Filed under: News, Politics, President Obama
The White House announced this week that President Barack Obama is scheduled to give his annual back-to-school speech on September 14th during the school day. This year he will be heading to the Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School in Center City, a magnet school in Philadelphia.
Last year, Obama spoke from Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va., which sparked controversy around the nation. Some conservatives believed that Obama's message was going to be political. Many parents decided to keep their children home while the speech was broadcast in schools across the nation.
The speech, however, was one of encouragement and motivation, telling students to take responsibility for their education:
"Every single one of you has something you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer," Obama said a year ago. "And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity an education can provide.
"But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life - what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home - that's no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude," he continued. "That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That's no excuse for not trying. Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future."
We're sure this time around the controversy will be a lot less and Obama will deliver a similar message.