"… It's funny, when he rolled out his education plan in the fall, I was campaigning, and I looked it through with some trepidation: Oh no, am I going to like everything that I see? I had some questions at first, but then when I started taking a more careful look at it. … I started seeing that it really was more thoughtful, that it was about recognizing teachers who were building curriculum, who were forging those connections with the community, who were teaching in places where there were shortages or teachers or in low-income communities. … Then I said, 'Ah yeah, that makes a lot of sense, that really is an important component in treating teachers as professionals, offering teachers some room to be truly innovative.'
"And so I ended up loving his educational platform."
—Maya Soetoro-Ng, Barack Obama's half-sister, who is a Ph.D. and a high school teacher in Hawaii, during an interview with CL last week in Ybor City
This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2008.