The President wants to talk to your kids....

Good morning…

Yesterday afternoon the news summary on my home page had a story from the STAR-TELEGRAM, a newspaper in the Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas area about parents, grandparents, and some school districts objecting to a speech President Obama would make next Tuesday to America’s school children. Then, they covered it on the ABC Evening News last night, noting that there were also objections from Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia and Wisconsin. This morning, the Associated Press reports that this is blowing up into a BIG DEAL. So, naturally, I have some thoughts and comments…

The Secretary of Education, Ann Duncan, sent a letter out to all schools saying the President would talk to students about the need to study and work hard to get a good education. Sounds like a pep-talk to students, doesn’t it? Here’s what one politico had to say: “As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education — it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality," said Oklahoma Republican state Sen. Steve Russell. "This is something you'd expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein's Iraq." (AP article) One has to wonder what they are putting in the coffee in Oklahoma these days.

"I think it's really unfortunate that politics has been brought into this," White House deputy policy director Heather Higginbottom said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"It's simply a plea to students to really take their learning seriously. Find out what they're good at. Set goals. And take the school year seriously." Then along comes Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer who said in a statement he was "absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology." (AP) Socialist ideology? Really? Is that what getting a good education is? Is that what parental responsibility and a student’s individual responsibility is all about? Socialist ideology?

“Nobody seems to know what he's going to be talking about," Governor Rick Perry of Texas said. "Why didn't he spend more time talking to the local districts and superintendents, at least give them a heads-up about it?" (AP) Well, there was that letter from the Secretary of Education, and lesson plans were distributed, and it sounds to me like the people who needed the information got it.

Now, back in 1991 President George H. W. Bush also made a little talk to the nation’s school children. At that time there was not outrage from parents, grandparents, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and all that bunch, but Democrats did complain that the President had made his talk a thinly veiled campaign commercial. Is this just payback, well orchestrated and organized by Limbaugh – Beck – et. al?

Come on…has everyone gone nuts?

Plano, Texas PTA council president Cara Mendelsohn worried that the President was cutting out the parent by speaking to the kids when parents were not present. She wondered why he couldn’t make his speech in the evening when parents could sit down with their kids and they could watch it together. I suppose he could, but I wonder how many parents would take the time or make the effort. My wife taught 3rd grade in our local schools for 36 years. I have reason to believe that quite a large number would not.

Anyway, since when do we have to fear a speech by the President of the United States? Any of them? Do anyone honestly believe that in 15 minutes he will totally corrupt the nation’s school children? That he would want to? I’m appalled at this kind of reaction, even from the lunatic fringes.

Today, shortly after 8:00 AM I will call our local school superintendent’s office to say how much I, as a tax paying citizen, and a grandparent of two boys who attend these schools, support the showing of the President’s speech, and some meaningful discussion of why an education is important, setting and working towards personal goals, and how the teachers and the system can help students to achieve.

Sanity has to prevail. It just has to. Doesn’t it?