President Barack Obama delivers remarks to the National Urban League Centennial Conference at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.,
Today, President Obama delivered an address on education at the Urban League’s 100th Anniversary Convention highlighting the steps his Administration has taken over the past eighteen months to improve the education system in America. The President stated that education reform is a top priority for his Administration because the “status quo is morally inexcusable, it’s economically indefensible, and all of us are going to have to roll up our sleeves to change it.”
The President began his remarks by discussing the importance of education for the success of our economy and our nation:
I know some argue that as we emerge from a recession, my administration should focus solely on economic issues. They said that during health care as if health care had nothing to do with economics; said it during financial reform as if financial reform had nothing to do with economics; and now they’re saying it as we work on education issues. But education is an economic issue — if not “the” economic issue of our time.
It’s an economic issue when the unemployment rate for folks who’ve never gone to college is almost double what it is for those who have gone to college. It’s an economic issue when eight in 10 new jobs will require workforce training or a higher education by the end of this decade. It’s an economic issue when countries that out-educate us today are going to out-compete us tomorrow.
Fonte: White House