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Educator, Author and CNN’s go-to Education expert, Dr. Steve Perry has made it his mission to transform the educational experience for all children in America. As a featured segment on Anderson Cooper 360 with “Perry’s Principles” and in his forthcoming novel “Push Has Come to Shove”

Dr. Steve Perry talks with CL’s Felicia Mancini on what grade he gives President Obama to why Hip Hop will help save students.

FELICIA : When did your passion start for education? Did you wake up as a kid and decided that you wanted to be in classrooms in some form or another for your whole life?
DR. PERRY: When I was a little kid, I wanted to play for the Dallas Cowboys. As I got older, I wanted to be a politician. Then I had a couple internships with senators and realized a lot of people were “all talk” and no action and it wasn’t for me. I wanted to be on the front lines. I decided to get a masters in social work from the University of Pennsylvania and became the director of a homeless shelter. However, wanted to prevent people from ending up in homeless in the first place and realized the only way to mitigate poverty is through education so I decided to start a school. Currently, at Capital Prep, where I am the principal, 100% of our seniors graduate and go on to 4 year colleges.

You have worked alongside countless individuals from rappers to politicians to enforce the importance of education for our youth, what do you think is absolutely pivotal to the success of our students?
DR. PERRY: We must believe in kids enough to give them the kind of education that we would want our own children to have. We know how to run successful schools. It’s through engaging the students with compelling curriculum, challenging and supporting them emotionally, intellectually. We can’t get them a hodgepodge, we have to give them the best.

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