Malia Obama's Science Test: President Tells Story About Daughter's Grades (VIDEO)

During a speech in Madison, Wisconsin today to promote education reform Obama veered from his scripted remarks to give an example of the importance of parents setting high academic standards for their children so that they come to expect such standards from themselves. We're not sure how much his daughter Malia appreciated the story since it involved the nation hearing how she received a 73 on a science test a couple years ago, but it ends with her success so we hope she won't be too upset.

WATCH:

In our own household, with all the privileges and opportunities that we have, look, there are times when kids slack off. There are times when they would rather be watching TV or playing a computer game than hitting the books. And part of our job as parents, Michelle and my job, is not just to tell our kids what to do, but to start instilling in them a sense that they want to do it for themselves.

So Malia came home the other day and she had gotten a 73 on her science test. Now she's a 6th grader. There was a time a couple years ago when she came home with like an 80-something and she said I did pretty well, and I said, no, no, no. I said our goal is 90 percent and up. So, here's the interesting thing. She started internalizing that, so she came and she was depressed - got a 73. And I said well what happened: 'Well the teacher, the study guide didn't match up with what was on the test.' So what's your idea here? 'Well, I'm gonna start, I've got to read the whole chapter. I'm gonna change how I study, how I approach it.'

So she came home yesterday and she got a 95. But here's the point. She said, 'I just like having knowledge.' That's what she said. And what was happening was she had started wanting it more than us. Once you get to that point, our kids are on their way. But the only way they get to that point is if we're helping them get to that point. So it's going to take that kind of effort from parents to set a high bar in the household. Don't just expect teachers to set a high bar; you've got to start setting a high bar in the household.

Comments

[northernperspective]

02:00 PM on 11/07/2009

Better than that backslapping frat boy Bush:"To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say, well done. And to the C students, I say, you too can be president of the United States."

Hahahaha... not really.

When did America become so frightened of excellence?

[Beca]

07:23 AM on 11/07/2009

First of all, the Obama's have never insinuated that they were the perfect parents, many times they have said that they have made mistakes as parents.
For those of you with obvious reading comprehension problems, this is what he was trying to say: Parent need to be involved in their children's education, parents need to set high standards for their kids, parents need to help their kids learn to want to reach those high standards themselves. It is a process of being an involved parent and not just expecting the schools and teachers to do all the work for your children. For ages, he has been speaking about the importance of parental involvement in our children's education.
He is not claiming to be the moral authority of anything, but he strongly believes that in order to have healthy children, parents need to be involved, they need to be present, not just physically but emotionally as well.
Every kid, even children with disabilities, need to feel a sense of worth, setting high standards for them helps them feel that they are worth it, worth higher standards. Setting low expectations for kids because parents are just too tired to be bothered does not help kids one bit. And if parents are involved, their standards they set with their kids will be tailored to the abilities of their kids.

[J Jammer]

11:24 PM on 11/06/2009

AND.....

One parent has a screaming baby and they get no sleep.

Another parent has a baby that sleeps for a long time and rarely ever screams.

Who is the better parent?

You can't decide by that alone because you don't know the circumstances. You don't know that the first parents have a baby that is allergic to milk. They don't know that until they go to the doctor to figure that out. So they think they are being bad parents. They try everything before they realize that maybe there is something else that is wrong.

The other parents ignore their child and have people over knowing their child would be just fine because all she does is sit there and look around. They don't now that she's deaf....not yet.

The President shouldn't act like he's some sort of parent mecca. His way of doing it is not going to work for every child. This is why it's just a friend comment instead of a useful one. It's a cute story. It's a great point, it was just poorly brought out.

[Truelee]

01:02 AM on 11/07/2009

Regardless of whether you have a colicky baby or not parents should set high expectations. President Obama is not giving anyone parenting tips, he told a story about how setting high expectations creates a benchmark for kids to do well.

[Beca]

07:25 AM on 11/07/2009

He has never acted like he's "some sort of parent mecca", that is your own prejudice against him. Setting high standards for all children is good. If you want to set low standards for your kids, that's fine, but don't expect them to succeed in this highly competitive world. You set low standards you get low results, and you will get adults who will be dependent on you for the rest of your life.

[JanPoore]

02:19 PM on 11/07/2009

co-signed.

[J Jammer]

11:24 PM on 11/06/2009

It feels like he's stating, "Look at how we do it because we are better parents than you are."

