states to adopt more challenging standards that will actually prepare our kids for college and their careers. We also encouraged schools to adopt better assessments — not just one-size-fits-all approaches — to measure what our kids know and what they’re able to do.
Second, we urged schools and school districts to make sure we have excellent principals leading our schools and great teachers leading our classes by promoting rigorous plans to develop and evaluate teachers and principals and by rewarding their success.
Third, we urged states to use cutting-edge data systems to track a child’s progress throughout their academic career, and to link that child’s progress to their teachers so we know what’s working and what’s not working in the classroom. Fourth, we encouraged states to show a stronger commitment to turning around some of their lowest-performing schools.
And even before states have received a single dime of taxpayer money, many of them have committed to instituting important reforms to better position themselves for a Race to the Top grant. Forty-eight states have now joined a nationwide partnership to develop a common set of rigorous, career-ready standards in reading and math. Wisconsin has enacted legislation permitting schools to link student achievement to the performance of teachers and principals. In Illinois, Louisiana, Tennessee, California, we’ve seen changes in laws or policies to let public charter schools expand and succeed. These are public schools with more independence that are formed by teachers, parents, and community members.
So by rewarding some of these states submitting applications today, by extending the Race to the Top for states, by launching a Race to the Top among school districts, and by applying the principles of Race to the Top to other federal programs, we’ll build on this success. We’re going to raise the bar for all our students and take bigger steps towards closing the achievement gap that denies so many students, especially black and Latino students, a fair shot at their dreams.
Science and Engineering Indicators 2010: A Report Card for U.S. Science, Engineering, and Technology
Cross-posted from the OSTP blog
Today, in an event at the White House, the National Science Board released its Science and Engineering Indicators 2010 report. This report, produced every two years by the Board—the governing body for the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NSF’s Division of Science Resources Statistics, is the major authoritative source of U.S. and international data on science, engineering, and technology and is packed with a wealth of indicators on research and development (R&D) spending, trends in higher education and workforce development in science and engineering (S&E) fields, public attitudes toward science and technology, and new patterns of international collaboration in research. In a way, it’s like a report card on U.S. science, engineering, and technology, comparing U.S. performance with other nations. It also tells us where the U.S. stands and compares American S&E performance to that of other nations.
The latest edition of Indicators tells us that the state of U.S. science and engineering is strong, but that U.S. dominance of world science and engineering has eroded significantly in recent years, primarily because of rapidly increasing capabilities among East Asian nations, particularly China.
OSTP Director John P. Holdren, who also serves as President Obama’s science adviser, received the 2010 edition of Indicators on behalf of the President this week and promised to put the report’s insights to good use in the Federal Government’s policymaking. OSTP, as the lead policymaking body within the White House for matters related to science, engineering, and technology, recognizes that good science and technology policy depends on reliable, comprehensive, and useful data. Indicators is the premier source of science and technology data and will enrich this Administration’s policymaking for years to come.
As Dr. Holdren has noted repeatedly, the Obama Administration is committed to evidence-based policymaking and making data used for policymaking accessible, relevant, and timely. Indeed, the President himself has on many occasions reiterated his deep appreciation of the importance of science, engineering, and technology to finding solutions to the many challenges that today face the country, including building a prosperous and innovative U.S. economy of the future, reducing dependence on foreign energy sources while mitigating the impacts of harmful climate change, and delivering high-quality health care to every American.
The Indicators report is factual and policy-neutral. But a number of Administration policies are already taking aim at the challenges outlined in the new report.
Just last week, for example, President Obama announced a new set of public-private partnerships in the “Educate to Innovate” campaign committing more than $250 million in private resources to attract, develop, reward, and retain science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers. This initiative is responsive to data, presented in Chapter 1 of Indicators, showing that American 15-year-olds are losing ground in science and math achievement compared to their peers around the world.
Similarly, in his April 2009 speech at the National Academy of Sciences and on several occasions since then, President Obama set a goal for the United States to invest 3 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on R&D. Chapter 4 of Indicators tells us that in 2007 the U.S. R&D/GDP ratio was 2.68 percent, with roughly one-third of that investment coming from Federal funding and two-thirds from the private sector, and that the U.S. ranks eighth in the world in this measure among major economies, some of whom—such as—Japan and South Korea—are already investing in excess of 3 percent. The Indicators report tells us why the goal is reasonable and prudent and how close we are to achieving it. Moreover, a careful reading offers a raft of ideas on how the Federal government can do its part to meet that goal.
A third example: Last month, the Administration announced a new Manufacturing Strategy, in effect a policy framework for revitalizing American manufacturing as a key component of an innovation-based U.S. economy. We have a remarkably good measure of manufacturing’s importance from Chapter 6 of Indicators, which shows us the U.S. is still, by far, the world leader in value-added manufacturing. But we also know from Indicators that recent trends haven’t been favorable for the U.S. because of the increasing importance of East Asian economies in high value-added manufacturing. Most of these data don’t yet incorporate the impacts of the global recession, but they begin to tell a worrying story. So evidence from Indicators on the decline of U.S. venture-capital funding in 2008, for example, supplemented by more recent data, help explain why increasing access to capital for new businesses is a key component of both the Administration’s Manufacturing Strategy and its broader Innovation Strategy announced by the President in September.
These are just a few examples of how the data contained in the Science and Engineering Indicators 2010 report can help the Federal government make better policy. We invite you to take a look at the report for yourself—even keep a copy on your computer or desk as we do!—and make use of this rich set of data and analysis, fully accessible to the public on a very user-friendly site. Dr. Holdren and all of us at OSTP join the science, engineering, and technology community in thanking the National Science Board and the National Science Foundation for their excellent work. Our commitment is to put it to great use.
Kei Koizumi is Assistant Director for Federal Research and Development with the Office of Science and Technology Policy