Obama's Speech to Children Next Week

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-24-2009
Obama's Speech to Children Next Week
142
Thu, 09-03-2009 - 12:32am

Is it just me, or is this just nuts??!!


 


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6599457.html


Some Texas parents are asking school principals to excuse their children from listening to a speech that President Barack Obama will make to schools next week on the grounds that it smacks of political indoctrination.


Obama will deliver an address directly to students on the importance of education beginning at 11 a.m. (CST) Tuesday.


“The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan wrote in an Aug. 26 letter to school principals.


Critics of the president are using the Internet to build opposition and encourage parents to request their children not be forced to listen.


“I think it's inappropriate because it smacks of political indoctrination of the worst kind,” said Brett Curtis, a parent of two children attending Pearland ISD schools. “It's not just a speech. It's a specific curriculum to go along with the speech directly from the president of the United States without review.”


Schools are getting a menu of classroom activities for students, according to the education secretary, designed by teachers “to help engage students and stimulate discussion on the importance of education in their lives.”


Curtis said he would instruct his children to boycott the speech as “a general protest. I know that's going on around the country.”


Most Houston-area school districts will let principals and teachers decide whether to show Obama's speech. Some district leaders raised concerns about interrupting already scheduled lessons, while others said students need to hear the president's expected message of personal responsibility for learning.


Some parents have threatened to keep their children home for the day.


“I just don't see how this would be an indoctrination technique,” said Alief school board president Sarah Wink­ler, who also is president-elect of the Texas Association of School Boards. “It sounds to me like these are all things we try to teach our kids. We want them to work hard and pay attention and do the best they can.”


The Alief district, like Lamar Consolidated, plans to record the speech for interested teachers to show later.


Parents can opt out

The Houston Independent School District has directed principals to give parents a heads-up if they are planning lessons around Obama's speech so parents can opt out their children. Other districts said they would excuse students, though not all plan to send home notes in advance.


“We're not stopping instruction for it,” said Clear Creek ISD spokeswoman Elaina Polsen, “but if it's in line with what's being taught either on Sept. 8th or down the road, teachers may use it.”


Pasadena school officials said they are working to ensure that all schools can access the online broadcast of Obama's speech if they want.


In 1989, President George H.W. Bush used a nationally televised speech to schoolchildren to push an anti-drug campaign.


“It is not uncommon for students to watch a presidential speech that is given during the school day,” said Debbie Ratcliffe, spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency. “This situation is somewhat different in that this speech apparently will be directed to students. But each district can decide how best to handle it for their community.”


Children pulled out of school for the day will cost districts about $35 per child, as state funding for schools is based on daily attendance.


State Board of Education member David Bradley, R-Beaumont, said he objected to the federal Department of Education taking classroom time away from local schools. The speech may be innocuous, Bradley said, “but look at the follow-up activities.”


“Under Texas statute, parents have the right to review all instructional materials. They also have the right to opt out their kids from any program they might object to,” he said, citing sex education as an example.


State Board of Education member Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands, said parents have complained to her about the speech taking up valuable classroom instruction time.


One parent told her the president's speech “obligates the youngest children in our public school system to agree with Obama's initiatives or be ostracized by their teachers and classmates,” and does not allow for healthy debate.


‘Wild-eyed paranoia'

President Obama's speech does have its defenders.


“It's hard to imagine anything more ridiculous than attacking the president of the United States for talking to students about the importance of getting a good education and being a good citizen,” said Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, which monitors public education in Texas.


“I wish our elected leaders were responsible enough to denounce this kind of wild-eyed paranoia,” Miller said. “But the problem is too many of them are actually feeding this kind of nonsense — like when the governor flirts with secessionists and State Board of Education members say the president sympathizes with terrorists.”


 


All the kids around here listened to bush's speeches in class.  No one made a peep.  Hmmmmm.


 


 

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iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2008
Tue, 09-08-2009 - 10:29am

Well it appears they may have learned from Democrats.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/When-Bush-spoke-to-students-Democrats-investigated-held-hearings-57694347.html

When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
09/08/09 7:11 AM EDT

The controversy over President Obama's speech to the nation's schoolchildren will likely be over shortly after Obama speaks today at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush's speech -- they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue.

Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president's school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president's political benefit. "The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props," the Post reported.

With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. "The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students," said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. "And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'"

Democrats did not stop with words. Rep. William Ford, then chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate the cost and legality of Bush's appearance. On October 17, 1991, Ford summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the speech. "The hearing this morning is to really examine the expenditure of $26,750 of the Department of Education funds to produce and televise an appearance by President Bush at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC," Ford began. "As the chairman of the committee charged with the authorization and implementation of education programs, I am very much interested in the justification, rationale for giving the White House scarce education funds to produce a media event."

Unfortunately for Ford, the General Accounting Office concluded that the Bush administration had not acted improperly. "The speech itself and the use of the department's funds to support it, including the cost of the production contract, appear to be legal," the GAO wrote in a letter to Chairman Ford. "The speech also does not appear to have violated the restrictions on the use of appropriations for publicity and propaganda."