It's complicated because he's "sharing" but why share like that? We are not friends. This story is a friend story. I don't care how the President handles his kids. He's not someone I look up to and if anyone looks up to the president for moral standing or guidance....they are not too smart to begin with.

Need I mention Bush, Clinton or anyone else in the past? Even George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Just because they are favored in history doesn't mean they should be use as a moral compass for anyone.

Yes lead by example....but that was more of a prideful display.

[Beca]

07:31 AM on 11/07/2009

Your interprestation of what President Obama tried to convey sounds more like a personal problem and a huge hang up that you have about your own parental abilitles, and you are just projecting that hang up onto President Obama. He never said he was a better parent than anybody. Many times in the past, he and the First Lady have indicated that they are not perfect parents and that they have made their share of mistakes. They are thankful for the help and guidance of Mrs. Robinson, who has helped enormously in raising their daughters.
President Obama believes strongly that parents need to be more involved in their children's education, and he has a very important point. Many parents are way too busy pursuing their own career goals to pay much attention to what happens with their kids and their education, and many leave their kids education primarily to the schools and teachers. I've seen it many times.
He uses his own family as an example to show that he too has to prioritize his children, to show that as a parent he understands the challenges parents face in bringing up children in today's world. He is not boasting or claiming that he is the perfect parent, that is all you making that assumption.

[cframe423]

12:25 PM on 11/07/2009

Oh, shut up

[joycehelene]

08:09 PM on 11/06/2009

I always felt it was better to learn for knowledge sake rather than for grades, we all can't do well in every test we take, some children are better in in some subjects than others and I don't feel it is right to worry about each test we take. Set goals, but not impossible ones, each child is an individual, but each has potentials to acknowledge.

[drfalafel]

07:41 PM on 11/06/2009

It gives me the chills to think we may have had a VP/POTUS who slammed science education and forbid basic biology knowledge to even her own children. But then I would've probably migrated to Vancouver by now and had a totally different head of state.

[gs-425]

04:40 PM on 11/06/2009

We now know a little about Malia's grades....how about you Mr President, got anything on that front to offer??

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

08:20 PM on 11/06/2009

Now what kind of grades at school do you suppose enables a person to do this:

Barack Obama
1988
Entered Harvard Law School

1990
President of the Harvard Law Review

And what kind of grades at Harvard do you need to do this?

1991
Graduated Harvard University Magnum_Cum_Lauda

Just sayin.

[gs-425]

10:57 AM on 11/07/2009

"Now what kind of grades at school do you suppose enables a person to do this:"

I don't know, what kind of grades does one need for affirmative action?

[weatherwaxx]

09:31 PM on 11/06/2009

Better than yours, I'm sure.

What is this staIkerish obsession with President Obama's grades? You people need to get a life.

[gs-425]

11:03 AM on 11/07/2009

"Better than yours, I'm sure."

That reminds me of an interview that Don Imus did with an Obama supporter, went something like this:

Supporter: "Barak Obama is the smartest US president ever."

Imus: "really, what is his IQ?

Supporter: I don't know, but he's smart."

Imus: "Oh, OK"

[IWantTofu]

01:12 PM on 11/06/2009

They must have edited out Malia's come back asking about the Virginia and New Jersey Governors' races.

[nocoward]

02:56 PM on 11/06/2009

AH AH, AH..

[weatherwaxx]

09:33 PM on 11/06/2009

ROTFL.

Virginia switches parties just about every Governor's election.

The REAL story -- TWO MORE DEMOCRATS in the House of Representatives, and one is from a district that has been Republican for over A HUNDRED YEARS.

Got any comments on that, Sunshine?

[usha]

01:14 AM on 11/06/2009

I am from India..i am a little ambivalent about this..i have been there and done the 90s with my sons through school..fortunately they were able to cope with it..but i also saw that many children who could not were very stressed out with the high parental expectations..I wonder ...

[weatherwaxx]

09:35 PM on 11/06/2009

Watch the Obama girls with their parents. They don't look stressed out to me. High expectations that come with love and support aren't the same thing as a set of expectations that come only with punishment for not achieving them. And given the odd situation a President's kids must be in, all the publicity and security... having something like schoolwork to focus on is probably a very good thing.

