posted on September 7, 2009 02:12:29 PM new
I sure can't see anything worth all the stink the repugs are raising - in fact, it's a lovely speech: http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/20776160/detail.html
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posted on September 7, 2009 05:55:15 PM new
"No one trusts him" is a gross exaggeration. In fact, nearly half those polled "trust him". YOU don't trust him, but you are not everyone.
This is another extremist tempest in a teapot, er teaparty. We'll wait for tomorrow and you can quote all the scary things he says to our school kids.
As far as that independently produced video is concerned, I find the cult of personality surrounding the president to be a negative as it gives his detractors plenty of ammo. I don't believe there's necessarily anything he can do about that,
especially when jealousy is involved, as the closest thing the Republicans have had to personality worship involved a moron who ended up a gold digging quitter.
posted on September 7, 2009 06:13:03 PM new
This is the objection. If is isn't political what is it. The President can address students but it is the lesson plans that people are objecting.
The White House revised the plans Wednesday to say students could "write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals."
[b]"That was inartfully worded, and we corrected it," Higginbottom said.[/]
Critics are particularly upset about lesson plans the administration created to accompany the speech. The lesson plans, available online, originally recommended having students "write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president."
Now myself, I will watch the video and decide myself what I want my children to learn or better yet leave it up to the teacher. If Pres Obama wishes to write a lesson plan let him become a teacher.
posted on September 7, 2009 06:36:46 PM new
Surely you don't believe that learning can only take place in school with a certified teacher? The lesson plan that you mention is a suggestion, which I am sure that teachers across America will follow with a great deal of pleasure if they have the time.
posted on September 7, 2009 07:10:52 PM new
The paranoia is worse than I thought. This speech contains words of encouragement to students--focus, work hard, attend school, set goals. How anyone can see this as subversive or even political is beyond me.
posted on September 8, 2009 08:11:14 AM new
Gosh, I just heard Newt Gingrich saying he liked the speech and hoped kids would listen to it. Imagine that.
posted on September 8, 2009 11:46:28 AM new
I never post on RT however after listening to your President's Labor Day speech and the one today to the children I feel compelled to say......
I wish President Obama were our Prime Minister of Canada!
posted on September 8, 2009 12:15:33 PM new
The speech he gave was not the orginal one and that is what was objected to. They felt the initial speech was to political so at that point in time he rewrote it. The other problem was a lesson plan that went along with the speech. Lesson Plans are made out way ahead of when school starts and cannot be interrupted. If his second speech would have been first and no lesson plan was sent I am sure there wouldn't be the problem. Politics has no place in the Public Schools.
posted on September 8, 2009 12:31:15 PM new
Thank God,I did not listen to his speech,I am spared in trying to decipher what he said.
*
There is no 'Global savings glut',only wild horses and loose bankers.
posted on September 8, 2009 12:33:56 PM new
Not that people dont trust him,it is just that he did not deliver the bags of goodies he promised them during the campaign.
They are expecting the Moon,the Stars,full employment,raises and bonus.
*
There is no 'Global savings glut',only wild horses and loose bankers.
posted on September 8, 2009 01:13:14 PM new
I think the cartoon is cute. The entire matter appears to be a tempest in a teapot.
I did not see the speech, so I really cannot comment on the delivery, etc. I am sure others will comment. I just thought the cartoon caught the real issue, in a funny way.
posted on September 8, 2009 01:24:39 PM new
fruscia said:
The speech he gave was not the orginal one and that is what was objected to. They felt the initial speech was to political so at that point in time he rewrote it. The other problem was a lesson plan that went along with the speech. Lesson Plans are made out way ahead of when school starts and cannot be interrupted. If his second speech would have been first and no lesson plan was sent I am sure there wouldn't be the problem. Politics has no place in the Public Schools.
It's clear that some of the wording in the suggested lesson plans was changed, big deal. Some overzealous staffer got a little too political in his wording. I'm wondering though if you have any credible information that proves the speech was rewritten? I'll bet you don't. That's a blatant exaggeration and falsehood. Jim Greer doesn't count. Of course he's going to say "well, er, um, HE CHANGED THE SPEECH, THAT'S NOT WHAT HE WAS GOING TO SAY!!. Jim Greer was one of the ones who raised such a stink in the first place.