That didn't stop Democratic allies from taking their own shots at Bush. The National Education Association denounced the speech, saying it "cannot endorse a president who spends $26,000 of taxpayers' money on a staged media event at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, D.C. -- while cutting school lunch funds for our neediest youngsters."

Lost in all the denouncing and investigating was the fact that Bush's speech itself, like Obama's today, was entirely unremarkable. "Block out the kids who think it's not cool to be smart," the president told students. "If someone goofs off today, are they cool? Are they still cool years from now, when they're stuck in a dead end job. Don't let peer pressure stand between you and your dreams.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2008
Tue, 09-08-2009 - 10:33am

Yes, that could be done.

But my school district has chosen not to. Anyone that concerned can obtain it for themselves for their children to see.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2008
Tue, 09-08-2009 - 10:35am
The suggestions I'd have for my representatives would not be well received.
Community Leader
Registered: 04-05-2002
Tue, 09-08-2009 - 12:18pm

I'm really impressed that Florida GOP Party chairman Greer listened to the speech and changed his mind. I think it took an open mind to listen to the speech and not denounce it after hearing it(as opposed to others who are still so easily swayed and offended). Even Laura Bush, who has been quiet since leaving (I applaud both Bushes for having the dignity to stay out of the political fray after leaving office) agreed with children watching the speech.

This whole thing is a much ado about nothing--a president encouraging students to do well in school should be a non-issue, and it probably makes us seem like a politically dysfunctional country. That said, Obama and his staff should have realized the rancor partisanship in this country and released the speech first before the controversy. Granted, hindsight is perfect but his team should have had the foresight to see this happening.

http://www.cfnews13.com/Education/EducationHeadlines/2009/9/8/obama_speaks_to_americas_students.html

Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer said this speech is not the one he believed Obama planned to give initially, and that the president had eliminated a partisan political agenda.

In the text released by the White House, Obama encouraged the nation’s children to stay in school and develop goals, saying “What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country.”

“You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job,” the transcript said. “You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.”

Greer previously said he was appalled that taxpayer dollars were being spent to spread Obama’s “socialist ideology,” but after reading the speech, he will send his kids to see it in school.

“My children have been taught to have the highest respect for the presidency, and this president and all presidents,” Greer said. “After reading the text, seeing the Department of Education have told teachers they are not to lead students in the direction that they would have a week ago, my kids will be watching the president’s speech, as I hope all kids will.”

“I don’t advocate children not watching this president’s speech with this text,” Greer added.

Former First Lady Laura Bush said she supports Obama’s decision to speak to the nation’s schoolchildren, saying there is a place for the president to encourage kids to stay in school.

Some critics still said it has never been about the president talking to students, and all about him and the White House misleading parents, going directly to students with lesson plans encouraging teachers to have students write letters about how they can help the president.

That lesson plan has since been revised. See the revised lesson plan on WhiteHouse.gov’s Media Resources page, under Classroom Engagement Resources.

Other critics said Obama wanted to divert focus away from the heavily criticized health care debate.











iVillage Member
Registered: 01-22-2009
Tue, 09-08-2009 - 5:41pm
So? Personally, I wouldn't let that stop me. I don't always tell mine what they want to hear, neither should anybody. At any rate, have a good evening :)

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iVillage Member
Registered: 08-24-2009
Tue, 09-08-2009 - 5:54pm

<>

I'm not so impressed with him. Especially with this weaselly way he stated this "this speech is not the one he believed Obama planned to give initially, and that the president had eliminated a partisan political agenda." This implies that because of the uproar and outrage that Obama CHANGED the speech he was originally going to give. There is no indication that that is a true statement.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-24-2009
Tue, 09-08-2009 - 6:08pm

Especially with this weaselly way he stated this "this speech is not the one he believed Obama planned to give initially, and that the president had eliminated a partisan political agenda." This implies that because of the uproar and outrage that Obama CHANGED the speech he was originally going to give. There is no indication that that is a true statement.


Yeah, that stood out to me, too.


Community Leader
Registered: 04-05-2002
Tue, 09-08-2009 - 6:38pm
But I still think it takes guts to stand up and say he was wrong. There are many who still stick to their guns that Obama was trying to brainwash their children or other such nonsense. He could have just shrugged it off, as many of his fellow conservatives have done. Call me an optimist that this might be closing the gap somewhat.










Community Leader
Registered: 04-05-2002
Tue, 09-08-2009 - 6:41pm
Hmmm, maybe what impressed me was not what he said and how bad or good it was but that it was better than I expected from the someone in the GOP at that position. You know, like bringing your car to the mechanic and expecting a $2000 bill but "only" getting a $1000 charge. I'll bet he p.o'ed some party people with what he said.










iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 09-08-2009 - 6:55pm

I thought the speech was very well written, and full of encouragement and challenge for the youth of America.

 

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