Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Obama's plan to speak to schoolchildren has some South Florida parents hopping mad
Sun-Sentinel ^ | September 3, 2009 | Kathy Bushouse

Posted on 09/04/2009 3:57:36 AM PDT by Bluebird Singing

President Barack Obama's planned speech to schoolchildren about the importance of studying hard and staying in school is angering some South Florida parents, who fear the nationally televised address will be more about politics than education.

Despite an announcement by the White House that Obama's speech Tuesday will focus on the importance of hard work, setting ambitious goals and taking personal responsibility, some parents fear the event will turn partisan -- and they don't want their children exposed to it.

Said one parent in an e-mail to Broward School Board member Stephanie Kraft: "I will not tolerate my children being brainwashed by this man."

(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...


TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS:
Broward Superintendent Notter says parents are not allowed to opt-out.
1 posted on 09/04/2009 3:57:36 AM PDT by Bluebird Singing
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Bluebird Singing

2 posted on 09/04/2009 3:58:52 AM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle (http://www.conservatives4palin.com/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

I’m running off to work right now, but I wish I had time to learn more about the terrorist Ayers youth education/indoctrination program he was running in Chicago.


3 posted on 09/04/2009 4:03:07 AM PDT by Bluebird Singing
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Bluebird Singing

‘Broward Superintendent Notter says parents are not allowed to opt-out”

And Notter can kiss my behind.


4 posted on 09/04/2009 4:05:47 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Bluebird Singing

Love it how they pull something from 1989 and 1991 as justification for Zer0’s indoctrination efforts.

From the article:

“Obama’s speech will not mark the first time a U.S. president has directly addressed the nation’s schoolchildren. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush gave a 15-minute speech to students focusing on the evils of drug use, then another in October 1991 that urged students to study hard and stay away from drugs.”

“House Democrats criticized Bush for the 1991 speech and accused the U.S. Department of Education of providing free political advertising to Bush, who was gearing up for his re-election bid the following year.”


5 posted on 09/04/2009 4:06:34 AM PDT by angkor (The U.S. Congress is at war with America.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Bluebird Singing

Lee County and Collier County will not play along with the Obamunist indoctrination.

They will tape the speech, put it on their website, and the school boards will evaluate whether the speech has any value to achieve the educational goals of the schools before incorporating it into any curriculum.


6 posted on 09/04/2009 4:13:14 AM PDT by Notwithstanding (Wer glaubt ist nie allein. Who believes is never alone.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: angkor
nObama can teach them how to light their crack pipes.


7 posted on 09/04/2009 4:14:36 AM PDT by scoobysnak71 (Just a National Security Threat, trying to get a nut.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Bluebird Singing

What is amazing is ? they won’t let God and prayer in schools, but, they will let a man in schools who want to be God, who wants people’s pledge to him, and his indoctrination material.


8 posted on 09/04/2009 4:14:44 AM PDT by American Constitutionalist
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Bluebird Singing

The Superintendent is wrong! You have parental rights that these Liberal thugs can’t infringe upon.

Back in the 1980’s, Senator Orrin Hatch authored the Hatch Amendment which outlined parents rights. Here is an old sample letter that was a model for parents to use to remove their children from objectionable material. The upcoming propaganda from Zero should qualify as objectionable to many American parents.

Parents Rights Amendment aka Hatch Amendment

...For this reason society requires that the education of youth should be watched with the most scrupulous attention. Education is a great measurer, forms the moral character of men and morals are the basis of government. Noah Webster, 1758-1843

The original “Model Hatch Amendment Letter,” crafted by Senator Orrin Hatch’s (R. Utah) office, was sent to Family Friendly Libraries by a dedicated New York mom who heard it on a “Turning Point” program by Dr. David Jeremiah. Another wise mom from Michigan has since used it with some additions that we believe are helpful, particularly when you still have some definite positive connections with your child’s school and want to keep those positives going. The result is an alternative letter which retains its strong parental rights message while encouraging good relationships that exist to continue. Feel free to use either model or adapt it to your own situation even further. Let us know what is happening in this parental rights arena, please.

___(date)__________

Dear _(building principal)____,

As the parents of ___(child’s name)____, who attends ____(school name)_____, we thank you and your staff for your interest and effort in seeking to provide an excellent education for our child. Your commitment and skills are deeply appreciated! We are proud of the level of excellence in education that __(school name)___provides in each classroom, and we thank you for all that you do to contribute to the education of our __(son or daughter)__.

We would like to address the issue of our ability to review classroom material via this letter. Our desire is that we are able to review materials and address issues with our child concurrent with the curriculum and within the framework of our family, as well as having the appropriate knowledge to discern the curriculum’s alignment or lack thereof with our family’s beliefs.

