Posted on 09/03/2009 2:07:14 PM PDT by Steelfish
Hey Obama, Leave Those Kids Alone
September 2, 2009
Neal McCluskey:
It's one thing for a president to encourage all kids to work hard and stay in school – that's a reasonable use of the bully pulpit. It's another thing entirely, however, to have the U.S. Department of Education send detailed instructions to public schools nationwide on how to glorify the president and the presidency, and push them to drive social change. Frighteningly, this is what President Obama has done.
In anticipation of the president's planned September 8 address to students nationwide, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a letter and detailed "classroom activities" to schools with all sorts of troubling buzzwords and guidance. In his letter, Duncan asserts that the work of educators is "critical to…our social progress." It's a statement that strongly suggests – as many educators have held and continue to hold – that it is the job of public schools to impose values, often collectivist, on students.
The fear that this might be the case is reinforced by classroom activities for pre-K-6 students that encourages children to make posters setting out "community and country" goals. Perhaps even more frightening is the lesson schools are pushed to teach that it is important to listen to "the President and other elected officials."
Possibly most distressing of all, though, is guidance that appears explicitly designed to glorify both the presidency and President Obama himself, encouraging schools to prepare for the speech "by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama." And schools are told to ask students how president Obama will "inspire" them in his speech before he gives it, and how they were inspired after Obama has spoken.
(Excerpt) Read more at cato.org ...
If he really cared about their education, he would BUTT OUT of their school day and let them learn.
But this really isn’t about the kids, is it?
I’m reserving judgment till I see what he actually says.
Massive criticism seems a little premature.
Didn’t JFK do something similar with his PE promotions?
would you want a satanic priest speaking to your children? how about bin laden? or a pedophile? or Charles Manson? Or would you reserve judgment?
I don't want that evil sob anywhere near my children. And I'd die before I let them swear allegiance to him.
We don’t need indoctrination
We don’t need your thought control
No liberal dogma in the classroom
Zero leave them kids alone
Hey! Zero! Leave them kids alone.
All in all you’re
Just another pimp on the dole.
If he's not pushing ABORTION and denying botched ABORTED INFANTS medical care - he wants to indoctrinate them with his foul mind.
It ain’t going to Work Zero you have pissed off everyone now.
How clueless can they be? School has just started, and some schools will not yet be in session, but these clowns want kids to read books before the speech next Tuesday.
This entire thing is creepy, manipulative and also very incompetently executed.
Tad hyperbolic today, are we?
You are welcome to your opinion, but I haven’t seen that level of evil in the man. Yet.
I don't think the speech is (or will be) the problem.
It's the "suggested lesson plan" sent out prior to it, with questions to be posed to the kids like:
"Is it important to agree with the President?"
"What will you do to support the President?"
These have since been modified to questions that are more appropriate to challenge the students to stay in school.
Obama Youth 1.0.
All in all it’s just another Barack in the wall
Priceless!
No he's not
You are welcome to your opinion, but I haven’t seen that level of evil in the man.
Then you're either not looking very hard or you need glasses
NO, JFK promoted physical fitness and 50 mile hikes through normal communications channels. No president has ever tried to speak to school kids directly over TV, during the school day, thus attempting to make it mandatory.
It would be fine at 7:00 pm at night where parents and kids could decide whether to watch or not watch. No politician should ever seek, or be allowed a captive audience.
I’m agnostic about parents keeping their kids out of school, but I do like the idea that the uproar occurred.
Any day that the folks in the White House have to sit around saying, “What the hell? We didn’t expect that. Now we have to go fix it” is a good day.
Keep them off balance. If enough of their ideas are shot down, they might actually start to think twice and lose their confidence.
Comments 6 & 13... PRICELESS!!
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