Posted by MasterChef (anonymous) on September 8, 2009 at 12:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I understood that SP was giving the students an option to hear the speech in a separate room. If the school board and its administrators succumb to political pressure (three seats to fill this election), I hope the new Board has three NEW faces on it.

Posted by keta (anonymous) on September 8, 2009 at 9:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)

They've got some other schools beat, schools where teachers were told not to turn it on - that parents could pick kids up and take them home if they wanted them to see it. We've reached critical mass - internet propaganda and hysterical ignorance are in the driver's seat. Be afraid.

Posted by MasterChef (anonymous) on September 8, 2009 at 11:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)

In my time at SP, they taught American History, Current History, World History and American Government. All taught by teachers with an obvious dose of their "party influence". Know what? We did alright.

(I still think a course in County Government would have been the most helpful of all. Like, who do you call when your water culvert is clogged up? No, its not Ghost Busters.)

Posted by Noesis (anonymous) on September 9, 2009 at 11:58 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Keta, were you saying the same things when Bush gave a speech to the kids?
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... But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush's speech -- they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue.

The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president's political benefit. "The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props," the Post reported.

With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. "The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students," said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. "And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'"

Democrats did not stop with words. Rep. William Ford, then chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate the cost and legality of Bush's appearance. On October 17, 1991, Ford summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the speech. "The hearing this morning is to really examine the expenditure of $26,750 of the Department of Education funds to produce and televise an appearance by President Bush at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC," Ford began. "As the chairman of the committee charged with the authorization and implementation of education programs, I am very much interested in the justification, rationale for giving the White House scarce education funds to produce a media event."

Posted by keta (anonymous) on September 9, 2009 at 6:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)

The biggest difference between The 1991 speech and yesterday's is the internet, and the hatred involved, which is constantly being revved up online. Obama's asking schoolkids to "help the president" means, of course, that he wants them to help with his socialist/communist/nazi/muslim agenda, or whatever the internet Obama buzz is today. It doesn't matter how logical he is, or how reasonable or kind or careful. It doesn't matter what he says. It's time to tell the truth to everyone who's able to hear it and move on.

Posted by AlisonMiller (anonymous) on September 10, 2009 at 7:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)

MC is exactly right.

People just think that kids are stupid. Maybe it is because THEY were stupid when they were younger.