DEVIN ABSHERE / CLARION
MIchelle Obama acknowledges Jessica Doyle during a rally for Barack Obama at the Overture Center on Feb. 18.
MICHELLE OBAMA LIVES HER MESSAGE
Good education is vital to the success of Americans
By BETH SCHNEIR
Clarion Staff Writer
Harvard-educated Michelle Obama delivered a hope-filled message
to the crowd at the Overture Center’s Capital Theater on Feb. 18. Eight hundred Wisconsin voters heard her speech, which was long on family background and education, but short on policy issues.
Michelle got a big laugh saying she had met many women of her own heart over the last few months, women who were “smart, engaged, opinionated and educated.” She thanked the women in particular who were seated in support behind her on the stage, including Jessica Doyle.
“No child left behind is strangling
the life out of most schools,” she said. “Teachers are falling short, reaching into their own pockets. Kids are being tested to death.”
She said that if success depended only on doing well on standardized tests, she wouldn’t be where she is now.
Michelle comes across as blunt and forthright in her criticisms. By contrast, a booklet entitled “Keeping America’s Promise: Strengthening the Middle Class” handed out at the rally details Obama’s Economic Policy, including this section on education:
Michelle is proud that she and her brothers are products of the Chicago public school system. She’d like to make education a priority and make it easier for Americans across the country to obtain at least a quality high school education.
When they found out about “Cousin Cheney”, they were hoping
for a trust fund, but that never happened, Michelle said to much laughter.
The Obamas were only able to pay off their student loans due to the funds they got from Barack’s two best-selling books: “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream” and “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.”
“Hope is making a comeback,” Michelle said.
Their focus is on uniting and inspiring people to join their grass-roots effort. They see “people hungry to be unified.”
“There’s more that unites than divides us,” Michelle explains.
She says that a farmer in Iowa faces the same struggles as people in South Side Chicago. They’re all struggling just to get by now. It is easy to be led by fear.
“There’s a bar that’s set, which you work hard to reach and then they move the bar.” Michelle courted hard-working Americans, stating
that blue-collar jobs are dwindling all over the country.
She used the bar image throughout her speech.
Towards the end, toillustrate Barack’s character and ability to make change happen, she said, “When Barack got to that bar, he jumped over it!”
A lot of clapping and applause ensued.
Michelle said that the Fortune 500 always values wealth and power more than people who help other people. She and Barack are both lawyers and could have made a lot of money in corporate America, but instead chose to work in public service.
Barack was “given the gift of advocacy,” she said. “To him whom much is given, much is expected.”
Michelle made it clear that Barack needed their support not just now, but also in four years. She said that you can’t “leave that seat at the table of democracy.” You can’t vote and then go back to being cynical and disengaged,
or the bar will start moving again.
“There’s a hole in our souls,” she said. “It’s not that we wouldn’t do something, we haven’t been asked.”
The last thing Michelle asked the crowd to do was to dream. She said that words do matter, that we need “a little hope and a lot of dreaming.”
“Close your eyes and imagine Barack with his hand on that bible,” she painted a picture of next year’s inauguration. “Imagine what image that sends around the world.”
No Child Left Behind Left the Money Behind
…As a result, the law has failed to provide high-quality teachers in every classroom and failed to adequately support and pay those teachers.
Students Left Behind
Six million middle and high school students read significantly below their grade level. A full third of high school graduates do not immediately
go on to college.
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