Summary:  President Barack Obama declared that we have not done enough for education despite being world leaders and that he plans to invest billions of dollars in education focusing on early childhood education.

Topic: zero to five

Category: Institutional, government multimedia blog

What is it? This is a video President Barack Obama addressing the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

Publication Information: whitehouse.gov/blog, March 10, 2009 
Author: unknown; released from the office of the press secretary

Location: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/03/10/Taking-on-Education/
 Accessed: March 10, 2009

Support:

President Barack Obama

Abraham Lincoln, former U.S. President

Linda Brown, civil rights activist

Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education

The sources identified represent a former president who completed a monumental task, building the continental railroad, during a time of crisis, the Civil War, a Civil Rights activist who preserved the “American Dream,” in times of crisis, and Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, who plans to help Obama keep the “American Dream” alive once more. 

Audience and Agenda:

The audience this is intended to reach is the American people. The video needs to reach as many people as possible to inform the public of the new administrations plans. It was released by whitehouse.gov and showed Obama in a positive light.

Usefulness:
This source is useful to tie together the research done and show how it is going to be put into action. It also refutes the point that we are overspending by showing the debt he, as president, inherited was already trillions of dollars and that we need to spend to boost our economy. We need to plan long term, which, according to the interview with David Kirp, that is not traditionally what politicians do. His ideas are aligned with those of the video “Say Yes, Now!” He expands the idea of preschool helping children prepare for future careers by stating that with preschool, more students will be in college. Four out of 10 new jobs being created will require higher education, and we need to prepare our children for this. However, the broadcast “Examining Obama’s Education Numbers” contradicts Obama’s claims that the high school dropout rate tripled in the past thirty years although it only lowered five percent. In which case, it is possible that Obama’s statistics are exaggerated in order to inspire Americans.

Works cited:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/03/10/Taking-on-Education/