Obama: Stop Watching ‘Real Housewives’ and Playing Video Games
Kids, the President of the United States has a message for you: stop hanging out and get to work.
Kids, the President of the United States has a message for you: stop hanging out and get to work.
Politico (“Obama tells kids to study, not watch ‘Real Housewives’“):
President Obama called on young Americans to stop “hangin’ out” and start doing their homework as he addressed the National Urban League on Wednesday.
“America says, ‘we will give you opportunity, but you’ve got to earn your success,'” Obama said in his evening address to a roaring New Orleans crowd as he veered off script.
“You’re competing against young people in Beijing and Bangalore,” he continued. “You know, they’re not hangin’ out. They’re not gettin’ over. They’re not playin’ video games. They’re not watching ‘Real Housewives.’ I’m just saying, it’s a two-way street. You’ve got to earn success.”
“That wasn’t in my prepared remarks,” he quickly added to laughs and cheers. “But I’m just saying.”
The president’s mention of Bravo’s “Real Housewives” franchise isn’t the first time he’s jabbed at reality TV.
“I am probably a little biased against reality TV,” he said in an interview last year with Jay Leno, “partly because there’s this program on C-SPAN called ‘Congress.'”
Taken literally, this is a bit over-the-top. American kids shouldn’t give up their youth to be more like kids in the developing world. For that matter, while they may not be watching “Real Housewives,” middle class kids in Beijing and Bangalore are almost certainly both hangin’ out and playin’ video games; some, one imagines, are gettin’ over.
Taken in the spirit in which it was intended, which is a combination of a parental lecture and These Kids Today, this is Obama at his best. Much like his comment a few years back that “brothers should pull up their pants,” this is a very successful man who got where he is by working hard, getting smart, and conforming to the demands of the world around him. Telling young people that they should do the same is a great public service.
There’s also, frankly, a bit of Only Nixon Can Go To China here. Had John McCain gone on MTV telling black teenagers to pull up their pants or Mitt Romney had gone to the Urban League and lectured black kids to hit the damn books, they would have been called out in some circles as racists. A black president who worked his way up via Columbia and Harvard Law doesn’t have to worry about that.
via BuzzFeed
You forgot that not only did President Obama work his way up at Columbia and Harvard but is also a graduate of the top prep school in Hawaii. I find it humorous that a president who never attended a public school (and who own children have never attended a public school) is telling children who attend horrible run public schools to work harder.
Of course, at the same that the President Obama is saying that studying and working hard is important, the civil rights office is considering punishing Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax Virginia for putting too much emphasis on academics and not enough emphasis on race and ethnicity. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/thomas-jefferson-high-sch_n_1700247.html
I doubt if anyone in the media will notice the irony.
@superdestroyer: Did you actually read the story? The high school isn’t being “punished,” it’s being sued. And the basis isn’t “putting too much emphasis on academics and not enough emphasis on race and ethnicity” but rather that too few black and Hispanic kids are getting into the gifted program there.
Yes, I did read the article and others on the topic. From the article:
If the Obama Administration is really interested in sending the message that students should work hard and study, then the Department of Education Civil Right Office will quickly dismiss the complaint. However, if the Obama Administration is not really interested in academic learning but in racial spoils, Fairfax County will be told to admitted lower scoring blacks and Hispanics over higher scoring Asians and whites.
Want to guess what the final outcome will be?
Of course, this is a president that talks about the need for more STEM majors in college at the same time that the defense sector is getting ready to lay off large numbers of people with STEM majors and at the same time that many STEM majors are either unemployed or underemployed.
I love this sort of thing. Where do you even start with it? There are so many layers of irony touching on so many political and quasi-political topics one actually could get dizzy.
In any event, mostly it suffices it to say that indeed only a dark-skinned man could “get away” with this sort of thing without the left-wing media/academe cabal going into such a state of loopy high dudgeon mode it would boggle the mind.
Perhaps the greatest irony, however, is the extent to which 40-plus years of left-wing social engineering policies — from welfare, to race preferences, to the reflexive opposition to school vouchers, to aggressive federal enforcement of an alphabet soup of federal anti-discrimination laws — are antithetical to the words Obama himself just spoke.