[usha]

03:08 AM on 11/09/2009

Certainly agree that this is good for the Obama girls because they are obviously able to cope comfortably with expectations like this and it is good for them to have something to focus on ..if you notice, i did say that my sons could cope with it too.. but what I am trying to say is that I am concerned about the generality of this message..there are children and children and parents and parents..can everybody handle this?

[berrycooda]

10:45 PM on 11/05/2009

Just goes to show you...
It doesn't take a village, it takes a concerned parent.

[nocoward]

02:54 PM on 11/06/2009

RIGHT-ON

[JanPoore]

02:26 PM on 11/07/2009

and it doesn't take an unfunded mandatory "No Child Left Behind" program that is based on test scores alone. It takes a concerned parent.

[tagfin]

06:33 PM on 11/05/2009

This was great to read to my kids. I push for 90 and above all the time. when my son was in 8th grade, he got an 80 on a paper. So I sent him back to school to ask his teacher for help because "he hadn't done very well." The teacher said "you got an 80, thats not a bad grade." so much for having my message reinforcd. That's dumming down and it goes on all the time. At this school, its rare for kids to even write papers. Most projects are done on poster board--easy to assign and presumably easy to grade.

[ILBucki]

03:38 PM on 11/05/2009

I certainly did not miss the point. Glad she learned a different study approach, but can't miss the fact that she got TWO attempts at it! What happened to study, then test -- not retest if you stunk the first time around? Another example of dumbing down & grade inflation? Well, that's just dandy, cuz in any case, she's got affirmative action going for her......not to mention her daddy.....

[lucyrocks]

06:12 PM on 11/05/2009

Did you listen to the story? She did not take the same test twice.

[richdibo]

06:52 PM on 11/05/2009

We all take the same test twice. Even more times. Some of us constantly fail. We just don't realize it.

[PennLawyer]

06:13 PM on 11/05/2009

I understand that the mere mention of studying - gasp! SCIENCE - is very threatening to some people. But try to calm down. You see, science is not taught to kids with a single, or even just a few tests. The standard pedagogical method in a science course is to have weekly quizzes. Nowhere in the article did it say that she was allowed to retake the sane test. That was your particular flight of fancy, motivated it would seem by your visceral and mindless envy
and dislike of the presidential family.
Of course if science to you is that "god created the world and all the creatures in it in 7 days and he did it precisely 6,000 years ago" then I guess you could learn that in about 5 seconds, as opposed to studying natural history and Darwinian theory of evolution, and so there would never be any new material on which to be tested the following week.
You likewise seem to have no understanding of affirmative action. You imply that a minority child culd receive a higher grade on a test in a totally objective course like science,
even though his/her answers were wrong. Good grief, what alternative universe do you inhabit?!?!?!?

[IWantTofu]

02:22 PM on 11/06/2009

He created the world in 6 days. The 7th he rested.

[RACVC]

02:34 PM on 11/05/2009

Growing up in my family there was an unspoken expectation of achievement and striving to be the best.
It wasn't drummed into our heads, but rather that expectation was modeled.
This naturally generalized to how we raised our children.
Succeeding in school was expected and anything short was unacceptable - bottom line.
Kids rise to the expectations of their family, be they success oriented or failure oriented.

[lily31]

01:59 PM on 11/05/2009

My father years and years ago, taught me by example that the greatest gift we can give our children is the gift of the fun of learning for learning sake; knowledge for knowledge sake. He also taught by example; we went to the library together; he offered a compromise many times; one was when he insisted that I see the opera, Aida. It wasn't if I will, he will. No, he said after we went together and then talked about the performance, story and what it said about the human condition, we would go to a movie of my choice.
I have so many books he gave me at a age when I just wanted the usual trinkets.

He also helped me see that I could figure out how to make all this stuff easier once I took ownership for the end result! That lesson together with the acquired joy of learning was a marvelous gift and I thank him every day.

As to those who complain about his making her experience public, may we should not assume he did it without her knowledge; nor should we assume that she isn't proud to have people learn from her example. I'd venture a guess she got that attitude from both parents.

Lucky Malia!

[Rudyabdul]

01:50 PM on 11/05/2009

Some of you think that President Obama is bullsh!tting but regardless, he is 100% right. My mother had a 9th grade education but she set the bar high for me and my siblings. She wanted us to do and accomplish more than what she accomplished in her life. She understood that if she set the bar high for us then as adults we would set the bar higher for ourselves in every facet of our lives, not only in college but on the job, in our marriage, in raising our children, etc.