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President Obama: Jobs at top of Latin America agenda
President Obama penned an op-ed in this morning’s USA Today, outlining the objectives of his upcoming five-day visit to Brazil, Chile, and El Salvador. Amid growing turmoil around the world, America plays an important role in promoting safety and stability—from democracy in the Middle East to recovery efforts in Japan. But a top priority of the President’s is spurring economic productivity and creating jobs right here at home.
Last month, the U.S. economy added 222,000 private-sector jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to a two-year low, 8.9 percent. President Obama is focused on continuing our economic progress and helping America become more competitive across the globe. His trip to Latin America is part of that effort.
This diplomatic visit aims to strengthen the United States’ relationship with a major consumer of our national exports. The President wrote:
Every $1 billion we export supports more than 5,000 jobs here at home. That's why last year, I set a goal for this country: to double our exports of goods and services by 2014. And we are on track to meet this goal: exports were up 17% in 2010.
The impressive growth that we've seen in Latin America in recent years is good for the people of the hemisphere, and it's good for us. Thanks in part to our trade agreements across the region, we now export Provigil pharmacy three times as much to Latin America as we do to China, and our exports to the region — which are growing faster than our exports to the rest of the world — will soon support more than 2 million jobs here in the United States.
The President closed by stating that the United States and Latin America are partners with shared goals:
Our neighbors in the Americas are bound to us by shared history, values and interests. What I will convey this week is that we are partners in progress. Strengthening these partnerships will advance the common prosperity and common security of all our people, creating new jobs and new growth across the hemisphere, and helping our economy remain an engine of strength and opportunity for all our people.
You can read the President’s full article here.
President Obama: “We Will Stand with the People of Japan”
Yesterday, President Obama held a press conference to address the situation happening in Japan. Following a visit to the Japanese Embassy where he signed a message in a condolence book for victims of the earthquake, the President reaffirmed America’s support for the people of Japan and their recovery efforts, as well as the importance of protecting the safety of Americans abroad who may be affected. He also reassured Americans that our West Coast is not at risk of nuclear exposure from Japanese reactors.
Read the President’s full remarks here.
“A Turning Point in My Life”: OFA Summer Organizer Program
What are you doing this summer? Organizing for America is recruiting talented folks who want to make a difference in their community to take part in our Summer Organizer Program.
Folks like Lauren Coffee, who is now a regional field director (RFD) in Dallas, Texas.
Q. Why did you apply to be a summer organizer?
A. Like many other people, upon graduation from college I was unable to find a job in my chosen career field, so I took what I could find with the intention of continuing to look for something that would be fulfilling. Order Generic Accutane Online without Prescription Opportunity came to me through a link on Facebook, of all things. I saw that Organizing for America was looking for summer organizers, and remembering how inspired I felt during the President’s 2008 campaign, I took a chance and applied.
Q. What did you do as a summer organizer?
A. Over the next few months I learned to recruit volunteers, held trainings and informational sessions, and helped lead the efforts to reform health care.
The experience I gained as a summer organizer--learning messaging techniques, being trained on all the different ways we recruit volunteers, and most of all being able to observe my former RFD and ask questions--was invaluable to the work I do now.
Q. What do you do now?
A. I now work for Organizing for America in Dallas, Texas, as an RFD. It’s my responsibility to recruit new volunteer leadership in the community, make sure our volunteers are trained and informed on the President’s initiatives, and hold events in the community that educate and reactivate the President’s supporters.
Q. Would you recommend the program to others?
A. I can honestly look back at the decision to fill out the summer organizer application as a turning point in my life. The experience didn’t just teach me the skills I needed to become an RFD—it taught me skills that will benefit me in all times of life, and I gained friendships and mentors that I treasure. I would strongly recommend that anyone who has the chance take this opportunity and run with it.
Join folks like Lauren this summer and apply to join the Summer Organizer Program – it may just change your life.
EPA Administrator Takes Your Questions – Watch Live at 10:55 a.m. ET
Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator (EPA) Lisa Jackson will convene a live online discussion about the Clean Air Act and the EPA’s latest efforts to reduce dangerous air pollution. Administrator Jackson will be joined by young people who care deeply about this issue, as well as moderator Kalpen Modi of the Office of Public Engagement.