This is the same thing Bill Cosby has been saying for years. Every once is a while, leaders actually try to lead. Maybe we should be encouraging them to do it more often rather than admonishing them for it.
As for some of the previous comments, it’s difficult for people to break out of the cycle of poverty be they black, white, or Asian even with gov’t programs to help them. Take away those programs and it won’t get any easier, that’s for sure.
At the heart of what President Obama is saying is that we will help you, but you have to do your part as well. That seems pretty reasonable to me.
Agreed. There is indeed a “Only Nixon Can Go To China” flavor to this kind of rhetoric. To his credit he goes there.
Romney would have the same impact if he admonished Wall Street. But he probably won’t go there.
Black or white, kids who grow up in poverty tend to have very tough stressful lives filled with responsibilities that middle class kids do not have.
Our culture is idiotic, but when we talk about people sitting around doing nothing all day, in general we’re talking about the middle class and its anxieties.
@superdestroyer:
If the Obama Administration is really interested in sending the message that students should work hard and study, then the Department of Education Civil Right Office will quickly dismiss the complaint.
And you know there is no merit to the complaint how, exactly?
However, if the Obama Administration is not really interested in academic learning but in racial spoils, Fairfax County will be told to admitted lower scoring blacks and Hispanics over higher scoring Asians and whites.
From the article:
According to the complaint, 476 students comprise Thomas Jefferson’s incoming class. Of those, 43 percent are white, 46 percent are Asian and just more than 8 percent are multiracial. Black students, however, comprise just 0.6 percent — or three students — while Latino students only comprise 2.1 percent of the class. By contrast, black and Latino students make up 32 percent of Fairfax County’s student population.
Blacks and Latinos make up 32% of the student population, but only 2.7% of the student population at the gifted school. This is happening for one of two reasons. Either the school isn’t doing enough to find gifted kids from the black and Latino communities, or blacks and Latinos are naturally less intelligent than whites and Asians. I don’t think anyone doubts which one you believe is true.
Asshole.
@mantis: Don’t you understand? Blacks and Messicans don’t belong in the gifted program because minorities are stupid. Also they’re murderous villains out to destroy the goodness of America the White.
Superdestroyer is a racist scumbag, just like “Buzz Buzz” and the rest of them. He loathes and fears anyone who doesn’t look exactly like him, and he will spend hours every day preaching their inferiority to anyone who will listen.
The only answer: Stop listening. And if you can’t do that, stop responding.
You’re not going to convince SuperD of anything. He’s a sad, frightened little man whose only escape is to mask his terror as wisdom. Don’t take the bait.
@wr:
You’re not going to convince SuperD of anything.
That is not my goal.
There was actually a famous world-comparison of teens a year or two ago. Did you cover it here? I remember it showing our kids spending much less time on studies than others in the OECD and falling behind all through K-12, but then catching up and excelling in our universities.
As long as that worked, it was probably fine.
What if it stops working?
PS. Heh, at some level if Obama is against slackers, the Right is for them. That wouldn’t say to me that slackers, or a slacker nation, have good chances.
PPS. Heck, we live in an age when I can use the word “slacker” and we all know what it means. That’s significant in itself.
PPPS. Maybe this is another set-up. Praise the slackers, Mitt, he dares you.
@ Mantis
Space Ghost?
From video games to a race-IQ debate. Well, we certainly know what’s on everyone’s minds.
Oh, and hey…. Most of you probably don’t even know what the acronym (you don’t know what one of those are either) IQ even stands for! Let’s start there.
@anjin-san:
Think of me when you look to the night sky.
@Tsar Nicholas:
What? How is saying “you should not and will not be discriminated against” incongruent with saying ” you have to work hard in order to be successful”?
@mantis: Another possibility is that the gifted program is located in a middle class / suburban area and there are structural issues with transportation for kids lower on the socioeconomic ladder to get to that program. Either a bus doesn’t run due to lack of ridership, or the ridership is so low that there is one bus that picks them all up and as a result takes an hour or more to run its route, or maybe the parents are responsible for transportation if live outside of a specific radius.