Now that this has been shown to be a NON-ISSUE, why don't you try to get over it??
posted on September 8, 2009 01:33:43 PM new
I for one sincerely hope that the school districts who decided not to air the speech and the parents who kept their kids home realize what sheep they really are and are well and truly embarrassed.
From about 5th grade up, a president's speech, even a blatantly political one, can be used as a teachable moment in a classroom. I know several teachers who planned to analyze the speech and discuss it using their own lesson plans.
By the way fruscia, while you may know a teacher who makes out lesson plans in the summer ahead of school's start, your statement that they are all done this way and can't be changed is ridiculous and just plain wrong. Lesson plans are always in flux and being replanned and revised as the year progresses and student achievement or lack of achievement is assessed. Schedules are very tight these days due to required quarterly and yearly outcomes mandated by NCLU, but they aren't that tight. You're mistaken.
posted on September 8, 2009 01:57:27 PM newI did not see the speech, so I really cannot comment on the delivery, etc. I am sure others will comment. I just thought the cartoon caught the real issue, in a funny way.
I think the cartoon is cute to. of course if it were a Republican president you'd have to start calling out the kids parents as unpatriotic hippies.
you must not share the same passion for the issue as vintageu, as anyone putting up that much of a stink only to end up NOT finding out first hand what it's content really was would be moronic.
posted on September 8, 2009 02:27:24 PM new
I have good health insurance. I was in the doctor's office at the time. He does not play anything but pharmaceutical ads on the TV in the waiting area. If you ever go to the doctor, you know what I mean.
I had anotheer TIA the other day, so I am concerned about other things at the moment.
If you want, I can post this twice so that you do not have to use quotes.
posted on September 8, 2009 02:27:46 PM new
I have good health insurance. I was in the doctor's office at the time. He does not play anything but pharmaceutical ads on the TV in the waiting area. If you ever go to the doctor, you know what I mean.
I had anotheer TIA the other day, so I am concerned about other things at the moment.
If you want, I can post this twice so that you do not have to use quotes.
posted on September 8, 2009 09:21:57 PM new
Profe is right. As a former teacher, I can tell you I did not spend my summers writing lesson plans! And, lordy, many of them later on were changed then--or discarded--or postponed because of some school emergency.
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"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who ***dared to dissent*** from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, ***may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."*** --Eisenhower
posted on September 9, 2009 09:43:41 AM new
Although there are some good points in this opinion, I believe that the writer ignored the fact that the speech was directed to children. If Obama had used to event to deliver a political speech he would face the same criticism as H.W. Bush in 1991.
As most public schools in the US opened for the first day of classes Tuesday, President Obama delivered a speech at a high school in Arlington, Virginia, which was broadcast to public school students around the country.
The event had been the subject of a hysterical campaign by right-wing talk show hosts and Republican politicians who warned that the president would use it to indoctrinate children in his “socialistic” agenda. The news media gave wide coverage to these semi-fascistic elements demanding that schools prohibit the airing of the president’s remarks and exaggerated the impact of their campaign. In the end, only a small number of districts, primarily Republican-voting regions in the South and West, did not show the speech or left the decision up to teachers.
As it has repeatedly done—most recently in the firing of “green jobs czar” Van Jones—the White House responded to its reactionary critics by seeking to appease the Republican right. The administration released the text of the president’s speech on the Labor Day holiday so it could be reviewed beforehand and dropped its request that school officials accompany the speech with a class project, in which students write letters on how they could “help the president.”
Regardless of the efforts to push him further to the right, Obama had no intention of using the occasion to provide any insight into the conditions young people are facing, let alone encourage any questioning of the status quo. On the contrary, as is his wont, the Democratic president went out of his way to conceal the social realities in America and to suggest that the problems facing students are essentially of their own making.
“Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around…But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life—what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home—that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher or cutting class or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying,” the president said.
Obama cited his biography and that of his wife as proof that hard work and perseverance was all that was needed to overcome obstacles and attain success. “Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future,” he claimed, rehashing the “rags to riches” nostrums of the 19th century dime novelist Horatio Alger.
