Obama, Not All Dropouts Grow Up to Be Rap Stars...

It's not fun to criticize Barack Obama anymore now that everyone's doing it. Even cautionary blog posts used to feel like a wonderfully lonely place, particularly if you live around San Francisco or on HuffPost.

I warned early on about the dangers of over-stimulating the public expectation gland. You can chummy-up the media all you want but even hookers draw lines in the bed sheets when it comes to being over-used and underpaid.

Hypocrisy is often the one unforgivable sin in politics, as opposed to lying, cheating, stealing and indictment. But dashing the exuberant enthusiasm you created around yourself could be way up there on the list of public service felonies.

Forget Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly, not that it's possible. Now we even have local novelist and confirmed progressive Anne Lamott writing witty and literary slams on the president. About the only thing left would be a grade-school Vanity Fair tell-all from one of Sasha or Malia's classmates. ("He's never home for dinner! And he wears Versace pajamas!")

The shock value in taking on the new Camelot has been trampled into the dull thud of recognition and repetition from all sides.

So I was ready to move on. But damn if he didn't set me off like a North Carolina fundamentalist preacher rocket with this education speech business.

It's not about peddling socialism, or "using students as junior lobbyists" (Michelle Malkin) or even pushing "President-worship onto 50 million captive schoolchildren" (David Boaz), though there's been plenty of worshiping already going on.

It's this: Barack Obama has revealed himself as an educationist, deeply discriminating against dropouts like, well, me. OK, I'm hardly the best case in point. But what about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who made kajillions off an idea that hasn't taken in a dime of profit? Or Bill Gates, number one once again on the richest person list in his eternal bumper car mogulism competition with Warren Buffet (and Mr. Gates sells real stuff.) Or Woody Allen? Or Richard Avedon (his exhibit is right down the street at SFMoma)? Or Steve Jobs? Or President Andrew Jackson?

"No matter what you want to do with your life," Mr. Obama said, "I guarantee you'll need an education to do it. You can't drop out of school and just drop into a good job. If you quit on school, you're quitting on your country." Oh yeah. Tell that to "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, who dropped out of the University of North Texas. Or maybe that's author Jane Austen, who took a hike in elementary school.

I know there are other great examples, but I don't read very much, and never remember what I do read, so you'll have to do your own Googling on this. There's actually a Web site, but it had too many big words so I quit halfway through.

There was even an effective broadcast ad today showing pre-teen kids in orange prison jumpsuits warning from the penitentiary yard about the perils of a foreshortened education. Hey! I'm not in prison. Yet. I am in the newspaper business, though, which can feel a little grim and confining these days (despite a rare plug in the president's address). But I'm not in prison.

In the meantime, all those White House Harvard smarties can't even concoct a simple speech to kids without stepping in poo. The Bay Bridge guys who undersold their repair timetable could teach the over-educated Obama braniacs something about the value of lowering expectations.

"Find an adult you trust," Mr. Obama said in his appearance this morning. Exactly.

"He's the only one we've got," a citizen was quoted as telling the AP in a story about Obama at eight months in office. But, as John McCain said, he's THAT one.

I agree with Daily Show creator Lizz Winstead, who said on her Twitter yesterday when the advanced text of the battered Obama stay-in-school speech was released: "YOU WON. QUIT GIVING CAMPAIGN SPEECHES AND LEAD."

Follow Phil Bronstein on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PhilBronstein

Comments

[mypov123]

I appreciate your point that it's not fair to assume that everyone who drops out of school aspires to become a rapper or an athlete. However, I believe that all young people should be encouraged to AT LEAST graduate from high school, and I appreciate the President's message to them about staying in school and not giving up on their education (even if I don't particularly care for his administration's educational policies). It's also unfair to assume that anyone who becomes an entertainer or an athlete is uneducated, or that they chose their career because they don't want a job that requires "hard work". Basketball player Grant Hill, for example, is a graduate of Duke University. Even Sean "P.Diddy" Combs has a business degree from Howard University lol. Sure, it's rare to find a professional athlete or entertainer who has graduated from college, but the point is that we shouldn't make negative generalizations about others. Young people should be encouraged to explore a wide variety of career options. Not all Black children aspire to be athletes and rappers, even though the President seems to be determined to reinforce that stereotype (among other stereotypes about African Americans). The message should be that whatever career path you choose, obtaining an education should be your number one priority.