@Gromitt Gunn:
Another possibility is that the gifted program is located in a middle class / suburban area and there are structural issues with transportation for kids lower on the socioeconomic ladder to get to that program. Either a bus doesn’t run due to lack of ridership, or the ridership is so low that there is one bus that picks them all up and as a result takes an hour or more to run its route, or maybe the parents are responsible for transportation if live outside of a specific radius.
All of this seems pretty unlikely given the location. The school is in Fairfax County, a fairly densely populated area right next to D.C. Most of the black and Latino students would be coming from Alexandria, where the school is located.
@mantis: Ah, I see. I don’t really know the area, I’m just familiar with how they tend to be run in the large school districts here in Texas. Magnet type schools originally started as a way to revitalize poor performing urban schools, but have shifted out to suburbs over time, in general.
Oops, I burnt some hair with the IQ remark. A thumbs down equates to a ” I just looked it up and I’m riled that I didn’t remember that from 5th grade.” *Calvin Space Man Spiff grin
@Gromitt Gunn: I know a great deal about the Fairfax County Advanced Academic Program, because my son is in it. Here are some details.
Kids are tested in the first and second grades, and the decision to place/not place in the AAP is made toward the end of second grade. The AAP starts in the third grade. There are different levels of involvement, the highest being Level IV in which the kid goes to an “AAP center school,” which may or may not be his/her regular school (in my son’s case, it is not). If it is not the kid’s regular school, transportation is provided by the school district.
TJ is a whole other test to get into, which is taken in middle school. Probably 90% of the kids who pass that test have been in an AAP center from the third grade on. So the process must be broken much earlier than the TJ test–not enough black and Latino kids are getting into the AAP to start with.
The process that takes place in second grade works like this: every kid in the district is tested in first grade (using an entirely non-verbal test) and the second grade (using something called the Cognitive Abilities Test). Kids who score high enough are put into a “screening pool” and their scores are combined with input from their teachers and sent to a central screening committee, which makes the decisions on who gets into AAP. If your kid is in the pool but doesn’t get in, you can submit some paperwork to appeal, and sometimes they get in. If your kid’s not in the pool at all, you can also submit some paperwork, but it’s pretty hard at that point.
So, my opinion as an FCPS parent: there is something broken in this process, and it occurs early enough that black and Latino kids who should be in AAP don’t end up there, and therefore are at a tremendous disadvantage when it comes time to test for TJ.
@Thomas’s Paine:
Or people just don’t like comments that start with the equivalent of “You people are all dumbasses.”
@Mikey: Thanks for the additional info.
I should add that perhaps I wasn’t clear in the motivations for my post. I wasn’t suggesting that there’s isn’t something wrong – I was positing a possible structural factor that could be affecting potential mostly lower income (and thus, predominantly Black and Latino) students from full participation in the program.
Likely there is a whole realm of factors and not one single overriding one. Some other possible factors would be that the schools that service lower income areas have less experienced teachers who aren’t fully familiar with the program and its benefits, that there is unofficial pressure from administrators to keep high-performing kids in their neighborhood schools in order to increase schoolwide test score requirements, or that parents sending kids to those schools don’t see or understand the potential benefit of the program.
Based on your description, if I was to try to find “the” factor, I would guess that administration want to keep as many high performing kids as possible in the testing population at low-performing campuses.
@mantis:
Those aren’t the only two possible reasons. Unless you really think it’s all the school’s fault.
@Gromitt Gunn:
That’s what I thought you were doing–I just wanted to give you more to work with.
Interesting insights. Actually, there is a provision in the AAP to keep children who qualify in their “base school” and provide them differentiated Level IV services there. I wonder if kids in the lower-income areas are “encouraged” by the staff to take advantage of that program rather than moving to a Level IV center school, and therefore keep the test scores up as you suggested.
One other thing, I think the district could do a much better job of educating the parents on the whole process. It was challenging enough for me to find information, I can’t imagine how difficult it would be for my neighbors from Peru who don’t speak very solid English.
@Franklin:
Those aren’t the only two possible reasons. Unless you really think it’s all the school’s fault.
I think it’s the school’s and the school district’s fault.
What other reasons do you think there could be?
