Thoughts on the President's Planned September 8 Address to Students Including Spring Branch ISD's Posted Statement

As you have probably heard by now, President Obama is planning to deliver an address on Tuesday, September 8, to school children.  Many people, including me, believe that while the President's stated intent of inspiring children is clearly a good message, the speech may be political in nature delivered to a captive audience of students.  This concern was heightened by the posting of curriculum on the U.S. Department of Education website that suggested students should write a letter to themselves about "how they can help the President." (Click here (grades pre-k - 6) and here (grades 7-12) to see the curriculum originally posted on the Department of Education's website.)

Spring Branch has posted the following on the District's website about this issue:

SBISD Statement on Sept. 8th Presidential Internet Address

The U.S. Department of Education has posted on its website information stating President Barack Obama will broadcast an internet address on Sept 8, 2009, about the importance of education for today’s students.

SBISD is not requiring school-wide or individual class participation in this particular internet broadcast.

The President’s address, like Presidential Inaugurations and other national broadcast events, is only relevant when it is completely aligned to a teacher’s lesson for the day. Our principals in collaboration with teachers will use their professional judgment to determine if this particular broadcast enhances planned curriculum and instruction. For our schools and teachers to stop instruction to watch any broadcast or national news event is extremely rare.

As has been done in the past, in the event that a teacher broadcasts the President’s message as part of a planned lesson, campuses will honor parent or student requests to opt out of this part of the lesson.

I have read a number of articles this morning on the controversy caused by this issue.  The one that synthesizes the issue the best for me is below.

This Week's Quiz: What Can Your Child Do to Help the President?

by Frederick M. Hess  •  Sep 2, 2009 at 10:42 am

The White House has announced that on September 8, President Obama is going to address the nation's schoolchildren on the importance of education. As explained in an open letter by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, "The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning."

Presumably, the president is going to advocate for self-discipline and reject excuses, a message that Mr. Obama, as the nation's first black president, can deliver powerfully and well—especially to black youths—as he has demonstrated repeatedly in the past few years.

So far, so good. Things get a bit dicier if we contemplate the president addressing what will be a captive audience in many schools and classrooms, as it is unclear how meticulously his speechwriters will steer clear of partisan or political subjects. After all, the secretary of Education's letter announcing the speech lauded the president for "repeatedly focus[ing] on education, even as the country faces two wars, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and major challenges on issues like energy and healthcare." It's not clear how narrowly the president will choose to focus, or what opportunities for expression or debate might be available to faculty or students who disagree with the president on particular questions.

Things get downright disconcerting when one eyeballs the federally approved lesson plans that the Department of Education has cooked up to support the president's speech. The preK–6 lesson plans, which were developed with federal funds, devised on taxpayer time, and made available on the Department of Education's website, exhort teachers to extend the impact of the president's speech by having students "write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president." This clumsy bit of cheerleading shows no awareness that "help[ing] the president" might be construed as an invitation to engage in advocacy rather than instruction or that it might worry those who are not Obama partisans. What's truly remarkable, however, given recent concerns about intrusive federal government this past month, is the lesson plan's directive that "these [letters] would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals."

It all sounds a touch Orwellian, no? "Redistributed" to whom? "Accountable" to whom? Accountable for which "goals" exactly—the ones that involve "helping the president"? I'm sure the intentions behind all of this were decent enough, and that this whole effort was intended as a pep talk dressed up with innocuous materials. The lesson plans were likely drawn up by a couple of low-level staffers and slapped up on the department website without a careful look. But this all points to some of the perils posed by the growing presidential inclination to serve as superintendent-in-chief, and it highlights the kind of hubris that has fueled concerns about the implications of the federal government's growing reach.

Comments

[Christine Potthast]

Mr. Fallick

your concerns about the speech of president Obama were ridiculous. Any child that did not have a chance to watch that speech was deprived of a very valuable experience. I made sure my son was at home at the time of the speech and was able to see it.

Those who are spreading irrational fears are the ones who are trying to exercise undue influence over those who cannot yet make decisions for themselves.

'Orwellian'? - You don't know what you are talking about.

Christine Potthast

[Shelley Starnes Garner]

Even though this speech may not be political in its actual words, it is undeniably political in nature because of the sender - the President speaking to a captive audience of children. The speech by Obama is wrong and grossly inappropriate for any classroom. If the president wants to speak to children, he can speak to his own. And if he wants to speak to all American children he should do so with / through their parents.

[Mike Falick]

In response to Polimom:

The "qualifier" as you put it is neither unnecessary nor superfluous. If President Obama's speech is solely motivational, then it is vastly different than if it is politically motivated. I don't think there would have been anywhere near the concern about the speech had the Department of Education not included the curriculum on the website announcing the speech.

As an aside, being concerned about this issue does not make one a flat-earther, and it is insulting for you to compare my comments to those who believe that 9/11 was "an inside job."

[Perry A. Ruthven]

Mike,

I can only imagine what the current dissenting crowd would have said had anyone decided that their child should not be present to hear a speech by president George W. Bush, say, well, anytime. I imagine the call from the same crowed that fears the president of the greatest democracy in the history of the world would be akin to "traitor!"

Allowing the politics of fear, and this is what it is, to govern the motives of how people may perceive what MAY be said seems to be the truly Orwellian part.

Anyhow, I'll hope parents allow their children to hear OUR president and hope the president inspires, as any president should, our school children to become the best citizens they can be. I cringe at the though that parents may deny their children the opportunity to participate in a national event by forcing them to cower in fear from the 'unknown'. The ironic part is what we all know; when parents deny children things that seem OK, they instinctively want to find out more about it. My experience tells me the kids are more likely to sense that their parents to not trust them to.....simply hear the the president speak! It is interesting to ponder the idea that the whole thing may back fire on the parents looking to opt out when the speech is given and deemed entirely appropriate! The kids may just begin to gravitate towards the president and seek to hear him more!

Although the asking for a letter from the kids is a point to nit pic apart politically, one would hope that school children, as they so often do, come up with their OWN ideas on what the president needs help with. I would not be surprise to see letters that think he needs to be less liberal! Who knows, but to shield them from the possibilities and the chance to create is a disservice to the trust that we should have that a presidential speech is not something to fear.

Maybe he will do better than Reagan in keeping political ideology out of it when he decided to speak to the school children. http://mediamatters.org/blog/200909030020

[Polimom]

You said:
Many people, including me, believe that while the President's stated intent of inspiring children is clearly a good message, the speech may be political in nature delivered to a captive audience of students.

Here, let's get rid of that pesky qualifier in the middle of the sentence for you. I'll help:

Many people, including me, believe that the speech may be political in nature delivered to a captive audience of students.

Much more straightforward that way, yes?

Of course, in this form, I'm mostly reminded of the folks who believe that the moon landing was shot in a television studio, and/or that 9/11 was actually an inside job.