Program Success Barack Obama Special Edition - Page 20

President Barack Obama and President François Hollande of France walk together to the 70th
French-American Commemoration D-Day Ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery and
Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, June 6, 2014.

build moon base in favor of support for private-sector lowearth orbit ventures, research on new rocket technologies for
long-distance manned flight missions, and unmanned space
exploration, including the largest interplanetary rover ever
launched, which will investigate Mars’s potential to support
life.

36.

Invested Heavily in Renewable Technology:

37.

Crafting Next-Generation School Tests:

38.

Cracked Down on Bad For-Profit Colleges:

39.

Improved School Nutrition:

40.

Expanded Hate Crimes Protections:

41.

Avoided Scandal:

42.

Brokered Agreement for Speedy Compensation
to Victims of Gulf Oil Spill:

As part of the 2009 stimulus, invested $90 billion,
more than any previous administration, in research on smart
grids, energy efficiency, electric cars, renewable electricity
generation, cleaner coal, and biofuels.

Devoted $330 million in stimulus money to pay two
consortia of states and universities to create competing
versions of new K-12 student performance tests based on
latest psychometric research. New tests could transform
the learning environment in vast majority of public school
classrooms beginning in 2014.

President Barack Obama stops to talk with visiting school children outside the West Wing of the
White House, April 29, 2015. The President was returning from a walk with Shanna Peeples, the
2015 National Teacher of the Year, when he met the children and their chaperones.

In effort to fight predatory practices of some for-profit
colleges, Department of Education issued “gainful employment” regulations in 2011 cutting off commercially focused
schools from federal student aid funding if more than 35 percent of former students aren’t paying off their loans and/or if
the average former student spends more than 12 percent of
his or her total earnings servicing student loans.

In coordination with Michelle Obama, signed Healthy
Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010 mandating $4.5 billion spending boost and higher nutritional and health standards for
school lunches. New rules based on the law, released in
January, double the amount of fruits and vegetables and require only whole grains in food served to students.

Signed Hate Crimes Prevention Act (2009), which
expands existing hate crime protections to include crimes
based on a victim’s sexual orientation, gender, or disability,
in addition to race, color, religion, or national origin.

As of November 2011, served longer than any
president in decades without a scandal, as measured by the
appearance of the word “scandal” (or lack thereof) on the
front page of the Washington Post.

President Barack Obama talks with 4-H Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) students during their visit, with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, to the Oval Office, April 13 2015.

Though lacking statutory power to compel British Petroleum
to act, used moral authority of his office to convince
oil company to agree in 2010 to a $20 billion fund to
compensate victims of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the
Gulf of Mexico; $6.5 billion already paid out without lawsuits.
By comparison, it took nearly two decades for plaintiffs in
the Exxon Valdez Alaska oil spill case to receive $1.3 billion.

43.

Created Recovery.gov:

Web site run by independent board of inspectors
general looking for fraud and abuse in stimulus spending,
provides public with detailed information on every contract
funded by $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act. Thanks partly to this transparency, board has uncovered
very little fraud, and Web site has become national model:
“The stimulus has done more to promote transparency at
almost all levels of government than any piece of legislation
in recent memory,” reports Governing magazine.
PROGRAM SUCCESS MAGAZINE PAGE:

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MAY

2015