A high school diploma is no longer enough, first lady Michelle Obama told students Monday at Booker T. Washington High School. Completing some form of higher education is the new goal.
Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited southwest Atlanta on Monday to launch the administration’s fifth annual back-to-school bus tour and promote the administration’s Reach Higher initiative, which emphasizes the importance of completing some form of higher education after high school.
The United States ranks 12th in four-year college degree attainment among people ages 25 to 34, according to the White House. President Barack Obama has set a goal to return the country to the top ranking for college graduates by 2020. Gov. Nathan Deal has also set a goal to increase the number of Georgia college graduates by 250,000, also by 2020.
In a rally at the school, where most students are from low-income families, Michelle Obama encouraged students to finish some form of schooling after high school in a tough-love message.
“There is no excuse,” she told them. “You are no better or different than me.”
But Obama told students they had something that some students from wealthier areas might not have — grit.
“It’s a kind of fierce determination that means you won’t stop at anything. … A lot of you already have that kind of grit,” Obama said, reeling off a list of tough situations sometimes faced by low-income students. “Those experiences are making you tougher, they’re making you stronger.”
Obama told students to visit college campuses while still in high school, to do their research to pick the right school for them, and to consider programs that allow them to earn college credit while enrolled in high school.
In a visit with a small group of students before her speech, Obama said if she could revisit the time when she was picking a college, she would have visited more schools.
“In our day, we just didn’t do that,” she said. “I looked at brochures. … I just didn’t know what I was getting into.”
And, Obama said, the entire White House has students’ backs in their quest to attend and complete higher education.
“We are going to be there for you,” she said. “But you have got to be there for yourself.”
Obama’s message resonated with Washington senior Brittany Brown.
Challenges in life “should really be a motivation to get to where you want to be,” she said.
Earlier Monday, during a roundtable discussion with students at Spelman College, Duncan said the country needs to increase the diversity of its teacher workforce to match the diversity of schoolchildren.
A more diverse group of teachers — including more teachers of color and male teachers — better serves all students, he said.
“This is doing the right thing for our nation,” he said.
Nonwhite students account for about 54 percent of the state’s 1.7 million k-12 students, but the majority of teachers, about 73 percent, are white.
Making teaching more prestigious, providing more training for teachers, and paying good teachers more would help schools do a better job of attracting and retaining educators of all backgrounds, including those from underrepresented groups, Duncan said.
“I think great teachers have to make a heck of a lot more money,” he said.
And, Duncan said, the country needs to do a better job of identifying the teacher preparation programs that are producing high-performing teachers — whether those programs are traditional 4-year programs or programs that attract career-changers.
Morehouse College senior David Johnny, who plans to teach next year at a Brooklyn charter school, said Duncan’s comments were on target.
“Everything that he said,” Johnny said, “were things that we’ve been having discussions about (at Morehouse).”
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