Education At The #SOTU

Tonight, President Obama once again delivered his annual State of the Union address. Last year, education comprised a significant piece of his remarks as he unveiled his plan to provide free community college for American students. While I know that education is typically a forgotten subject in grandiose American political theater (see my earlier post about the issue of education on the 2016 Presidential debates), I was hopeful cautiously optimistic that the President might include additional policy proposals in the area of K-14 education policy--especially given the recent overhaul of No Child Left Behind with the signing of the Every Student Succeeds Act. 

If you want to review the transcript of the President's remarks, feel free to do so here or watch the video below (The President's Remarks start at 00:41:30): 

If you want a summary of education at the State of the Union, here you are:

• A quick search of the official transcript of the President's speech finds the words "education", "school", "college", and "teachers" used a total of 10 times collectively. In fact, here is a word cloud that captures the most used words from the speech:

Can you find education? Keep looking...

Despite these sparse mentions of "education", the President did link education as a critically important force in America's changing economy. Here are those mentions:

• "We agree that real opportunity requires every American to get the education and training they need to land a good-paying job. The bipartisan reform of No Child Left Behind was an important start, and together, we’ve increased early childhood education, lifted high school graduation rates to new highs, and boosted graduates in fields like engineering."

• "We should build on that progress, by providing Pre-K for all, offering every student the hands-on computer science and math classes that make them job-ready on day one, and we should recruit and support more great teachers for our kids."

• "We have to make college affordable for every American. Because no hardworking student should be stuck in the red. We’ve already reduced student loan payments to ten percent of a borrower’s income. Now, we’ve actually got to cut the cost of college. Providing two years of community college at no cost for every responsible student is one of the best ways to do that, and I’m going to keep fighting to get that started this year"

Clearly, the President quickly shared the progress of education policies during his term and shared his vision for the important role that education should play in the future.