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No Child Left Behind: President Obama To Let States Opt Out of Program. Will This Make a Difference?
No Child Left Behind
The No Child Left Behind program certainly has a nice ring to it, no one wants to see a child left behind in school. But in practice the program has more problems than pluses. Obama said on Friday morning, “we can’t let another generation of young people fall behind,” and No Child Left Behind was seemingly doing just that.
The education initiative put into place by President George W. Bush has been controversial since day one. One of the biggest issues, educators teaching to the test and creative thinking and the fostering of the imagination being sacrificed for making sure the schools meet their testing goals. And if the school doesn’t meet the goals and fix them in a timely matter, conditions just get worse with even more budget cuts and layoffs as part of the punishment for not being up to snuff. “These problems have been obvious to parents and educators all over the country for years now,” Obama said.
But that may all change, if the state you live in wants to. The plan? Continue reading »
President Obama - The Baby Whisperer
President Obama may be the commander in chief, may be one of the most important figures in the world today, and certainly a man with his hands full. But he has one more attribute in his arsenal…he can silence a crying baby in record time!
At a meet and greet on the White House lawn recently, Michelle Obama held a very upset and crying baby. Giving up on the task of holding her, she went to hand the babe back to her mommy. But Barack Obama? He came to the rescue. He grabbed the baby and in seconds flat the infant was calm and cry-free. He may not have the gift of getting his political foes to stop their shrieking but he certainly has a way with the babies… and he knows it (check out the “yeah, I’m gooood” look he gives Michelle towards the end).
You can watch the adorable video right here. Continue reading »
The Obama family
Barack Obama’s father left when the future president was just two years old.
While he credits his mom and grandparents for his solid and loving upbringing, he says he always felt his father’s absence anyway.
Just in time for Father’s Day, President Obama writes an essay for People magazine about his efforts to be the father he never had to daughters Sasha and Malia.
Read an excerpt here:
Obama honored all kinds of mothers in his proclamation.
Every year, the president makes an official proclamation for Mother’s Day. The Mother’s Day proclamation is a tradition evolved from the very first Mother’s Day in 1870, when Mother’s Day founder Julia Ward Howe did the proclaiming. In its current incarnation, it’s an opportunity for the president to extend some hearty praise for the work mothers do, and how this country wouldn’t be where we are today without them.
It’s also a chance for the president to make a public statement about motherhood and family life, expressing some of his personal talking points and sending a message to the country. Last year’s proclamation may have been the most inclusive in history as Obama stressed the diversity of mothers and families, making special note of single moms, same-sex parents, working mothers and more.
This year’s continues that theme but focuses more on the sacrifices motherhood involves, the president doesn’t miss the opportunity to tout administration initiatives he says are helping make motherhood easier, including changes to the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit and his health care plan, the Affordable Care Act, as well as Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign.
Do you think those initiatives are making life — and raising kids, specifically — easier for kids? Do you think Obama should have left mention of his own policy intiatives out of his Mother’s Day proclamation, or is this an appropriate place to mention those efforts?
Here are both proclamations in their entirety:
Continue reading »
Declares April 2 Autism Awareness Day
President Obama has issued a proclamation declaring April 2nd World Autism Awareness Day.
April is Autism Awareness Month and has Rebecca Odes reported yesterday, a new study has been published that suggests a possible vaccine link. A government advisor on vaccine safety, acknowledges that there is an accepted association between vaccines and brain damage but says that the scientific data finds no link between vaccines and autism. He calls the new study irrelevant.
Regardless of the ongoing battle over just exactly what causes autism, President Obama’s proclamation declares his support to the millions of people impacted by autism: Continue reading »
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy?
“Too much testing makes education boring for kids”, President Barack Obama said Monday at a town hall meeting hosted at a Washington, D.C. high school.
“Too often what we have been doing is using these tests to punish students or to, in some cases, punish schools,” the president told students and parents.
The president, who is pushing to rewrite some of the nation’s education law, would like to see students take fewer standardized tests and school performance measured in ways other than just exam results. Continue reading »
"I want to begin by paying tribute to our men and women in uniform who, once again, have acted with courage, professionalism and patriotism."
Last week, I wrote about how my son had asked about why we were fighting over in Libya. I didn’t have the words, I explained, because I didn’t understand it myself. Many Americans have had trouble understanding why our troops are in Libya, but tonight President Obama sought to explain why as he addressed the nation. The United States’ lead role in the operation in Libya is over, even if Gaddafi does not leave overnight. According to the President, we have stopped Gaddafi’s advance and we have done what we set out to do. This was not a matter of security, but of values and interest.
President Obama’s main message was that we are there because we had to be to avoid a mass humanitarian crisis, but it won’t be a long fight, and the people of the world will be better off for it in the long run. Obama compared the involvement in Libya to our prior intervention in Bosnia. “When people were being brutalized in Bosnia, it took the international community more than a year to intervene. It took us 31 days,” he explained.
Lori Garcia 
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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