TDA: Should the ability to pursue a higher education be a right, regardless of finances?�|�Daily Titan

TDA: Should the ability to pursue a higher education be a right, regardless of finances?�|�Daily Titan

Education should be a right for everyone. Those who wish to succeed in life and increase their efficiency throughout the work force by achieving a higher level of education, deserve it. However, obstacles such as finances always seem to come to play with such controversial topics such as this. For those who are not financially privileged, they don’t have many choices.

Those who do not have the funds to participate in higher-level learning, often turn to the military. Yet, according to an article on nybooks.com, the government spends about $40 billion every three or four months just to be in Iraq. See the irony? Wouldn’t it just be easier and morally sound to spend that money to help students by sending them to school and not sending those same people to war? I understand that there are reasons why we can’t just pull out of the war, but that’s a different story.

I realize that some colleges do offer help through financial aid, but only if you are approved. As luck would have it, you sometimes need to be financially stable to be approved for that as well. It’s like when trying to apply for your first credit card, you need credit to obtain it, but without someone’s help, you’re not going to get accepted. It’s an endless cycle that can only be broken if you find financial means elsewhere.

Scholarships are great if you earn them early on in your educational career, but what about those who performed poorly earlier in their lives, but have recently found motivation to do well in life? Should we really be restricting students with inspiration to succeed, after they just left a gang, or strayed from other unfortunate decisions that they had made earlier? These are the ones that need it the most. It’s hard to imagine 

Teen Pregnancies at Record Low In California - ParentDish

Teen Pregnancies at Record Low In California - ParentDish
Teen pregnancies in California have hit an all-time low, something state officials attribute to girls receiving sex education and having access to family planning programs and reproductive health services.

Officials at the California Department of Public Health released fresh statistics Feb. 22. They report teen pregnancies reached a record low in 2008.

About 35 babies were born that year for every 1,000 female teenagers. That's two fewer babies than the 2007 rates.

Laurie Weaver, the chief of the department's Office of Family Planning, tells the Los Angeles Times that this is a testament to teaching sex education and giving girls as many options as possible.
"We believe the only 100 percent effective way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease is through abstinence," Weaver tells the newspaper. "But we do believe it is important to teach teens that if they choose to be sexually active, that they should be fully informed of contraceptives and have access to services."

Meanwhile, teen pregnancy rates nationally have been increasing in recent years. Compared with California's 2007 rate of 37.1 percent, the U.S. birth rate for 2007 was 42.5 percent -- up from 40.5 percent in 2005.

As U.S. Aid Grows, Oversight Is Urged for Charter Schools - NYTimes.com

As U.S. Aid Grows, Oversight Is Urged for Charter Schools - NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration plans to significantly expand the flow of federal aid to charter schools, money that has driven a 15-year expansion of their numbers, from just a few dozen in the early 1990s to some 5,000 today.

But in the first Congressional hearing on rewriting the No Child Left Behind law, lawmakers on Wednesday heard experts, all of them charter school advocates, testify that Washington should also make sure charter schools are properly monitored for their admissions procedures, academic standards and financial stewardship.

The president of one influential charter group told the House Education and Labor Committee that the federal government had spent $2 billion since the mid-1990s to finance new charter schools but less than $2 million, about one-tenth of 1 percent, to ensure that they were held to high standards.

“It’s as if the federal government had spent billions for new highway construction, but nothing to put up guardrails along the sides of those highways,” said Greg Richmond, president of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers.

Charter schools operate mainly with state financing, and with less regulation than traditional public schools. A provision of the No Child law offers federal startup grants, usually in the range of $150,000 per school, to charter organizers to help them plan and staff a new school until they can begin classes and obtain state per-pupil financing.

The federal money has provided crucial early support to many successful charter schools, but has also attracted many people with little education experience who have opened chaotic schools that have floundered.

Obama Official Applauds Rhode Island Teacher Firings - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

Obama Official Applauds Rhode Island Teacher Firings - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has "applauded" the move to fire every teacher at Rhode Island's Central Falls High School, the Providence Journal reports.

Central Falls, the smallest and poorest city in Rhode Island, is also one of the state's most troubled school districts, with more than half of the students at the high school not making it to graduation.

