President Barack Obama’s plan to address the nation’s students during the school day Tuesday has polarized parents over whether it’s OK for their kids to listen to the speech.
On one side are parents who say the webcast speech to K-12 students is “political recruiting” and “spreading the liberal agenda.”
On the other are those who say listening to presidential speeches is an important part of American culture and the education process.
The White House officially announced the speech Wednesday morning, and the U.S. Department of Education followed up with a letter to school principals and a lesson plan for discussing the talk. The White House said the speech will address the importance of studying and staying in school.
Most metro-area districts passed information about the speech on to their schools Wednesday afternoon, asking principals to send the information home with students that same day.
But word of the address leaked out early and spread rapidly online and on talk radio, and some parents reacted strongly to the perceived motive for the speech.
School districts in the metro area immediately began fielding phone calls and e-mails from parents.
Many wanted more information about Obama’s agenda, but others reacted angrily and threatened to pull their children out of school that day.
“We’ve received about 50 phone calls today, the vast majority of them opposed to the speech,” said Susan Meek, spokeswoman for Douglas County Schools. “Some parents are worried they won’t be able to be there, or won’t have been able to view the speech ahead of time.”
“Liberal agenda”
Highlands Ranch parent Shanneen Barron, in an e-mail to The Denver Post, wondered why Obama’s speech is OK for the classroom when the Bible is not.
“I believe in the Bible and I believe it has educational value,” she wrote, “but teachers aren’t allowed to teach on that. So why this? We won’t be sending our kids to school on Tuesday.”
One Jefferson County parent complained of Obama’s “political recruiting,” while a Douglas County parent said that “spreading (Obama’s) liberal agenda in publicly funded schools is reprehensible.”
On the other hand, Rachel Drummond of Highlands Ranch, who has three school-age kids, said watching a president give a speech is part of growing up.
“I would expect my kids to listen to any president,” she said. “My gut reaction is that there are a whole lot of people out there who don’t want to listen to a black president.”
Douglas County’s Meek said she thinks parents aren’t sure what to expect from the speech. “They’re uncertain what the message will be, and they’re concerned about their kids sitting through a presidential address not being sure what it’s going to be about.”
“Totally educational”
In Douglas, El Paso and Jefferson county school districts, principals and classroom teachers will decide whether students may opt out of listening and participate in some other academic activity during the speech.
Denver Public Schools spokesman Mike Vaughn would not say whether Denver students will be given the option of not listening to the speech.
“This is not going to be a political discussion, it’s an educational lesson,” he said. “We will emphasize to parents that it’s totally educational and nonpolitical.”
Most school districts have technical limits and may not be able to broadcast the speech to every classroom, particularly in elementary schools, which may not have enough computers. The cable network C-SPAN also will broadcast the speech live, so that classrooms with televisions may watch it.
Most school districts will not allow classroom discussions of the speech.
In a note to parents, Staci McCormack, principal of Arrowwood Elementary School in Highlands Ranch, wrote “the follow-up conversation may happen at home with parents.”
Obama is not the first president to talk to the nation’s schoolchildren about good study habits.
In 1991, President George H.W. Bush addressed the nation’s students, urging them to study hard, avoid drugs and turn in troublemakers. In his speech, he told students to ignore peers “who think it’s not cool to be smart.”
And Democrats responded then by criticizing him for spending Department of Education money on a broadcast they claimed was political advertising used to counter claims that he was ignoring domestic issues.
Mike McPhee: 303-954-1409 or mmcphee@denverpost.com