Under U.S. legislation and court decision, parents have the primary responsibility for their children’s education, and students have certain rights that the school may not deny. Parents have the right to be assured that the schools do not unknowingly or knowingly impair or weaken the student’s beliefs, moral values and belief systems within his or her family unit. A student has the right to hold his or her values and moral standards without direct or indirect manipulation by the schools through curricula, textbooks, and AV material or supplementary assignments. Schools and families successfully working together as partners in education and communication of curriculum content will further strengthen the ability to provide students an excellent education in a way that strengthens individual families and our community.

Under the Hatch Amendment, we hereby request that our child not be involved in any school activity or material listed below unless we have first reviewed all the relevant material and given our written consent for their use.

Values clarification, use of moral dilemmas, discussion of religious or moral standards, role playing, open-ended discussions of situations involving moral issues, survival games including life/death decision exercises, contrived incidents for self-revelation, sensitivity training, group encounter sessions, talk-ins, magic circle techniques, self-evaluation, auto-criticism, strategies designed for self-disclosure including the keeping of a diary, journal or log book, sociograms, sociodramas, psychodramas, blindfolded walks, isolation techniques, death education including abortion, euthanasia, suicide, use of violence, discussions of death and dying, curricula or books and reading materials pertaining to religious beliefs (including elements of witchcraft), drugs and alcohol, nuclear war, nuclear policy, nuclear classroom games, globalism, one world government, curricula discussing anti-nationalistic views, evolution, discussion and testing on interpersonal relationship, discussions of attitudes towards parents and parenting, health education including human development, and education in human sexuality including birth control and pre-marital sex.

Psychological and psychiatric treatment or adult and peer counseling that is designed to affect behavioral, emotional or attitudinal characteristics of an individual or designated to elicit information about attitudes, habits, traits, opinions, beliefs, or feelings of an individual or group.

The purpose of this letter is to preserve our child’s rights under the pupil’s rights amendment, the Hatch Amendment to the General Education Act, and under its regulation, as published in the Federal Register on September 6, 1984, which became effective November 12, 1984. These regulations provide a procedure for filing complaints first at the local level and then with the U.S. Department of Education. If a voluntary remedy fails, federal funds can be withdrawn from those in violation of the law.

We respectfully ask you to send us a substantive response to this letter, attaching a copy of your policy statement on procedures for parental permission requirements. We also ask that you notify all of our child’s teachers with a copy of this letter and keep a copy of this letter in our child’s file.

Our purpose and intent is to work cooperatively with the schools in congenial and positive attitudes and actions, with our child’s best interest in mind. We fully support your efforts to provide excellent education within our community and for our child, and we are grateful for each teacher and administrator’s dedication to our child’s success within school.

Please feel free to call us with any questions at any time during the course of the year. Again, we thank you for your cooperation and excellent efforts in providing for the education of our child.

Sincerely,

Senator Orrin Hatch


9 posted on 09/04/2009 4:19:44 AM PDT by ExTexasRedhead
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

10 posted on 09/04/2009 4:21:59 AM PDT by Diogenesis ("Those who go below the surface do so at their peril" - Oscar Wilde)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Bluebird Singing
The question is why is Obama doing this now? If it's truly just about "hard work, ambitious goals, and taking personal responsibility" as the White House says, they have to understand some are going to be concerned because of their past actions.

I told my kids, they have my permission to get up and walk out of class during this thing if they wanted too. After all, teachers encouraged kids to protest the war during the Bush presidency. Indoctrination of socialism is war!

11 posted on 09/04/2009 4:23:30 AM PDT by sirchtruth (Gravity Of The Situation...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sirchtruth

I suspect he is trolling for ACORN/Americorp enlistees. 80% of America will shrug this off but in his areas, teachers will act like this is the Second Coming of Christ. Kids who are going nowhere and show any interest in “helping” Obama will have legions of teachers egging them on.


12 posted on 09/04/2009 4:26:45 AM PDT by Brugmansian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: angkor

Plus, after those speeches, there was not a workbook developed in DC for use by the schools to ask such questions like “how has der leader inspired me?”

THAT to me is the problem.


13 posted on 09/04/2009 4:32:15 AM PDT by Adder (Proudly ignoring Zero since 1-20-09!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Bluebird Singing
The Superintendent of Schools wants to exclusively install his judgment for the proper means and ends of education and exclude the judgments of the parents. As the curriculum veers more and more away from the 3R's and trespasses onto areas of conscience, the superintendent the behaves less and less like an educator and more and more like a tyrant.