@Thomas’s Paine:”Oops, I burnt some hair with the IQ remark.”
Yes, little boy. All of us here are completely new to the internet, so we have no idea what a troll is. In fact, the reason everyone here has completely ignored you is because we are all so awed by your intellect that we know you’ll simply run rings around us.
And now that you’ve demonstrated your genius to us, feel free to run off and troll another blog where your job will present more of a challenge. We are simply not worthy to be in your presence.
@mantis:
Yeah, but since it’s true……….
Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk
James –
You’ve really hit on it here. What Obama’s been able to do, considering where he started, makes him an really exceptional role model for young people. Disagreement with him on policy is to be expected, but the demonization of him, as so many have done (both right and far left), is a great public loss, as far as I’m concerned.
Obama can really connect with his audience when he riffs, so it is too bad we get so little of that kind of speech from him. When 9 words can be taken from the middle of hundreds to represent his hidden core beliefs, we are all cheated. It is truly stifling to a skilled extemporaneous speaker.
@wr: No no wr you have it all wrong! I’m here for everyone’s tremendous sense of humor; well that paired with the incredible grasp of the obvious that you seemingly possess. Sadly, being that you missed my post’s intent completely, suffice to say that I am less that impressed, as you clearly have no nose for the racism I am trying to highlight. A dog can’t smell it’s own crap- well so they say.
I particularly like the fact that you spazzed out, it’s very entertaining! You wrote like two paragraphs to my 3 sentences! Nothing like evoking a reader’s response.
“And now that you’ve demonstrated your genius to us, feel free to run off and troll another blog where your job will present more of a challenge. We are simply not worthy to be in your presence. ”
I’m afraid I haven’t even gotten warmed up friend, have a nice day!
@mantis: Why so serious? Sheesh. Now I have to change my username because everyone around here has a you-know-what up their posteriors. Good times.
@Gromitt Gunn: @Gromitt Gunn</a
Gromitt Gunn says:
Thursday, July 26, 2012 at 13:08
@mantis: Ah, I see. I don’t really know the area, I’m just familiar with how they tend to be run in the large school districts here in Texas. Magnet type schools originally started as a way to revitalize poor performing urban schools, but have shifted out to suburbs over time, in general.
If by "revitalize" you mean "Get white kids to go to them" you are correct. Why this would be revitalizing is the question, as is why schools have to "suffer" from white flight. I hope both are dropped from the modern vernacular in the future.
Magnet schools are based off of "Open Schools" which did indeed seek to lure whites back into cities who had fled to suburbs. Districts were in danger of being stripped of their accreditation if they weren't making headway in this respect. Unfortunately, what ended up happening was that blacks and whites would be in the same school, but not in the same classroom. Sadly, AP classes are thought by many to be another form of in -school segregation…only of the new kind…segregation by *spoiler alert wr! intelligence quotient.
Kansas City was hugely funded by MO and saw no improvements in the gap, and MORE segregation-consequently losing it's accreditation in 2000.
Enter NCLB- The C- presidents answer to our educational woes. Based on the "Texas Miracle" )which was highlighted by principals urging kids to stay home ont test day and omitted data), NCLB sought to force schools to integrate via federal funds- the same funds O dangled in front of the donkey for the Race to the Top.
NCLB is and was a colossal failure (all kids reading at grade level by 2014, yeah right!) mainly because it required the dumbing down of individual state standards to meet AA and SPED requirements , peeving off parents- enter the voucher movement, homeschooling trend and my personal favourite, Private and parochial schooling.
The Gov say oh no! Enter the Dragon…..just kidding. Enter Common Core Standards. Prepare yourself rigorously structured standards of academic rigor rigorously crafted and combed through with a careful federal eye.
What you are about to see is Iowa, Ohio, NY, Singapore, Georgia, and Japanese standards all rolled into one, starting this year. Oh, and they are going to lower the passing requirement for the nation test (expected in 2014) to 40%.
Mr. czar are you insulting my idol, Lyndon “the Elephant” Johnson?