In another refrain, Obama said, “[A]t the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world—and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.”
In other words, good schools, well-paid teachers and decent living conditions for young people are not essential to a good educational outcome! Those who fail, according to Obama, simply lack the moral fortitude to achieve the success and wealth of the American Dream.
There is a political purpose behind this nonsense. First and foremost it is aimed at concealing the fact that his administration—which has handed over trillions of dollars to Wall Street—is systematically starving schools of financial resources and directly contributing to the further collapse of public education.
Standing next to Obama at Wakefield High School in Virginia was Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the administration’s point man in the restructuring of the public education system. Over the last year, Duncan has threatened to withhold federal stimulus money to near-bankrupt school districts in order to blackmail them into expanding for-profit charter schools and merit pay for teachers. And far from breaking with Bush’s reactionary No Child Left Behind measures, the Obama administration has accelerated the firing of teachers and administrators at allegedly “failing” schools.
The day of Obama’s speech, the New York Times published a front-page story detailing the massive budget cuts hitting school districts across the country. The article noted that stimulus money had failed to stop the layoffs of thousands of teachers and other school personnel in Arizona, California, Georgia, Michigan and a dozen other states. As a result, in Arizona “some classrooms were jammed with nearly 50 students when schools reopened last month, and the norm for Los Angeles high schools this fall is 42.5 students per teacher.”
In California, hundreds of districts have laid off a total of 20,000 teachers, according to the California Teachers Association. In Detroit, the emergency financial director appointed by Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm has closed 29 schools and laid off 1,700 instructors and school personnel.
With states facing a $165 billion budget shortfall, about half of the 160 school officials from 37 states surveyed by the American Association of School Administrators said they had been forced to cut teachers in core subjects, and eight out of 10 said they had cut librarians, nurses, cooks and bus drivers.
The AASA study found a sharp increase—in some cases three to four times higher than last year—in the percentage of districts increasing class sizes, laying off personnel, cutting academic programs and extracurricular activities and deferring maintenance.
These cutbacks will lead to an increase in the already staggering dropout rates in major US cities, where studies show nearly 50 percent of high school students fail to graduate. In addition, the impact of the economic crisis on working class families has had a devastating effect on students.
Another recent article in the Times noted that the wave of mass layoffs and home foreclosures has sharply increased the number of homeless children, which the already strapped public school system must teach and care for. The number of “school children in homeless families appears to have risen by 75 percent to 100 percent in many districts over the last two years, according to Barbara Duffield, policy director of the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth,” the Times noted. “There were 679,000 homeless students reported in 2006-07, a total that surpassed one million by last spring, Ms. Duffield said.”
With the start of the new school year, districts are reporting a record number of homeless children. In San Antonio, Texas, for example, the district has enrolled 1,000 homeless students in the first two weeks of school, twice as many as at the same point last year, the paper reported.
“It’s hard enough going to school and growing up, but these kids also have to worry where they’ll be staying that night and whether they’ll eat,” Bill Murdock, chief executive of a charity group in Asheville, North Carolina told the Times.
According to Obama this is of no consequence. Such conditions only serve to strengthen character! But it is no coincidence that the drop out rate in Detroit (75 percent) is roughly equivalent to the percentage of students who qualify for free lunches (70 percent) because they come from impoverished households.
This is the economic and social reality behind Obama’s talk of personal responsibility. The “school reform” measures his administration is championing—charter schools, merit pay, etc.—will only drain further money and students from the public schools and create even greater inequality in education.
One last point needs to be made. Throughout his remarks, Obama also repeatedly insisted that young people had a patriotic duty to do well in school. “When you give up on yourself, you give up on your country,” he said, adding in another passage, “What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you are learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.”
There is a logic behind the repeated appeals to nationalism. They are aimed at corralling young people behind the effort to make American capitalism more competitive against its economic rivals in Europe, China and elsewhere. At the same time the administration wants to condition working class youth—many of whom will never have the means to afford higher education unless they join the military—to fight and die in future wars on behalf of America’s corporate and financial elite.
