Hello, Mustangs! (Applause.) Fantastic. Well, everybody have a seat. Have a seat. Thank you, Leah, for the great introduction. Give Leah a big round of applause. Yay! (Applause.) Meeting young people like Leah just makes me inspired. It’s a good way to start the week. And all of the students here who are discovering and exploring new ideas is one of the reasons I love visiting schools like Bladensburg High. And so I just want to congratulate all of you for the great work that you’re doing.
I brought a couple of folks here who are helping to facilitate some of the programs here. Mynew Deputy Secretary of Labor, Chris Lu, is here. Give him a big round of applause. (Applause.) And some of the biggest champions for education in Prince George’s County arehere, including your Governor, Martin O’Malley. (Applause.) County Executive Rushern Baker. (Applause.) Mayor Walter James. (Applause.) Superintendent Kevin Maxwell. (Applause.) Yourbiggest fans in Congress, Donna Edwards and Steny Hoyer. (Applause.) We are proud of all ofthem, and we’re proud of you.
All of you remind me, all these young people here, that young people today are working oncooler stuff than they were when I was in high school. In classrooms across the country,students just like the students here, they’re working hard, they’re setting their sights high.And we’ve got to do everything we can to make sure that all of you have a chance to succeed.And that’s why your outstanding principal, Aisha Mahoney, is working so hard at this school. (Applause.) That’s why Governor O’Malley has been working so hard to repair old schools andbuild new ones across the state of Maryland. And that’s why I’m here today. Because last year,we launched a national competition to redesign America’s high schools for the 21st century --the 21st century economy. And I’m proud to say that your hard work here has paid off, becauseone of the winners is Prince George’s County. (Applause.) Good job. That’s right, you guys havedone great. (Applause.)
Now, let me tell you why this is so important. Many of the young people here, you’ve grown upin the midst of one of the worst economic crises of our lifetimes. And it’s been hard and it’sbeen painful. There are a lot of families that lost their homes, lost jobs; a lot of families that arestill hurting out there. But the work that we’ve done, the groundwork that we’ve laid, hascreated a situation where we’re moving in the right direction. Our businesses have createdalmost 9 million new jobs over the last four years. Our high school graduation rate is thehighest on record. Dropout rates are going down; among Latinos, the dropout rate has been cutin half since 2019. (Applause.) More young people are earning college degrees than ever before.We’ve been bringing troops home from two wars. More than 7 million Americans have nowsigned up for health coverage through the Affordable Care Act. (Applause.)
So we’ve been making progress, but we’ve got more work to do to make sure that every one ofthese young people, that everybody who is willing to work hard has the chance to get ahead.We’ve got to make sure that our economy works for everybody, not just a few. We’ve got tomake sure opportunity exists for all people. No matter who you are, no matter where youstarted out, you’ve got to have confidence that if you work hard and take responsibility, youcan make it.
And that’s the chance that this country gave me. It’s the chance that this country gaveMichelle. And that’s why we’re working so hard for what we call an opportunity agenda -- onethat gives everybody a shot. And there are four simple goals: We want to create new jobs. Wewant to make sure that people have the skills to fill those jobs. We want to make sure everyyoung person has a world-class education. And we want to make sure that we reward hard workwith things like health care you can count on and wages you can live on.
And Maryland and Governor O’Malley have been working alongside us on these issues, and Iwant to give a special shout-out to the Maryland legislature because, because of GovernorO’Malley’s leadership, you are helping to make sure that we are raising more people’s wageswith your push to raise your minimum wage right here in Maryland. (Applause.) We’re veryproud to see that happen. And I hope Governor O’Malley is going to sign it into law soon. GiveMaryland a raise. (Applause.) That’s good work.
But the main focus here is guaranteeing every young person has access to a world-classeducation. Every single student. Now, that starts before high school. We’ve got to start at theyoungest ages by making sure we’ve got high-quality preschool and other early learningprograms for every young child in America. (Applause.) It makes a difference.
