Obama Praises Brooklyn's P-TECH, Talks Education Reform

On Friday, President Obama lauded the students of the progressive Brooklyn high school that he praised in his 2012 State of the Union address in an effort to deliver his message about education reform. 

President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited Pathways in Technology Early College High School, or P-TECH in Crown Heights, Brooklyn on Friday afternoon, The New York Times reports. 

Obama was greeted by loud cheers from enthusiastic students and a bevy of New York politicians as he walked up to the lectern at P-TECH to deliver his address. 

"Hello Brooklyn," he said. He then began his speech about the need to create more schools like P-TECH, a six-year technical school that prepares students to enter the workforce right after graduation. Obama said that such schools are essential to prepare the next generation for job competition in a smaller global marketplace. 

"This country should be doing everything in our power to give more kids the chance to go to schools just like this one," the president said, calling the school a ticket into the middle class.

"In previous generations, America's standing economically was so much higher than everybody else's that we didn't have a lot of competition," he added. "Now, you've got billions of people from Beijing to Bangalore to Moscow, all of whom are competing with you directly. And they're - those countries are working every day, to out-educate and outcompete us."

Obama spoke of an ambitious education agenda, including access to preschool for every 4-year-old in the U.S., access for every student to a high-speed Internet connection, reduced costs for college tuition and redesigned high schools that teach kids skills they will need in a high-tech economy, as well as a greater investment in teachers. 

The president also praised Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and others for raising standards for teachers.  "We should stay at it," he said.

The president also pinpointed Congress, saying it has to "do something" about education. He said that one way to start is by "passing a budget that reflects our need to invest in our young people."

He made some critical comments as well, and called the government shutdown a "manufactured crisis," and said that every member of Congress should come to P-TECH and meet its students. "If you think education is expensive," he said at one point, "wait until you see how much ignorance costs."

In 2012, five P-TECH styled schools opened in Chicago, and two more opened in New York City, with three more expected to open next year.  

The president touched down in Brooklyn in Prospect Park, which was cordoned off for hours in anticipation of the president's arrival. Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, greeted Obama, and the two rode to the school together. 

After his speech, Obama stopped in at Junior's restaurant on Flatbush Avenue with Bill de Blasio, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City. "Do you know your next mayor here?" Obama asked employees and patrons, before ordering two cheesecakes, one plain and one strawberry.

Yet, some believe that a school like P-TECH would have never come into being under a Bill de Blasio administration. 

Mayor Bloomberg enacted a strategy to close failing schools and open better ones in their places. De Blasio opposes the closure approach, despite the new schools' proven success rates. 

Many were against the closures of failing schools, and accused Bloomberg of attacking poor and minority children. The United Federation of Teachers and the NAACP filed suit, saying that the 1,000-student, failing Paul Robeson High School in Crown Heights should remain open. 

De Blasio, appealing to populist opinion, became a critic of school closures. 

Bloomberg prevailed, and Robeson closed, opening P-TECH in its place in 2011 through a partnership with IBM and CUNY. The wildly successful P-TECH allows students--mostly African-American and from low-income families--to earn both a high-school degree and an associates degree in programs like computer programming and electromagnetic engineering. 

Obama said that part of education reform's mission is "about how many more schools like P-TECH we can create."