[Nommo]

It is one thing to suggest that students not drop out, something else altogether to place something around them that inspires them to stay in school. We are using models that are decades behind the times. A modern world cannot be imagined from the spaces we are teaching children. Classrooms, dry and sterile, cannot compete with a world full of blinking lights and beeping sounds. That we cannot even accommodate different learning styles

Clearly, the dropouts mentioned in the blog were inspired. It was not about dropping out, it was about moving onto create new things. We must deal with the dropouts who are uninspired, lost, misplaced or whatever. Someone must declare "NCLB" to be the disaster that it is and spend at least a fraction of what we spend on war on the matter of educating our population.

That is, of course, if they want to be bothered with an educated population.

[MsMandy]

While I hope that this article was supposed to be tongue in cheek, I thought a bit of reality may put this so-not-a-l­sughing-ma­tter into perspective.
In California and Arizona, 3rd grade reading scores are looked at in order to anticipate the number of prison beds we will need in the next 20 years. If a student is significantly behind, there is an assumption that they will end up incarcerated at some point in the near future.
Freshmen who do not pass both thier math and English classes are 60% more likely to drop out of high school than their peers.
The examples of success here are the exception. Most students who do not make it to graduation will be relegated to poverty and shorter lifespans. The statistics are staggering.

[strangelet]

Phil, he was addressing HIGH SCHOOL students, and talking about not dropping out of HIGH SCHOOL. Now, I'm sure that in a nation of 300M, you can find some examples of successful people who dropped out of HIGH SCHOOL; but I can find way more counterexamples at my local fast-food joint.

Congratulations on your personal success, but you are making the Reagan argument: "The system worked for me, so it must be okay for everyone".

[Thisguy1313]

So...the message here is that we should all be dropouts and subsequent success stories just like you? Seriously, that's like saying it doesn't matter if I flunk math because there's always the NFL, or the NBA, or the cream always rises to the top and other such idiotic nonsense. The fact is, Mr. Bronstien, you are the exception, not the rule. Talk about confusion in terms of expectations. I'm amazed that any meaningful dialog occurs at all given the amount of this sort of crap that floats around out there masquerading as credible commentary. The war on brains is still raging, apparently.

[Sumocat]

His speech was being played to kids in high school and below, not college and universities, right? I'm just asking because, aside from Jane Austen (who dropped out of the modern school system of the 18th century), your examples are all folks who didn't finish college, while Obama's speech was focused on getting through high school. He mentioned being a police officer or member of the military, neither of which require college degrees. He cited children who have had to struggle through life yet still graduated high school or were on track to do so (and like your examples, they weren't done with college). You have a legitimate point, but it just isn't directly related to the speech. If anything, you've supported his point by listing examples of very successful people who all attained the level of education our president was promoting.

[SimJack]

Now with all that fancy editorializing you're gonna get to tinkering with the collective neocon brainpan and pretty soon they'll twist it around saying that in fact, Obama wants to close all the schools and fire all the teachers to expand the 'Death Panels' and pay for his socialist health care reform plan.

[ticklemonster]

How many people have you hired at the Chronicle lately without a HS Diploma? In today's society, the resume is everything.

[Freesia2]

Oh for Pete's sake. You list every glorious exception when the fact is that dropping out of school is usually - unless you have encouragement from incredible parents, or a drive instilled from birth, or a silver spoon in your porringer, or the stars beamed down upon you - well it's usually a road map to "Do you want fries with that?" And I say that as a person with a blue collar background, married to a man with a highschool diploma. He's done well for himself, not rich by a long shot but carved out a career. But it was part blind luck and part desperation. And he had to work 3 times as hard against people with higher degrees.

Since when is "It's okay to drop out. Actually you might be better off little children" a selling point for Republicans? They used to be known for their smarts. Rather proud of it actually. And they wonder why their party is now led by the likes of Palin and Bachmann and filled with tea baggers.

