President’s Upcoming Speech Is Apparently All About Obama

The conservative blogosphere is alive with angry calls for parents to keep their children home September 8 in protest of President Barack Obama’s scheduled address via whitehouse.gov to children in all public schools, kindergarten through high school.

Were this to be a simple pep talk about working hard and graduating, it might not spark so much discontent. Egregiously, however, the Obama Department of Education is distributing to schools a suggested “Menu of Classroom Activities”—essentially a lesson plan—for incorporating the president’s ideas into the day’s instruction.

That stamps this event with a statist purpose and invites caricatures of Obama as a Pyongyangish “Dear Leader.” But keeping kids at home on what for many of them will be the first day of a new school year would be a less-effective rebuke than preparing an alternative lesson plan promoting independent thinking.

Parents can find the “Menu” online at ed.gov. They can discuss it beforehand with their children so that pupils may entertain ideas not peddled by Obama flacks. And if families are fortunate enough to have open-minded teachers, parents can broach ideas for unauthorized classroom scenarios.

The government’s plan for high school students begins with “Before the Speech” activities including “notable quotes excerpted (and posted in large print on board) from President Obama’s speeches on education.” Students are to ponder such heavy questions as “what can we infer the President believes is important to be successful educationally?” This is to be done before he speaks. Do they really imagine high schoolers have memorized Obama’s education witticisms?

In a “Brainstorm or Concept Web,” students will ponder: “Why does President Obama want to speak with us today? How will he inspire us?” Note that he will not bore anyone but will inspire one and all.

During the speech, students are to take notes on the president’s themes of “personal responsibility, goals, persistence.” So the secret is out as to the content of the Obama speech. And they are to focus “on quotations that either propose a specific challenge to them or inspire them in some meaningful way. Students could do this individually, in pairs, or groups.”

After the speech, there will be “guided discussion”—as opposed to the free and open kind—about such points as “the three most important words in the speech,” and how students would rank them. And there’s more about “what is President Obama inspiring you to do,” and “how can you be a part of addressing these challenges”? Pass ObamaCare? Reelect him in 2012? Lower the voting age to 15?

Clearly the game plan is AAO: All About Obama. A teacher or parent preparing an alternative lesson plan could point out that other presidents have addressed education. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, advocated schooling paid for by the general public so that persons other than the rich could benefit. One of his proudest achievements was founding the University of Virginia.

A useful lesson could focus on why America’s Founders omitted education from the powers entrusted to the federal government, and left it—under the Tenth Amendment—to the states and to the people. That fact could lead into a discussion of responsibility for school improvement belonging in local hands.

Moving the discussion to modern times, teachers could contrast the philosophies of Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan regarding personal and social responsibility. In fact, the Bill of Rights Institute in Arlington, Virginia offers free classroom materials on that very subject, available online at billofrightsinstitute.org.

LBJ believed government had the responsibility to enact programs to bring about a Great Society. Of 87 bills proposed by LBJ, Congress passed 84, including Medicare and Medicaid, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (now No Child Left Behind), and Head Start. Reagan advocated lower taxes and less government involvement in people’s lives. He said government was largely the problem, not the solution. He exposed the failures of many Great Society programs.

Students could examine whether the federal government’s extra-constitutional foray into education has made it better or worse. Then they could debate whether Obama’s advocacy of a national curriculum and tests purchased with borrowed federal dollars will make education better or worse.

As the president will say September 8, it is all about personal responsibility. But will he mean it? Or is it really All About Obama?

Robert Holland (rholland@heartland.org) is a senior fellow for education policy with The Heartland Institute in Chicago.