Parents and lawmakers speak out against Obama's speech to students

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by court4short

I was suprised to get a message from the school on our answering machine tonight informing parents of the speech, and stating that they could keep their kids home from school. They also mentioned they will be having a seperate classroom in the school where the speech won't be shown, and you can elect to have your kid go into that room.

Does that seem a LITTLE ridiculous or is it just me? It's a speech from the PRESIDENT of the United States. It's not like it's going to be some highly offensive speech or anything, right? You know, you can't hide your kids from EVERYTHING....I mean really, they are high school students. Just my opinion.

But going back to what I said about the speech not being offensive..I honestly don't really understand why people find this offensive. Am I missing something? Are there subliminal messages that I'm not picking up on?

Originally Posted by court4short

Just found this gem of a comment:

[ omitted quoted comment. . . .]

So many things wrong with this..the spelling kills me, but has this idiot never heard of a comma or apostrophe? Apparently not, but she still thinks she's smarter than the President of USA. Hmph.

I wasn't bothered by any errors in your comments, but when I quoted them to comment on your content, spell check sent a message about people in glass houses and stones.

I wasn't impressed by the intellectual nature of the comment you linked either, so I take your general point, but people, especially conservatives, being peculiar about what non-strictly academic stuff their kids are exposed to in school isn't really all that new or shocking to me.

I don't think the folks actually commenting negatively about Obama's speech reflect a big percentage of public school parents, even among GOP parents. I suspect that most parents regard the speech about on the level of anti-drug guest speakers or MADD assemblies before Prom: a nice idea but not likely to actually effect much change.

Originally Posted by KSigkid

I think it would have been tough for the administration and DOE to really do any effective spin control prior to the speech, for some of the reasons you mentioned. Things are VERY polarized right now, and I think you would have heard many, if not most, of the same complaints no matter the amount of preperation.

The timing issue is a good point. In many schools you're going to miss at least 1/3 of the kids, and depending on the size of the school and the facilities, you might not even be able to get a television into the cafeteria. The smart thing would be to make free copies of the speech available on tape and DVD. They could even work it into some interactive research project on computers, depending on the actual text of the speech. I would hope the DOE and administration had planned for that.

I'll also agree that some of the comments from both sides have been pretty scary. The false information and stereotyping that has been coming from both parties is pretty crazy stuff. You see some of it here on Greekchat, I've seen a bunch on Facebook, and it just seems to blow up in places like the comments section of the cited story.

Originally Posted by Sister Havana

My old school district is not showing it at all, and that makes me very sad.

School districts can't win on this one unless they are profoundly red or blue. Remember that most districts rely on a lot of local support for funding and they don't need to alienate anyone, even for the high minded principle of allowing addresses from the President about the value of education.

Some parents don't automatically trust Obama delivering a message to their kids. Similarly, I suspect some parents would have objected to Bush delivering a message to their kids or their kids being required to watch one. Some who really value instructional time might even be in both groups.

The type of rhetoric about this has been creepy and appalling, but if you filter this by flipping the name of the President, you might find the possibility of objection for reasons other than complete political insanity more likely. The districts sort of have to live in that position.

ETA: I realized I wasn't really responding to you guys the whole way though my message, so if it seems like I'm accusing you of holding some belief you don't, please accept my apologizes for sloppy quoting.