S.C. Student Inspires Obama

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama told the nation Tuesday night that he was inspired by the resolve of a South Carolina student who wrote a plea to the White House and Congress to fix her crumbling school.

As eighth-grader Ty’Sheoma Bethea of Dillon looked on from a seat next to First Lady Michelle Obama, the president read from her letter and described the substandard conditions at her impoverished school, J.V. Martin Junior High.

“She has been told that her school is hopeless, but the other day after class she went to the public library and typed up a letter to the people sitting in this chamber,” Obama said. “The letter asks us for help, and says: ‘We are just students trying to become lawyers, doctors, congressmen like yourself and one day president, so we can make a change to not just the state of South Carolina but also the world. We are not quitters’.”

Near the beginning of his bid for the presidency in August 2007, Obama visited J.V. Martin, which sits in the state’s “corridor of shame” of poor, underperforming schools.

Since then he has repeatedly referred to the school’s leaky roof, peeling paint and the noisy train that disrupts classes to argue for increased funding for school modernization.

At his first presidential news conference on Feb. 9, Obama referred to J.V. Martin in arguing for school construction funding in the $787 billion economic recovery package after the Senate voted to cut those funds.

After hearing her school described by the president in prime time, Ty’Sheoma, 14, decided to write Obama and members of Congress a letter urging them to provide funds to fix crumbling schools, the White House said.

A few days after the press conference, Ty’Sheoma and her letter were featured in an article in the Chicago Tribune – Obama’s hometown newspaper – about how the recovery package could help decrepit schools like J.V. Martin.

Tribune reporter Howard Witt wrote that he entered Ty’Sheoma’s social studies class – housed in a rusting trailer – and asked the students if they knew about the fight over school construction funding in the recovery package.

Ty’Sheoma was one of the few students to raise her hands, Witt wrote, and said "all I know is that the Congress might not agree that we need help and they might deny the president the money he needs to help us.”

With the help of the school’s principal, Amanda Burnette, her letter found its way to Congress and Obama. The White House extended an invitation to Ty’Sheoma and her mother, Dina Leach, to sit next to Michelle Obama during the speech Tuesday.

She flew to Washington Tuesday morning – her first ride on an airplane, school officials said – and will return to J.V. Martin Wednesday to attend an assembly that will be held to honor her.

Ty’Sheoma and Leach could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Though Obama talked up the benefits of the recovery package in his speech, he did not talk about the school repair provisions contained in the bill.

It’s far from clear that any of the funds from the $787 billion package will go to fix schools like J.V. Martin.

The House passed a version of the package in January that dedicated $16 billion dollars to renovate elementary and secondary schools, including $207.1 million for South Carolina.

But after the Senate objected, those dedicated funds were stripped from the package. The final version, signed by Obama earlier this month, would allow – but not require – states to use some of the money provided to help balance their budgets on school repair.

As Obama reached the end of speech designed to rally a nation beset by a deeply troubled economy, he read two sentences from Ty’Sheoma’s letter and repeated for effect a line he found poignant: “We are not quitters. That’s what she said. We are not quitters.”

From their seats in the House chamber’s balcony, Michelle Obama turned to Ty’Sheoma, put her arm around her and said “That’s right.” The crowd of dignitaries gave her a 30-second standing ovation before Obama continued.

“These words…tell us something about the spirit of the people who sent us here. They tell us that even in the most trying times, amid the most difficult circumstances, there is a generosity, a resilience, a decency, and a determination that perseveres,” he said.

Sean Mussenden can be reached at smussenden@mediageneral.com or 202-662-7668