Union members are fighting for the teachers' jobs, arguing that the move to fire the school's 70-plus teachers will harm students. George Nee, president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, said at a rally Tuesday that the action was "immoral, illegal, unjust, irresponsible, disgraceful and disrespectful," according to the Journal. 

It’s Time to March Forth | City on a Hill Press

It’s Time to March Forth | City on a Hill Press

It’s Time to March Forth

By City on a Hill Press

City on a Hill Press

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

“I have class.” “It won’t make a difference.” “I’m not an anarchist.” “I don’t even know what’s happening.”
These are just some of the excuses UC Santa Cruz students can use to justify not going to Sacramento on March 1 and 4 to speak up for higher education. As UC students, we are excellent at complaining. And for good reason — dissent is a vital part of democracy, and Lord knows we have plenty to bemoan. But grumbling alone will never change anything.
When Student Regent designate Jesse Cheng came to speak at UCSC several weeks ago, he echoed a scary truth. “The public seems to think that we are the entitlement generation,” he said.
We deserve quality educational institutions that are affordable and accessible, but we can’t sit back and wait for someone else to defend our opportunities. We need to show California voters and decision-makers that we back up our demands with action by marching on the Capitol on March 1 and 4. They won’t listen unless we make them, and words are not enough.
For many of us at UCSC, it’s not that we don’t care. We constantly see protests and demonstrations that go disregarded and seem to have no effect. But it’s important to remember the power that we as a student body have always had. In 1985, UC student protests helped convince the regents to divest $1.7 billion from companies operating in apartheid South Africa. This was a key part of a global movement that eventually forced the end of the racist apartheid system.
This year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed to restore $370 million to the UC budget. This isn’t the full amount that has been cut from the UC, but higher education is one of the only areas of the budget where there is any increase at all. Social programs, prisons and public transportation, among other things, are all facing cuts even larger than last year’s.
A Schwarzenegger staff member said that the widespread demonstrations around the state in support of higher education this year contributed to the governor’s decision to restore funding, even though the state’s fiscal situation is in an ever-deepening downward spiral. Now is our chance to demand even more support.

The ‘March’ for Higher Education

By Julie Eng

City on a Hill Press Reporter

Illustration by Joe Lai.

On March 1 and 4, members of the University of California community will rally at UC campuses and in Sacramento in an effort to gain support for higher education.
In the first week of what the University of California Student Association (UCSA) has declared “a month of action,” large numbers of students are expected to converge on the state Capitol.
“It’s the same realm of action,” said Victor Sanchez, external vice chair of UC Santa Cruz’s Student Union Assembly (SUA). “There’ll be opportunities on both days for folks to express their voice.”
Sanchez, who also serves as president of the UCSA, said the close proximity of the two events will make them that much more effective in gaining support for higher education. He predicted that this month, named the “March for Higher Education” by the UCSA, will see “continual waves” of student action.
March 1, UC Student Lobby Day, follows a weekend of workshops — beginning on Saturday in Sacramento — designed to teach students to lobby their legislators. The annual UC Student Lobby Conference provides students with opportunities to learn more about effectively lobbying their elected representatives. Attendees from UCSC were chosen by the SUA through an application process.

Community colleges lose students to budget cuts - San Jose Mercury News

Community colleges lose students to budget cuts - San Jose Mercury News
State leaders expect California's community colleges to enroll slightly fewer students this year, despite a record number of high-school graduates and staggering unemployment.

The 110-college system — "soon to swell to 112 schools" — will lose an estimated 21,000 students in 2009-10, state Chancellor Jack Scott told reporters Wednesday. The system enrolled 2.89 million last year.

Budget cuts have left many unable to get the classes they need, he said.

The surprising enrollment decline "is a result of a lack of resources," Scott said. "We're on the road to a disastrous decline in college enrollment in California."

With nearly 3 million students, California's community college system is, by far, the largest higher-education network in the country. Enrollment had swelled by about 5 percent per year for much of the past decade.

But an 8 percent budget cut last year has taken its toll, Scott said. The system is educating about 200,000 students for whom the state is not paying, he said, a circumstance that has forced colleges to trim unaffordable course offerings.

Students at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill say demand for classes far outweighs supply.

