Barack Obama Quotes About School

• Citizenship means standing up for the lives that gun violence steals from us each day. I have seen the courage of parents, students, pastors, and police officers all over this country who say 'we are not afraid,' and I intend to keep trying, with or without Congress, to help stop more tragedies from visiting innocent Americans in our movie theaters, shopping malls, or schools like Sandy Hook.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Mean, School

  Fifth Presidential State of the Union, delivered 28 January 2014

• The future must not belong to those who bully women. It must be shaped by girls who go to school and those who stand for a world where our daughters can live their dreams just like our sons.

  Barack Obama

  Girl, Daughter, Dream

  Obama’s Speech to the United Nations General Assembly, www.nytimes.com. September 25, 2012.

• You have to be involved during midterm elections, you have to care about what happens at a school board level.

  Barack Obama

  School, Boards, Levels

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

• Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don't know something, and to learn something new.

  Barack Obama

  Education, Learning, School

  President Barack Obama's speech to American students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia, www.whsv.com. September 7, 2009.

• The public school system is not about educating black children. Never has been. Inner-city schools are about social control. Period. They’re operated as holding pens—miniature jails, really. It’s only when black children start breaking out of their pens and bothering white people that society even pays any attention to the issue of whether these children are being educated.

  Barack Obama

  Children, School, Cities

  Barack Obama (2007). “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance”, p.258, Broadway Books

• The system isn't working when 12 million people live in hiding, and hundreds of thousands cross our borders illegally each year; when companies hire undocumented immigrants instead of legal citizens to avoid paying overtime or to avoid a union; when communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids -- when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when people are detained without access to legal counsel. When all that's happening, the system just isn't working.

  Barack Obama

  Mother, Baby, Children

  Barack Obama's Addresse to the National Council of La Raza, www.washingtonpost.com. July 15, 2008.

• We have an obligation and a responsibility to be investing in our students and our schools. We must make sure that people who have the grades, the desire and the will, but not the money, can still get the best education possible.

  Barack Obama

  Money, Educational, Responsibility

• Affirmative action is not going to be the long-term solution to the problems of race in America, because, frankly, if you've got 50 percent of African-American or Latino kids dropping out of high school, it doesn't really matter what you do in terms of affirmative action. Those kids aren't going to college.

  Barack Obama

  School, Kids, College

  "Late Edition" with Wolf Blitzer, edition.cnn.com. July 27, 2008.

• If poverty is a disease that infects the entire community in the form of unemployment and violence, failing schools and broken homes, then we can't just treat those symptoms in isolation . We have to heal that entire community.

  Barack Obama

  Healing, Home, School

  "Obama Says He, Too, Is a Poverty Fighter". Speech at the Town Hall Education, Arts & Recreation Campus, Washington, DC, www.washingtonpost.com. July 19, 2007.

• I will set big goals for this country as president - some so large that the technology to reach them does not yet exist.""I will recruit new teachers and make new investments in rural schools, we'll connect all of America to 21st century technology and telecommunications.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Teacher, School

• Estiven Rodriguez couldn't speak a word of English when he moved to New York City at age nine. But last month, thanks to the support of great teachers and an innovative tutoring program, he led a march of his classmates - through a crowd of cheering parents and neighbors - from their high school to the post office, where they mailed off their college applications. And this son of a factory worker just found out he's going to college this fall.

  Barack Obama

  Teacher, New York, Cheer

  Fifth Presidential State of the Union, delivered 28 January 2014

• It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voice could be that difference.

  Barack Obama

  Life, School, Voice

  President-Elect Victory Speech, delivered 4 November 2008, Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois

• They will tell you that the Americans who sleep in the streets and beg for food got there because they’re all lazy or weak of spirit. That the inner-city children who are trapped in dilapidated schools can’t learn and won’t learn and so we should just give up on them entirely. That the innocent people being slaughtered and expelled from their homes half a world away are somebody else’s problem to take care of.

  Barack Obama

  Children, Giving Up, Home

  Barack Obama's Commencement Address at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, www.northwestern.edu. June 19, 2006.

• Michelle, I love you. The other night, I think the entire country saw just how lucky I am. Malia and Sasha, you make me so proud…but don't get any ideas, you're still going to class tomorrow. And Joe Biden, thank you for being the best Vice President I could ever hope for.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Morning, Love You

  Barack Obama's Speech at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, abcnews.go.com. September 6, 2012.

• ...Started by missionaries in 1841, Punahou Academy had grown into a prestigious prep school, an incubator for island elites...It hadn't been easy to get me in, my grandparents told her (my mother); there was a long waiting list, and I was considered only because of the intervention of Gramps' boss, who was an alumnus (my first experience with affirmative action, it seems, had little to do with race).

  Barack Obama

  Mother, School, Islands

• Today, we are closer to fulfilling America's promise of economic and social justice because we stand on the shoulders of giants like Dr. King, yet our future progress will depend on how we prepare our next generation of leaders. We must fortify their ladders of opportunity by correcting social injustice, breaking the cycle of poverty in struggling communities, and reinvesting in our schools. Education can unlock a child's potential and remains our strongest weapon against injustice and inequality.

  Barack Obama

  Kings, Children, Struggle

• If we truly believe in our public schools, then we have a moral responsibility to do better - to break the either-or mentality around school reform, and embrace a both-and mentality. Good schools will require both the structural reform and the resources necessary to prepare our kids for the future.

  Barack Obama

  Inspiring, Believe, School

  Barack Obama (2009). “Barack Obama: Speeches on the Road to the White House”

• The incredible story of progress that is America has always been built by those who ask why, what if, and why not. Our schools must begin instilling that wonder in our children again so that their generation will unite around the next great project of our time, whether it be declaring America energy independent or launching the next great technological revolution.

  Barack Obama

  Inspiring, Children, School

• That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

  Barack Obama

  Jobs, War, Home

  First Presidential Inaugural Address, Delivered 20 January 2009

• We need to spend a trillion dollars rebuilding our schools, our roads, our basic science and research here in the United States.

  Barack Obama

  School, Science, Research

• Imagine if you had genuine, high-quality early-childhood education for every child, and suddenly every black child in America - but also every poor white child or Latino [child], but just stick with every black child in America - is getting a really good education. And they're graduating from high school at the same rates that whites are, and they are going to college at the same rates that whites are, and they are able to afford college at the same rates because the government has universal programs. So now they're all graduating.

  Barack Obama

  Children, School, College

  Source: www.theatlantic.com

• If you want some additional money for your school, we'll give it to you. But you've got to compete, show us that you're going to reform your education system so that our children are performing better.

  Barack Obama

  Children, School, Giving

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

• Public school system status quo is indefensible.

  Barack Obama

  School, Status Quo, Public School

  "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream". Book by Barack Obama, 2006.

• Now, in practice, in daily social interactions, etc., there may be all kinds of biases and prejudices that are unspoken, that people aren't aware of, that affect who's hired, and who gets loans, and how kids are treated in school. But it's a powerful thing if you have on your side an idea that the overwhelming majority of people believe in because that's how you can build a consensus that's lasting.

  Barack Obama

  Powerful, Believe, School

  Source: www.theatlantic.com

• In America, we've set up a system whereby when you take on college debt, you will never have to pay more than 10 percent of your income in repayments. And what that will do is make sure that you will never be prevented from going to school just because of money. We want to make sure that you and others like you can succeed.

  Barack Obama

  School, College, America

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

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