Damon Weaver, 11, Interviews President Obama

Aug. 14, 2009— -- Student journalist Damon Weaver, 11, achieved the dream he told ABC News about on election night. He sat down for an interview at the White House with President Barack Obama.

CLICK HERE to watch the full interview and read the transcript below.

DAMON WEAVER: I've heard that you would like to make an announcement about education. Can you tell me about the announcement?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well on Sept. 8 when young people around the country have just started or are about to go back to school I'm going to be making a big speech to you people all across the country about the importance of education and the importance of staying in school, how we want to improve the education system and why it's so important for the country, so I hope everybody tunes in.

WEAVER: All across America, money is being cut from education. How can education be improved with all these cuts?

OBAMA:Well, we actually, here in the administration, trying to put more money into schools, and there are a lot of schools all across the country that are getting new buildings and new facilities. We're now putting more money into training good teachers and giving them more support, and so we think it's important to put more money into the schools. But money alone is not going to make the difference. We've also got to improve how the schools are operating, and we have really been trying to focus on how do you find the best schools and figure out what it is that they're doing well. And they're trying to get other schools that aren't doing so well to do the same kinds of things that the schools who are doing well are doing. So I hope that we can really see some improvement, not just with money, but also with reforming how the schools work.

WEAVER: I live in Pahokee, Fla., which is a kind of poor town. What can be done to improve education for students that live in towns like mine?

OBAMA: Well, unfortunately a lot of times if you've got a community that is lower income, they don't have as much money in their schools. A lot of that is state funding, and I want to see states be more fair in terms of how they give money to various schools around their communities, but I do think it's important to make sure that we can find help from the federal government from here in Washington D.C. for those schools that need the most help. There are certain programs, like dropout prevention programs, for example, that local school districts might not be able to afford, but maybe we can make sure that the federal government is giving help to those local districts so they can improve their educational system.