We’ve got to make sure that every student has access to the world’s information and the world’sbest technology, and that’s why we’re moving forward with an initiative we call ConnectED tofinally connect 99 percent of America’s students to high-speed Internet in the next few years. (Applause.) It means that we’ve got to rein in college costs -- because I want to make sure thatLeah, when she goes to school, she’s not burdened with too much debt. (Applause.) And we’vegot to make it easier to repay student loans -- because none of the young people here should bedenied a higher education just because your family has trouble affording it. And a world-classeducation means preparing every young person with the skills they need for college, for acareer, and for a lifetime of citizenship.
So what we did was we launched a new competition, backed by America’s Departments ofEducation and Labor, to start redesigning some of our high schools. We call it YouthCareerConnect. And we’re offering $100 million in new grants to help schools and local partnersdevelop and test new curricula and models for success. We want to invest in your future.
You guys are all coming up in an age where you’re not going to be able to compete with peopleacross town for good jobs -- you’re going to be competing with the rest of the world. Youngpeople in India and China, they’re all interested in trying to figure out how they get a footholdin this world economy. That’s who you’re competing against. Now, I’m confident you canmatch or exceed anything they do, but we don’t do it by just resting on what we’ve donebefore. We’ve got to out-work and out-innovate and out-hustle everybody else. We’ve got tothink about new ways of doing things.
And part of our concern has been our high schools, a lot of them were designed withcurriculums based on the 1940s and ‘50s and ‘60s, and haven’t been updated. So the ideabehind this competition is how do we start making high school, in particular, moreinteresting, more exciting, more relevant to young people.
Last year, for example, I visited a school called P-TECH --- this is in Brooklyn -- a high schoolthat partnered with IBM and the City University of New York to offer its students not only a highschool diploma, but also an associate’s degree in computer systems or electromechanicalengineering. IBM said that P-TECH graduates would be the first in line for jobs.
Then I visited a high school in Nashville that offers “academies” where students focus on aspecific subject area -- but they’re also getting hands-on experience running their own creditunion, working in their own TV studios, learning 3D printing, tinkering with their own airplane -- which was pretty cool. I never got to do that. I did get my own airplane later in life. (Laughter.) Although I’ve got to give it back. (Laughter.) I don’t get to keep it.
But this is stuff I didn’t get to do when I was in high school -- and I wish I had. But it’s stuffyou have to know how to do today, in today’s economy. Things are moving faster, they’re moresophisticated.
So we challenged America’s high schools to look at what’s happening in a place like P-TECH,look at what’s happening in cities like Nashville, and then say what can you do to make sureyour students learn the skills that businesses are looking for in high-demand fields. And weasked high schools to develop partnerships with colleges and employers, and create classes thatfocus on real-life applications for the fields of the future -- fields like science and technology andengineering and math. And part of the reason we have to do this now is because othercountries, they’ve got a little bit of a lead on us on some of these areas.
A country like Germany right now focuses on graduating their high school students with atechnical degree equivalent that give them a head start. So we’re asking schools to look intowhat places like Germany are doing.
Now, not every school that enters into this competition for the $100 million is going to win --because we don’t have enough money for everybody, and we want to force schools to think hardand redesign, and we want to reward the schools that are being most innovative and areactually proving some of the concepts that they’re trying out. But the great thing is thatthrough this competition, schools across the country that entered have changed the way theyprepare their students, and have already made enormous improvements, even before they getthe grant. And, ultimately, we had to choose the top Youth CareerConnect initiatives. Today,I’m proud to say that schools across America are putting up some pretty impressive proposals.
The winners across the board are doing the kinds of stuff that will allow other schools to startduplicating what they’re doing. The winners in Indianapolis are expanding their career prepprograms to encourage more young women and kids from diverse backgrounds to join ourscience and technology workforce. New York City likes that Brooklyn high school model, P-TECH,so much that they’re using their grant to fund two more just like it, so that students can gaintwo degrees at once and get the edge they need in today’s high-tech, high-speed economy. Andas I mentioned earlier, one of our 24 winners is a three-school team including your high school.Mustangs, you guys are part of the team that won! (Applause.) That’s good.