You can submit your questions ahead of time on Buy Cialis Facebook and watch live at whitehouse.gov/live at 10:55 a.m. ET today.
President Obama Meets with Standout Science and Math Students
Yesterday, President Obama met with 40 high school students who are finalists for the Intel Science Talent Search. This event was an opportunity to recognize some of the brightest science and math students across the country—students who will become the next generation’s scientists, engineers, and technological leaders. These talented young men and women are examples of how investments in education today will help America win the future.
President Obama’s budget plan includes crucial investments in America’s education system that will prepare the next generation for the challenges ahead—it aims to train 100,000 new science, technology, engineering, and math teachers.
Phil Larson writes on the White House blog:
The Intel Science Talent Search is one of the most highly-regarded science research competitions in the country. Many past Science Talent Search participants have Order Generic Cialis Online without Prescription gone on to distinguished careers, including seven Nobel laureates, four National Medal of Science winners, 11 MacArthur Foundation Fellows, and two Fields Medalists (as well as one Academy Award winner—Natalie Portman!).
This year’s finalists include 16 girls and 24 boys who represent 39 schools in 15 states and were selected from over 1,700 applications tied to cuttingedge research. President Obama applauds the work of these young innovators and of pioneering minds throughout the Nation.
Learn about President Obama’s recent efforts to reform the education policy No Child Left Behind.
The Consequences Of Republican Cuts In Your State
In an attempt to appease the extreme wing of their base, Republicans have proposed a spending bill that makes substantial cuts to America’s most cherished and effective programs. From early-childhood education to local law enforcement, Republicans’ plan puts ideology above sound policy and risks the livelihood and well-being of millions of Americans.
President Obama has proposed a budget plan that helps government live within its means, cuts $1 trillion from the deficit, and invests in industries that generate economic growth: education, innovation, and infrastructure. It’s a responsible plan to help our country win the future.
The Republican plan would eliminate nearly Buy Accutane >1 million jobs and impede government’s ability to function.
Learn about the damage the Republican plan will do in your state by checking out barackobama.com/consequences.
President Obama: We must seek agreement on gun reforms
Yesterday, President Obama penned an op-ed in the Arizona Daily Star calling for a civil national debate on reforming our nation’s guns laws. America came together to mourn those killed and injured in January’s tragedy in Tucson, and we must come together again to reform our gun laws. Most gun owners act responsibly and follow proper safety guidelines, but we need to do more as a country to keep guns away from those we know to be dangerous.
The President notes that, in the case of the Tucson shooting, there were plenty of signs prior to the rampage that should have raised a red flag:
A man our Army rejected as unfit for service; a man one of our colleges deemed too unstable for studies; a man apparently bent on violence, was able to walk into a store and buy a gun.
He used it to murder six people and wound 13 others. And if not for the heroism of bystanders and a brilliant surgical team, it would have been far worse.
And the violence hasn’t stopped since:
But since that day, we have lost perhaps another 2,000 members of our American family to gun violence. Thousands more have been wounded. We lose the same number of young people to guns every day and a half as we did at Columbine, and every four days as we did at Virginia Tech.
Every single day, America is robbed of more futures. It has awful consequences for our society. And as a society, we have a responsibility to do everything we can to put a stop to it.
President Obama continues by reaffirming the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment, an individual liberty and tradition upheld responsibly by millions of people:
The fact is, almost all gun owners in America are highly responsible. They're our friends and neighbors. They buy their guns legally and use them safely, whether for hunting or target shooting, collection or protection. And that's something that gun-safety advocates need to accept. Likewise, advocates for gun owners should accept the awful reality that gun violence affects Americans everywhere, whether on the streets of Chicago or at a supermarket Buy cheap online Provigil in Tucson.
Despite the polarizing history of America’s debate on gun control, the President is confident that commonsense and reasonable minds can come together to make our country safer. Responsible, law-abiding gun owners are not well served by those “irresponsible, law-breaking few.”