[BlackJAC]

Mr. Bronstein, you failed to take into account the advancement of technology over the intervening years. Even the Army started requiring new recruits to be high school graduates when their attempts to make comic book-style instruction manuals for the dropout recruits failed. You also failed to account for a child's instinct to imitate others, and how we currently live in a fame-at-all-costs media culture, if the massive audition lines for AMERICAN IDOL each year are any indicator. Like the celebrity commercial endorsement of a product that mistakenly suggests that using it will bestow the celebrity's pre-existing talent upon them, you've basically stated that dropping out of school will help kids realize their dreams of becoming wealthy and famous.

Incidentally, Jane Austen lived in an era and society where she was only expected to marry and bear children.

[diagonotter]

To be fair, he said that the TV culture we live in gives the impression that we can become rich without hard work and/or education- counting on becoming the next reality show celeb, rapper or basketball player, only a very VERY small portion of people are successful that way.

[3fingerbrown]

For heaven's sake, folks, it's a humor piece.

"I know there are other great examples, but I don't read very much, and never remember what I do read, so you'll have to do your own Googling on this. There's actually a Web site, but it had too many big words so I quit halfway through."

Not, perhaps, one of the great moments in American comedy, but obviously the man is using irony to make a point. Sheesh.

[JoeSausage]

What's his point? Droping out equals success? Because I fail to see any humour in this. Or irony. It's just another disillusioned progressive stabbing the President in the back, for sport. God knows, President Palin would turn America into an Orwellian nightmare, but sometimes I think you whiners deserve it!

[3fingerbrown]

The point is, if you drop out of school you'll become a stupid person with poor reading skills.

[SethBLiNK]

Well, Phil, if the logic you exhibit here is the product of a short education, I'm glad I stuck around and got a longer one.

But you actually know that don't you, Phil? You know that the average person is far more better off getting an education than not getting one?

You use Bill Gates as an example. Bill Gates became the man he is because parents at his prep school were so involved in their children's education that they purchase time-share computer time so the kids could be ahead of the curve with the emerging technology. Gates, Paul Allen and couple others went overboard and became so knowledgable about programming, that after one year in Harvard he was able to leave and start a company that became Microsoft. While at Harvard he met Steve Ballmer who stayed on to graduate.

Gates is such an opponent of education that his Foundation has spent billions on education for others.

[ribojunkie]

i agree that all the people you list as examples of dropouts are successful. however, these people are in a minority and even so they are successful probably because they are smarter than the average person. the average person (like me) needs to stick with school and complete their education. i would say that in general, there are more people who are successful because they stayed in school than those that dropped out.

[jade7243]

Very Wrong Phil...

Every one of the people you cite are exceptions, not the rule. And every one of the people you cite as sterling examples of the joys of dropping out are white. Accuse me of playing the race card, but kids Obama was speaking to with that line are the black and brown ones who don't look to Warren Buffet, Bill Gates or even you as role models. They're looking at L'il Wayne or Jay-Z.

The profound difference of being a white dropout -- and all of you finished high school even if you were in the lower bottoms of your classes -- when compared to being a minority is the simple fact that the minority kid already has to prove he or she didn't "steal" the spot destined for some white suburban kid at university. They have to prove as honors grad Sonia Sotomayor did just this summer, that they're no affirmative action baby.

Dropping out for them, is simply not an option. Unemployment for black men is about 23%. No high school diploma and the number skyrockets. The only roads open for them lead to a life of crime and incarceration.

Lick your wounded ego. But tomorrow take the Bay Bridge to Oakland. Hit the streets in a black neighborhood and see what undereducation gets you. Or visit Folsom Prison. You need a reality check.

[bowthai]

Good points, all. I think Bronstein's pieces tend to be about himself more often than not, but leaving that aside, his commentary completely overlooks the actual problem of unfinished education. As you point out, Bronstein's examples are very much the exceptions. The kids Obama wants to reach are not the ones quitting Harvard so they can start an internet company. They are not forgoing college so that they can be entreprenuers. They are the 16 year olds (often non-whites) who don't see the value of education in any form or who are ambitious in their attempts at quasi-reality stardom. Good for Bronstein and Gates and everyone else who dropped out and still managed to be successful, financially or otherwise. But let's turn our attention back to those kids who drop out because they see no real future for themselves and because the rest of us do not care about their problems as much as we should.