Now, in part, the reason you won is because you guys were ahead of the curve. You werealready winning. For a couple years now, your career academies have been integratingclassroom learning with ready-to-work skills, and you’re preparing students to move directlyinto the in-demand jobs of the future -- jobs in IT and biosciences and hospitality. And nowyou’re stepping it up. You’re taking it to another level. So in the classroom I just visited, youhad 10th graders -- although there was also a freshman -- who are studying epidemiology -- thestudy of disease patterns and outbreaks. And they’re getting potentially college-level creditfor it, which is good because they may be the young people who discover a cure for somedisease down the line that we don’t even know about yet.
I know our brilliant scientists at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for DiseaseControl, they’d be proud of you. They like looking at bacteria. (Laughter.) And I got a littleworried when I went into the classroom -- everybody was wearing goggles and vests, and Ididn’t have my goggles. (Laughter.) But they assured me it was safe. But some of youMustangs are pushing yourselves to get industry-recognized certifications in nursing, whileother students on this winning team are studying cutting-edge technology and getting hands-on internship experience at local businesses. And we know these are skills that will be indemand. Companies will come looking to hire you because of the experiences you’ve gottenhere.
If you’re focused, if you’re working hard, you now have a platform so that by the time you getout of high school you’re already ahead of the game; you’re already in a position where you’vegot some skills that make you employable. And then you can just take it further, whether it’s atwo-year college or a four-year college, or graduate school. Or there are a couple of young ladiesin there who said they want to be neurosurgeons, psychiatrists. So you can build on thesecareers, but the point is you have a baseline where you know if you’re focused here at thisschool, doing your work, you’re going to be able to find a job.
And the grants that you’ve won in this Youth CareerConnect competition mean that theprograms you’ve started are going to expand, and you’re going to get more college and careercounseling to help get you a jump on your post-high school plans. So a little over four yearsfrom now, Bladensburg and your partner schools will graduate hundreds more students withthe knowledge and skills that you’ll need to succeed.
And that’s what we want for all the young people here. We want an education that engagesyou; we want an education that equips you with the rigorous and relevant skills for collegeand for a career.
And I’m confident -- meeting these young people, they were incredible. And a couple of themgiggled a little bit when I walked in, but after they kind of settled down -- (laughter) -- theywere -- they knew their stuff, and they were enjoying it. And that’s part of the message I’ve gotfor all the young people here today, is your potential for success is so high as long as you stayfocused. As long as you’re clear about your goals, you’re going to succeed.
And my message to the older people here -- like me -- is we’ve got a collective responsibilityto make sure that you’re getting those opportunities. And there are resources out there thatwe’ve got to pull into the school setting. Businesses, foundations around the country, theywant to fund more CareerConnect programs -- because it’s in their interest. They want goodemployees. They’re looking for folks with skills.
When you can say, hey, the math that I’m doing here could change the way the businessoperates; or, I see how this biology experiment could help develop a drug that cures a disease -- that’s a door opening in your imagination. It’s also good for our economy. It’s good for ourbusinesses. That’s a new career path you’re thinking about that allows you to pursue highereducation in that field, or the very training you need to get a good job, or create a new businessthat changes the world. That’s good for our economy, it’s good for business, it’s good for you,it’s good for America.
As a country, we’ve got to do everything we can to make sure that every single young personhere can have that “aha” moment, that light bulb goes off and suddenly you’re not juststudying because your parents tell you to or your teacher tells you to, you’re studying becauseyou know you’ve got something to offer.
And I want to make sure every student in America has a chance to get that moment -- thatrealization that your education can not just unlock your future and take you places you neverimagined, but you’re also going to be leading this country. That’s the chance that this countrygave to me and Michelle. And that’s the chance I want for every single one of you. Frompreschool for every four-year-old in America, to higher education for everybody who wants togo, every young person deserves a fair shot. And I’m going to keep on doing everything I can tomake sure you get that shot and to keep America a place where you can make it if you try.
I’m proud of your principal. I’m proud of your superintendent. I’m proud of everybody who gotinvolved in making sure that you guys were already doing the right thing before you won thisnew grant -- and I know it’s going to be well-spent. Most of all, I’m proud of the students.
Thank you very much, everybody. God bless you. (Applause.) Go, Mustangs! All right. (Applause.)
