Last Tuesday, when Michelle Obama took a fashionably shod toe and dipped it into her husband’s efforts to address the nation’s higher-ed gap, the move was greeted by some feminists with a relieved, “It’s about damn time!”
Here, finally, was an issue worthy of the Ivy-educated, blue-chip law firm-trained first lady, a departure from the safely, soothingly domestic causes she had previously embraced. Gardening? Tending wounded soldiers? Reading to children? “She essentially became the English lady of the manor, Tory Party, circa 1830s,” feminist Linda Hirshman says.
Speaking last week at Bell Multicultural High School, a couple of miles north of the White House, the first lady touted the importance of a college degree, citing her own journey from a one-bedroom apartment on Chicago’s South Side to Princeton as evidence of how far hard work and good schooling can take you. “I’m here today because I want you to know that my story can be your story,” she told the predominantly low-income, heavily minority student body.
The personal plea was part of a glitzy rollout for a new administration initiative. Working with Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the first lady will become an “ambassador” for the new “North Star” program meant to make the United States the global leader in the percentage of young people it propels through college (we currently rank 12th, according to the White House), with special outreach to communities on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum.
Via: Politico Magazine
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