"Some of my classes, people have to sit on the floor," said Alex Pristinsky, who's in his fourth year at the college.

"Every class has to have a waiting list and even the waiting lists are full," said Kelsey Wise, a first-year psychology major. She

said she was unable to get into an introductory psychology course this semester because both the class and wait list were already full.

With fewer seats available, the open-access colleges have t

Community colleges lose students to budget cuts - San Jose Mercury News

Community colleges lose students to budget cuts - San Jose Mercury News

L.A. Unified is sued over teacher layoffs at 3 low-performing schools - latimes.com

L.A. Unified is sued over teacher layoffs at 3 low-performing schools - latimes.com

Concepciona Manuel-Flores couldn't answer many of the questions on a standardized English test in December, even though she says she's a straight-A student. "I had six or seven substitute teachers," the Markham Middle School seventh-grader said. "All we did in English was silent reading or the same assignments, over and over."

Concepciona is one of the plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court on behalf of students at three of the city's worst-performing middle schools. The suit claims those students were denied their legal rights to an education and aims to prevent the Los Angeles Unified School District from laying off more teachers there.

The last round of L.A. Unified teacher firings affected thousands of instructors and led to chaotic conditions on some campuses, especially at Samuel Gompers, Edwin Markham and John H. Liechtymiddle schools, according to a complaint against the school district and the state filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Counsel and Morrison & Foerster. Between half and three-quarters of the teachers at those campuses were laid off last year, according to the suit.

Citing state law, school districts typically dismiss teachers on the basis of seniority during budgetary shortfalls. Lawyers who filed the suit said California law allows districts to circumvent the seniority rule on the basis of need or if cuts disproportionately affect certain groups.

The suit would require the district to lay off teachers at those schools at the same or lower levels than at any other campus in the district. Even though low-performing schools often receive more funding than others, the suit also requested that district officials be barred from denying the schools financial resources to maintain a teaching staff.

The student body at the three schools is almost exclusively minority, and campuses in more affluent areas were not hit as hard by teacher layoffs.

Soapbox: Video surveillance issue at Hartnell points to a lack of accountability | thecalifornian.com | The Salinas Californian

Soapbox: Video surveillance issue at Hartnell points to a lack of accountability | thecalifornian.com | The Salinas Californian:

"As a Hartnell College trustee, I learned about video cameras installed in some classrooms only after reading about it in The Salinas Californian. The Dec. 5-6 headline reads, 'Hartnell removes cameras.'

Not only was the governing board not notified, the other college 'shared governance bodies' were left out of the decision to install the cameras. These shared governance bodies include the Academic Senate, Student Senate, labor unions and faculty union. Shared governance is an accreditation requirement and also required under state law.

The cameras were installed just before Halloween, but here it is coming up on Easter and the questions posed at the last Hartnell board meeting about a classroom surveillance incident have not been answered: Who made the camera installment decision? Where did the money come from — general funds, Measure H, Title V? Were the appropriate oversight bodies informed? Who has access to the video images. What is their confidentiality clearance level? Where are the video records archived? Will the records eventually be disposed of and, if so, how?"

Coffee’s bill will open doors for Oklahoma charter schools | Tulsa Beacon

Coffee’s bill will open doors for Oklahoma charter schools | Tulsa Beacon

Senate President Pro Tem Glenn Coffee will introduce legislation, SB 1862, giving large city mayors chartering authority, while removing the number of caps on allowed charter schools, a major education reform that will increase opportunity for students and parents in the state’s two largest cities.

“Mayors across the nation are enthusiastic about this opportunity to reform their local schools and provide more quality educational access to their respective cities,” Coffee said. “We want to make this available to our cities, and we believe this will expand a very successful reform that has increased student achievement and parental involvement in the educational process.

“Charter schools provide greater opportunity for minority and poor students, require greater accountability, and have been proven to produce a higher level of achievement for their students.

“This is a win-win proposition for our kids and our state.”

Key points of SB 1862 include:

The Signal - Santa Clarita Valley News - Two-year colleges near max

The Signal - Santa Clarita Valley News - Two-year colleges near max
College of the Canyons leaders have watched enrollment soar in recent years, even as state budget cuts have forced officials to cut the number of courses each term.