The Superintendent justifies compelling children to hear speech that the parents object to because the superintendent defines the teaching of civics to be within the legitimate responsibilities of the school. But civics is not the 3Rs and the children are not free agents who are at liberty to excuse themselves nor are they adults who are presumably capable of making their own judgments. By definition schoolchildren are of immature "civic" development. Therefore, the issue is and should not be decided by the superintendent of schools unilaterally defining the proper scope of education. That is argument by tautology. The issue is who gets to determine what is the proper scope of education. Let us not forget that the superintendent of schools ultimately can invoke the criminal power of the law to declare the parents unfit and the children truant with varying levels of civil, quasi criminal, and criminal implications for the child and the parents.

In 2007 I posted the following reply about a case in which a child's claim to the alleged right to practice her religion in school was denied. I think much of what was relevant to that case is also relevant to the Broward school situation in which one child's right to be free of political indoctrination will be infringed. The child by force of law will be required to submit.

During the War Between The States, the Yankes, like the Rebs, imposed a draft to send men, many new immigrants fresh off the boat, down to Virginia, where my grandfather was killing them just as fast as he could. But the Yankees permitted those of adequate means to buy their way out of the draft for, I think, about $300. Like indulgences in the middle ages and carbon credits today, the draft buy outs were roundly criticized. In fact, the notion of buying one's way out of service to one's country has been repudiated as repugnant to our civic conscience.

Today, we do not draft 18 year olds and send them in to battle, but we do compel children of tender years to present their bodies for indoctrination in places we call schools. If the child's parents have the means and the will, they can buy his freedom and send him to a school of his choice or even home school him. As a society we could stop this practice which permits the affluent to buy their freedom,like Yankee draftees, by simply issuing vouchers and then the poor could chose the same freedom as the rich. But we do not. In fact, we will exert the full physical force of the state and jail parents of children who will not submit and cannot buy their freedom.

It seems to me that while we incarcerate children of tender years and receptive minds without their consent in institutions called schools, we ought to be extremely punctilious in respecting their rights and I can conceive of no rights more precious than first amendment rights including the to free exercise of religion and free speech.

What countervailing social value does the school invoke in trampling on the first amendment right to worship Jesus and speak about it? "the right to create a learning environment free of any and all distractions."I have not seen this value enshrined in the Constitution. I should think the school district must carry a very severe burden to demonstrate conclusively that such a need to create an environment free of all distractions is actually so compelling.

Would it not be better to give them vouchers and let them have their first amendment rights? Would not those offended be able to find an envirmoment free of those "distractions?" Why have we not done so? Why have the teachers unions resisted this solution? Is it because their self created and coercive "environment" is more precious to them than a child's freedom?

Somehow, we seem to have stood all our priorities on their heads.


14 posted on 09/04/2009 4:32:17 AM PDT by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle

Maybe if the Kenyan released his school transcripts kids would be inspired to work hard?


15 posted on 09/04/2009 4:41:29 AM PDT by y6162 (uish..)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: sirchtruth

What did it for me was the lesson plan they released beforehand asking students how they can help Obama and the fact that it is being broadcast live with no chance to review the content beforehand.

If it were truly benign, it would be released as a recording for review beforehand and there would be no lesson plan - we can safely assume the teachers know how to make their own.

The articles I’ve read so far have ignored these two issues. To me, that’s everything.


16 posted on 09/04/2009 4:56:35 AM PDT by beagleone
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Brugmansian
Kids who are going nowhere and show any interest in “helping” Obama will have legions of teachers egging them on.

I'm going to go limb expanding here - I have no doubt you're correct, however I think enough American's now get who this guys is and what he's all about and they're basically telling Obama along with his Socialist prix to go pound sand!

17 posted on 09/04/2009 5:03:26 AM PDT by sirchtruth (Gravity Of The Situation...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: beagleone
What did it for me was the lesson plan they released beforehand asking students how they can help Obama and the fact that it is being broadcast live with no chance to review the content beforehand.

This is your kid's school who released the LP right? Not every school?

18 posted on 09/04/2009 5:09:07 AM PDT by sirchtruth (Gravity Of The Situation...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: Bluebird Singing

This is not about a president addressing school children as much as it is a FASCIST president addressing them.

The country is now aware of the complete image of this usurper and rising up against ANY of his ‘programs’.


19 posted on 09/04/2009 5:18:59 AM PDT by RetSignman (Townhalls ..."We have seen the Patriots and they are us")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Notwithstanding

Ditto for Charlotte County.

TPD


20 posted on 09/04/2009 5:19:45 AM PDT by ThreePuttinDude (o)(o)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson