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Home > Blogs > Springfield Schools News and Issues > Archives > 2009 > September > 04
Friday, September 4, 2009
Obama to address nation’s students
In a 15-20 minute address Tuesday, Sept. 8, President Barack Obama will speak to the nation’s students about the “importance of education, the importance of staying in school, how we want to improve our education system and why its so important for our country.”
The U.S. Department of Education describes the speech as:
During this special address, the president will speak directly to the nation’s children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school. The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning.
The U.S.D.E. released suggested activities to go along with the speech; fairly basic stuff like discussing what the role of the president is for younger kids or discussing goals for yourself for older students. The activities all seemed pretty non-partisan to me but you can check them out for yourself here.
Of course the question of partisan or not will depend on what Obama actually says and it it supposed to be “party neutral,” from everything I have seen.
Some people are still upset about it though and in other parts of the country, it’s become a pretty big deal. I’m a member of a national group of education journalists, the Education Writers of America, and I’ve heard stories of protests outside of district offices and at board meetings. There’s concern that the speech and the suggested curriculum is a form of “political indoctrination.”
Some parents locally have asked that their child not be involved in anything related to the speech. I know the Greenon Local Schools district is planning to allow teachers to make decisions about how they will handle the speech and is not setting a district-wide stance; Superintendent Lori Lytle also said they have had some parents ask that their child not be part of listening to the speech and are treating it the same as any other objection to something in the curriculum. Lytle said she expects the speech to be inspirational and motivational and not to fall into party lines.
It looks like the White House is working to relieve some of the concerns. The text of the speech will be available prior to the actual event for review. The USDE made adjustments to its suggested activities in response to some of the criticism.
Obama isn’t the first president to speak directly to students and isn’t the first to cause controversy with it, as noted in the Education Week article. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush both did it and the Bush one stirred the pot a bit. You can see the text of his address here.
I will be out at a school Tuesday during the speech talking to students and teachers about what they thought.
It would be fairly easy for Obama to make a speech to the nation’s students that most people would agree with: The majority of Republicans, Democrats and everyone in between agree that education is important and children should stay in school. Even the theme Obama is said to be highlighting, “personal responsibility,” is something most people agree with. It’s when we dig a little deeper into the specifics that we start to see disagreements. It’s also fairly easy to see where this could go bad.
What do you think of Obama’s speech to students? Teachers, will you be tuning in?
Check Saturday’s News-Sun to see what local districts are doing about Obama’s speech.
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