But that trend might end soon unless state funding turns around and community colleges, like COC, can add classes to meet the demand from students dealing with an economic downturn, officials said Wednesday.

“You really can’t continue to grow,” COC spokeswoman Sue Bozman said. “We’re going to start seeing a leveling out.”

Enrollment levels off when a college can’t hold more students and begins to drop when courses are continuously cut.

Declining enrollment is already taking place at many community colleges across the state.

On Wednesday, California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott announced that 2009-10 enrollment projections show that the number of students has dropped by 1 percent, or 21,000 students.

The figures back up the historical trend that community college enrollment suffers whenever state funding drops.

“Our enrollment is not dropping due to a lack of demand,” Scott said in a statement. “As demonstrated by last year’s record high enrollment of nearly 3 million students, our colleges are more 

Remainders: Are good teachers like good waiters? | GothamSchools

Remainders: Are good teachers like good waiters? | GothamSchools

Remainders: Are good teachers like good waiters?

by Anna Phillips

• Without money for salary hikes, the city isn’t likely to get many of the contract demands it wants.
• Is saying good schools are about good teachers like saying good restaurants are about good waiters?
• Charters get less per pupil funding, but the city and the budget office disagree on how much less.
• Leonie Haimson talked about the downsides to charter co-locations on Good Day NY.
• A new teacher looks at two master teachers with completely different styles and wonders which is best.
• Outsourcing arts education will “balkanize” the arts education field, writes Richard Kessler.
• A UFT caucus, New Action, is planning to cross-endorse Michael Mulgrew in the upcoming election.

Blackwater in Kabul, or Eric Cartman Gets an AK-47 | Danger Room | Wired.com

Blackwater in Kabul, or Eric Cartman Gets an AK-47 | Danger Room | Wired.com

Blackwater in Kabul, or Eric Cartman Gets an AK-47

• By Nathan Hodge  
• February 24, 2010  |  
• 9:32 am  |  
• Categories: Af/Pak

The Senate Armed Services Committee is holding a hearing today on Paravant, a previously little-known subsidiary of Xe Services (aka Blackwater). It caps a six-month investigation by the committee, and it promises to be a doozy.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the Democratic chair of the committee, met with reporters yesterday to give a sneak preview. According to a statement released last night by Levin, the investigation revealed “failures in U.S. government oversight” that allowed employees of Blackwater — sorry, Paravant (Levin said he saw “no meaningful distinction between the two”) — to go buck wild in Afghanistan.

Paravant employees were supposed to be helping train Afghan security forces. But according to the committee investigation, Paravant employees were also indulging in extracurricular activities like joyriding with automatic weapons, and treating an Afghan National Police arsenal like their own personal weapons stash.

The company first garnered headlines after two former Paravant contractors were arrested on murder charges in the shootings of two Afghans in a May 2009 traffic accident in Kabul. They were charged under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act.

According to the Senate investigation, Paravant employees were involved in a second, previously undisclosed shooting that happened in December 2008. Paravant program manager Johnnie Walker told committee staff the incident happened after an employee decided to get on the back of a moving car with a loaded AK-47 and “ride it like a stagecoach.” The employee accidentally discharged the rifle when the vehicle hit a bump. The round struck another Paravant team member, who was seriously injured.

“The reckless disregard for weapons safety is particularly striking given that he and his team were hired for the specific purpose of teaching the Afghan National Army how to safely use their weapons,” Levin’s statement dryly notes.

Another issue the committee probed was Bunker 22, an armory near the notorious Pol-e-Charki prison that held weapons meant for the Afghan National Police. According to the committee investigation, more than 200 AK-47s were taken out of Bunker 22 in September 2008 and signed for by a Paravant/Blackwater employee named “Eric Cartman.” Some of the weapons apparently withdrawn by our favoriteSouth Park character were unaccounted for for months afterward, according to the committee.

Blackwater’s reputation is already in tatters, thanks to a string of deadly incidents. And the conduct of some private security contractors in Afghanistan hasn’t done much for the industry either. But getting a

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/02/blackwater-in-kabul-or-eric-cartman-gets-an-ak-47/#ixzz0gVuLkjP4

Sacramento Press / SFBFS March Volunteer Spotlight

Sacramento Press / SFBFS March Volunteer Spotlight

About one year ago, Erv Bradley heard about Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services (SFBFS) from a longtime SFBFS volunteer. Since retirement, Erv had been looking for a place to serve where he might be able to use his Spanish speaking skills. His wife’s friend, a volunteer in the Adult Education program at SFBFS, suggested the program to Erv, and he’s been volunteering ever since.