Dear John, I mean James. Schools are perfect with zero racism and edify tolerance, how could they be sued because 2 subgroups are consistently overlooked and not referred for testing, or because the Woodcock-Johnson test doesn’t adequately measure achievement? In the words of my neighbor concerning her daughter: “How many times does she have to take this woodchuck test?”
wr says:
Thursday, July 26, 2012 at 14:40
I gave you a thumbs up, bra.
@mantis:
As the joke goes, the easiest way to increase the number of black and Hispanic students at an elite magnet program would be to hit most of white and Asian kids in the head with a hammer.
There is not a state, city, or school district that has managed to educate their black or Hispanic students so that those students achieve at the same level as white or Asian students. What is also very ironic is that the achievement gap between black students and white students is highest in some of the bluest, most progressives cities and states in the U.S. The thought that Fairfax County Public schools will be able to finally find a way so that blacks and Hispanics achieve at the same level as whites and Asians is laughable.
Do you really think that any public school will be able to find a method to improve the performance of black and Hispanic students while not improving the performance of white or Asian students. If the school establishes after school programs, mentoring programs, tutoring programs to help blacks, then all of the white and Asian families will probably use them at a higher rate than black or Hispanic families. Do progressives really support rigid quotas that would prevent students from taking advantage of such programs.
So in the end, you are advocating for either separate and unequal education where black and Hispanic students will have opportunities that will be denied to whites and Asians because of their race. Of course, the Constitution makes your desired program illegal. Of you are proposing a second program that would destroy the magnet program by lowering the standards enough to allow virtually all students to qualify and students would be admitted by lottery. Of course, the idea of all of the graduating seniors taking differential equation and organic chemistry stops.
In the end, too many progressives would rather have no one have the opportunity of a good education if that opportunity makes blacks and Hispanics look bad.
NCLB is and was a colossal failure (all kids reading at grade level by 2014, yeah right!) mainly because it required the dumbing down of individual state standards to meet AA and SPED requirements , peeving off parents- enter the voucher movement, homeschooling trend and my personal favourite, Private and parochial schooling.
Actually what is happening in our district isn’t so much dumbing down the test (working in the district and proctoring the tests they are actually pretty difficult), but at the middle and high school level in order to get the lower performing kids up to standards they are cutting various programs and classes aimed at challenging the higher level kids. The district was going to stop offering calculus 2 in order to have the math teacher teach more lower level classes, although the parent protest at least got them to reconsider and offer it.
Personally I don’t mind schools trying to get kids who are below grade level to be more successful and meet grade level expectations, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of higher level kids who need and benefit from the extra challenge honors and high level course provide.
Try getting a kid into pre-school in TX or CA if they aren’t ESL (Engish as a Second Language).
@superdestroyer: And what’s really terrible is that they let thosedirty dark kids drink out of the same fountains as our pure white children. I can’t believe you’re not out there protesting this outrage, Supie.
@wr:
Is that the best you have. You advocate using disparate impact reasoning to destroy all magnet program in the U.S. and your best argument is to make a snarky comment about water fountains.
I thought progressives were the rational ones who wanted everything based on evidence and reasoning. I guess not.
Great point Just me….what we are seeing is districts trying to meet NCLB benchmarks (subgroup and SPED requirements), you can’t scramble 14 jets off of a 12-jet carrier. Getting the remediation they need requires galvanizing the Gifted and AP programs, because with the housing crisis and millage rate cut many districts are seeing, there simply isn’t the money there to keep everything going at once. I know that here in GA something like 95 SPED teachers were hired to meet the NclB requirement that SPED students be included in the regular classroom setting. This implementation required co-lab teaching in many classrooms. Basically you have a kid who is autistic and writing things on a slate next to a Gifted student. Tell me that the curriculum doesn’t take a hit, and what about pacing.
I truly believe that setting unobtainable standards did good things for sub groups that were too oft’ ignored, but at great to our best and brightest. These student’s parents will have to get them the extra challenge they need outside of school, although how many have the time and financial resources to make up for the academic disparities?
And here, IMHO, is the reason that everyone says our schools now *$&%. Thank GB.
I’m sure NCLB had nothing to do with the Billion dollar charter schools that donate big bucks to gov’t. Charter schools are run by private companies, just like a Haliburton or Lockheed are to the defense industry. It really gets my goat.