Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Obama comes to Brooklyn. Warns students, 'the Chinese, Indians, Russians... are coming.'

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Obama comes to Brooklyn. Warns students, 'the Chinese, Indians, Russians... are coming.':

Obama comes to Brooklyn. Warns students, 'the Chinese, Indians, Russians... are coming.'

Obama arrives at JFK on route to Brooklyn

S.T.E.M. schools are the flavor of the month and President Obama took the opportunity, while stumping for Bill de Blasio (not that de Blasio needs it), to make a speech at his favorite, Brooklyn's P-Tech. 

P-Tech bills itself as "the first school in the nation that connects high school, college, and the world of work through college and industry partnerships." The school has students from grades 9-11 and then offers them a program at CUNY leading to an A.A. degree (I have one of those from L.A. City College in the 60's but no one has ever asked to see it).

The school is run under a partnership between New York Public Schools, the City University of New York and IBM, and is being hailed by corporate execs and the President himself as the new model for schools everywhere. However, I'm not really sure what those outside partnerships mean to the school, since both CUNY and IBM have big problems of their own.

“This country should be doing everything in our power to give more kids the