Erv has found that the program allows him to help a wide variety of adult students, several of whom are learning English, but the majority who are studying for their GED exam or taking community college courses and need additional help. He admires the students who have made the time in their often busy and difficult lives to come receive tutoring.

“Education is one of the many challenges facing our students,” he says. “Tutoring is just one part of helping them put their lives back together.” Erv works with students in reading, writing, and occasionally math, science, and social studies. The moment that keeps him coming back is when students finally grasp a concept they’ve been struggling with. “That’s a very satisfying feeling,” he says.

Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services

Study finds charter schools get less money, how much less varies | GothamSchools

Study finds charter schools get less money, how much less varies | GothamSchools

Study finds charter schools get less money, how much less varies

by Maura Walz

Charter schools receive less public funding per student than their district school peers, according to a report released today by the city’s Independent Budget Office.

But the size of that disparity varies widely according to whether the charter school is housed in a city-owned building, the report said.

Charter schools that are housed in public school buildings receive only $300 less per student than district schools, according to the IBO’s calculations.

But charter schools that own their own buildings or lease them receive more than $3,000 less per student in public funding than district schools, the report said. In those schools, charters must pay for maintenance and other building costs themselves. Those costs are covered by the Department of Education for charters in city-owned buildings.

The report, prepared at the request of Panel for Educational Policy member Patrick

The Day - Public education war launched in Central Falls | News from southeastern Connecticut

The Day - Public education war launched in Central Falls | News from southeastern Connecticut

The first salvo in the new frontier of reforming America’s public schools was fired Tuesday night in Rhode Island.

Fired is a key word here.

Every single professional staff member, all 74 teachers, as well as the principal, three assistant principals, reading specialists, guidance counselors, and school psychologist at Central Falls High School — where just 48 percent of students graduate on average each year — were terminated. Rhode Island is sprinting ahead to become the nation’s first state to embrace new federal guidelines aimed at making failing public schools whole again.

For comprehensive converage of the controversy visit theProvidence Journal Web site.

Something is drastically wrong at a high school where year after year 52 percent of students fail to earn a diploma. That’s not to say it’s the sole fault of teachers.
But given the option to "transform" Central Falls — one of four federal options — the union representing teachers at the school refused to allow its members to assume more responsibility without adequate reimbursement.

In the end, the union wanted more hours compensated for and at a higher rate — $90 per hour, not the $30 offered — curtailing  "transformation" talks.

 So the Central Fall’s superintendent and a majority of its trustees opted to "turnaround" the school instead, leading to termination of the entire 93-member professional staff. They’ll all lose their jobs effective the end of this school year, and no more than 50 percent can be rehired next fall.

It’ll be a fresh start.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is forcing states to identify their lowest 5 percent of schools — those with chronically poor performance and low graduation rates — and fix them. Beyond "transformation" and "takeover,"  districts have two other options: close the failing schools or convert them to charter or school-management organizations.
It’s thinking that upsets conventional public school 

Union-Supported School Operators Take to High Wire in L.A. - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Union-Supported School Operators Take to High Wire in L.A. - Teacher Beat - Education Week:

"Big news out of Los Angeles on school management: The district's school board will give control to nonprofits made up mainly of teachers and administrators already in the district to open new schools and turn around old ones, rather than to the charter school operators who hoped to expand in the district.

It's all something of a repudiation of Superintendent Ramon Cortines, who supported some of the charter proposals.

The charter organizers are pretty upset about this, while United Teachers Los Angeles chief A.J. Duffy—who's famous for denouncing charters, saying principals are vindictive, and claiming L.A.'s bureaucracy prevents innovation—seems happy overall with the news. The union backed the nonprofit bids and, of course, those schools will be unionized. That probably wouldn't have happened if the charters had won those bids.

Still, it's unclear whether Duffy is cognizant of how much this really seems to call UTLA's bluff. The teachers and administrators will be freed up from some rules, but will they manage to improve instruction? What happens if these schools don't turn out to be successful? If they aren't, don't expect the school board to be so generous the next time around."