The focus of the gun control should be finding effective steps to prevent those unsound individuals from getting a gun in the first place:
• First, we should begin by enforcing laws that are already on the books. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System is the filter that's supposed to stop the wrong people from getting their hands on a gun. Bipartisan legislation four years ago was supposed to strengthen this system, but it hasn't been properly implemented. It relies on data supplied by states - but that data is often incomplete and inadequate. We must do better.
• Second, we should in fact reward the states that provide the best data - and therefore do the most to protect our citizens.
• Third, we should make the system faster and nimbler. We should provide an instant, accurate, comprehensive and consistent system for background checks to sellers who want to do the right thing, and make sure that criminals can't escape it.
President Obama concludes with a plea to gun-control advocates and those averse to engage in the debate:
We owe the victims of the tragedy in Tucson and the countless unheralded tragedies each year nothing less than our best efforts - to seek consensus, to prevent future bloodshed, to forge a nation worthy of our children's futures.
Reforming No Child Left Behind
President Obama called on Congress today to send him a bill to reform education before the start of the next school year.
Speaking at a middle school in Arlington, Virginia, the President set out his ambitions for reforming No Child Left Behind—the Bush-era education policy—and for ensuring that every child graduates high school with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed at college and in the 21st century workplace.
It’s the right thing to do for our economy, because the best jobs program out there is a good education. The best economic policy is one that produces more college graduates. And that’s why, for the sake of our children and our economy and America’s future, we’re going to have to do a better job educating every single one of our sons and daughters—all of them.
No Child Left Behind was introduced in 2001, with bipartisan support, to improve educational quality across the country. But the results were mixed. In reality 15 states actually lowered their educational standards to meet the policy's goals. Today, the President laid out his plan to reform the educational law:
The goals of No Child Left Behind were the right goals: Making a promise to educate every child with an excellent teacher—that’s the right thing to do, that’s the right goal. Higher standards are right. Accountability is right. Shining a light on the achievement gap between students of different races and backgrounds, and those with and without disabilities, that’s the right thing to do.
But what hasn’t worked is denying teachers, schools, and states what they need to meet these goals. That’s why we need to fix No Child Left Behind.
[W]e need a better way of figuring out which schools are deeply in trouble, which schools aren’t, and how we get not only the schools that are in really bad shape back on track, how do we help provide the tools to schools that want to get even better to get better.
We need to make sure some of our best teachers are teaching in some of our worst schools. We need to reward schools that are doing the difficult work of turning themselves around. We’re going to have to take a series of steps across a broad range of measures to not only target our most troubled schools, but also raise expectations for all our schools.
Key to achieving this success will be ensuring that there is a great teacher in every classroom Cheap Accutane and a great principal in every school:
What we need to do is a better job preparing and supporting our teachers, measuring their success in the classroom, holding them accountable. We’re going to have to stop making excuses for the occasional bad teacher. We’re going to have to start paying good ones like the professionals that they are. If we truly believe that teaching is one of the most valued professions in society—and I can’t think of a more important profession—then we’ve got to start valuing our great teachers.
The President is committed to working with Democrats and Republicans in Congress to achieve these reforms:
In the 21st century, it’s not enough to leave no child behind. We need to help every child get ahead. We need to get every child on a path to academic excellence.
You can read the rest of President Obama’s speech in full here.
Watch: President Obama on Education—Today at 10:40 a.m. ET
President Obama will deliver a speech on education reform during a visit to a middle school in Arlington, Virginia, this morning. You can watch live online here.
The President will use the speech to outline his priorities for reforming No Child Left Behind—the Bush era education policy—before Buy cheap Accutane Online the start of the next school year.
Earlier this month, the President set out his plans for supporting the lowest performing schools, for using technology and promoting innovation in the classroom and for tackling bullying in our schools.
This morning’s speech will be shown live online beginning at 10:40 a.m.
Weekly Address: Women’s History Month & Fair Pay
President Obama praises former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt as a pioneer for women’s rights and opportunity, commends the progress already made to create greater equality in our country, and reaffirms Buy cheap Cialis Online his support for the Paycheck Fairness Act.