'Turnaround' Not Only Policy Issue in R.I. Teacher Firings

by Stephen Sawchuk

The decision of Central Falls, R.I., Superintendent Frances Gallo to fire every teacher in a high school building is making big headlines in Rhode Island, attracting outrage from teachers' unions and from AFT President Randi Weingarten, and becoming a big education reform story now that The New York Times has picked it up.

Under No Child Left Behind's1003(g) school improvement grants, which are doled out by formula to states and districts, the Obama administration outlined four possible models for dealing with the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools. Gallo initially wanted to use a "transformation" model with extended learning time and other changes to instruction but couldn't reach agreement with the union about how to compensate teachers for putting in extra hours. So now she's going with the "turnaround" model, which requires teacher firing.

A couple things to keep in mind: This is not, repeat NOT the first time that teachers have been fired in the name of federal law. NCLB allows for teacher firing in schools reaching the "restructuring" phase of sanctions.

So the reasons this is especially newsy are twofold. First, the Obama administration's requirements for the grants are stricter than the NCLB law is—and much more prescriptive than the Bush administration sought to be when Congress first gave the 1003(g) program money back in 2007. It's clear from this example that the beefed-up program is going to come as political cover for districts that want to take aggressive action.

The Muddled State of K-12 Virtual Learning Policy � The Quick and the Ed

The Muddled State of K-12 Virtual Learning Policy � The Quick and the Ed

K-12 virtual schooling’s rapid growth continues, but state policy remains muddled. More ominously, many state funding decisions are disappointingly unrelated from quality, performance, or demand for these programs.

In states like Missouri, state-run virtual schools that are funded by appropriations outside of the traditional funding formulas are easy targets for budget-cutters.

Other state programs, for example in Idaho, are threatened because of their growing total costs–even if the program is cost-effective on a per student basis and the cost growth is directly related to increased student demand and enrollment.

Ironically, while Missouri and Idaho are working to undermine investments in their state virtual schools, other states such as Oklahoma, Nebraska, and New York are trying to get statewide efforts started.

Many states, such as Oregon and Wisconsin, are bumping up against limits on enrollment in full-time virtual programs.

There’s not really a consistent partisan rhyme or reason to these efforts. For example, in Idaho, the Republican governor is attempting to zero-out the state program. While in Virginia, the new Republican governor is pushing hard for new virtual schooling legislation. North Carolina’s Democratic governor was a proponent of the state’s very popular virtual school when

The Lantern - Angelou to share story of civil rights activism at Ohio State

The Lantern - Angelou to share story of civil rights activism at Ohio State

One of the world’s most notable women, Maya Angelou, will be lecturing at Ohio State in celebration of United Black World Month.

Angelou is a poet, author, civil rights activist, dancer, producer, playwright, actress, film director and professor. She is most recognized for her six autobiographical books, including the award-winning, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”

Throughout her lifetime, Angelou has worked with historical American figures, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy. Now more than 50 years after the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Angelou has witnessed an African-American man become president of the United States of America.

Angelou said with the opening of the Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro, N.C., the future of the African-American community is looking “rosier and rosier.”

At an F.W. Woolworth’s Lunch Counter in 1960, four African American men were refused service, bullied, and put in jail, she said. Fifty years later, they are owners of the building and the building has been converted into the International Civil Rights Center and Museum.

“The same people enslaved 100 years ago now have a representative in the White House and some little black children in the White House. I know that there are some black women and men who head up some of the major universities in this country, and some are top CEOs,” Angelou said in an interview with The Lantern.

Although Angelou recognizes these as major achievements for the African-American community, she said that in no way does she feel the United States has come far enough. Angelou said the election of Barack Obama made a statement that human beings are more alike than what we claim to be. She said African-Americans were instrumental in putting an black family in the White House, but it took the work of multiple groups of Americans to win the election.

For college students to become successful future leaders of this country, Angelou said they must first know their history. By knowing their history, Angelou believes this will prevent the country from starting back at square one. She said if young people knew their history they would be less likely to walk around speaking offensive language.

The life experiences shared and the topics discussed in Angelou’s works have highlighted major issues within