The brewing debate over President Obama’s planned live telecast to school children Tuesday has bubbled wildly on the Internet and over radio airwaves. But just how much of that debate is reaching the switchboards and in-boxes of local school districts?
Not much, according to district spokespersons. Reporters in the newsroom are currently calling 30 districts to determine whether they are getting strong parental pressure to ban the speech, scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday – at the start of lunch time for most districts.
So far districts are reporting minimal calls, between one to 20 calls and e-mails per district, with most getting less than a dozen. Most are asking the districts to nix the speech, but others were in support of the address, and some simply had questions about the speech.
At Bunche International Studies Middle School in St. Louis, 309 kids sat in an auditorium just before 11 a.m. today, waiting for the speech to begin. Not a single student opted out, officials there said.
A projector is set up between the basketball hoops in the auditorium to show the speech.
Many districts said they weren’t aware of the speech until the issue began brewing on the Internet and airwaves earlier this week.
But the relatively small number of inquiries hasn’t stopped officials from holding last-minute meetings, developing policies and sending notes or emails home. None of the districts we’ve spoken with so far are planning to hold special school assemblies to broadcast the address.
The speech has not been released to the public, but White House officials said the president intends to talk to students about the importance of doing well in school and setting goals for success.
The National Tea Party Coalition, which has sparked various town hall protests against Obama’s health care reform plan, is objecting to the speech. The “Hall Pass on That” effort says Obama is engaging in political recruiting and unfairly indoctrinating a captive audience to his own political values. The group is particularly incensed by suggested classroom activities that could be used before and after the speech. The lesson suggestions, released by the Department of Education, included an exercise where students could write letters to themselves about what they can do “to help the president.”
Today, the Department struck that wording and further revised the lesson suggestions to better reflect the intention of Obama’s speech.
The speech is “about the value of education and the importance of staying in school as part of his effort to dramatically cut the dropout rate,” said White House spokesman Tommy Vietor, noting Obama was not using the speech to promote white house policies and agendas.
Check back later for a more complete story at stltoday.com and in tomorrow’s Post-Dispatch.
Previous Comments
Nancy Cambria is the Children and Families reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She writes on a wide variety of topics pertaining to the well-being of children and family issues. She posts on children and family policy in The Grade blog and on general family and parenting issues in the Parents Talk Back blog located in the lifestyle section. 
all schools should have shown the speech. doesn’t matter if you are a private school or public school, we are all americans and should listen to the leader of our country (whether we voted for him or not)…he is our president. any public schools that didn’t show the speech should have there funding cut, as our american tax dollars pay for those schools to operate and they are government funded!
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Hey REPELTHERIGHT, want to talk about intimidation, maybe you missed the video of the Black Panthers standing outside of a voting location during the last presidential election. Or maybe you missed the video of SEIU thugs forcing opposition out of the town hall meetings. WAKE UP, the rest of America is, that’s why Obama has one of the lowest approval ratings of any president at this same point in their presidency.
Please tell us all how the right is trying to kill the president?? What a joke.
— STL1
9:36 pm September 3rd, 2009
STL1 if you have video of “SEIU thugs forcing opposition out of the town hall meetings.” Post it so we all can see it!
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Reading these posts makes me realize why we are in an economic mess, our politics are dirty and so many people are selfish and just not enjoyable to be around.
Seriously, are you all listening to yourselves? You’re complaining about an average speech telling the children the same things they are told every day, calling each other names, pointing fingers, blaming the left, blaming the right and changing the topic to take more political swipes at those who aren’t like you.
Good grief. Ya’ll act worse than the children the president spoke to.
So, what are you going to do for your country? Sit around and argue on a blog?
Go back to work. Be productive. Make a difference.
Ms. Cambria, please take some responsibility for the content of your blog and remove the personal attacks. Don’t worry, it’s not censorship. It’s managing your product, something your company seems to have lost sight of.
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The right wing is so concerned about a political agenda of airing the presidents speech on the importance of an education. The right wing shouted volumes of political agenda by NOT airing the presidents speech. This is a speech on the benefits of securing an education not a history lesson on worlds problems caused by the right wing of the last eight years. That lesson the students have learned themselves.
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“I do not have a problem with this. It is the Department of Education coming out with a lesson plan based upon the address is my concern.”
What is the concern here? I work in a volunteer orgainzation that provides classroom enrichment and we provide a supplementary learning guide for the teachers who want to use it.
Go to the website and read the learning materials. Heck go to http://www.docstoc.com/docs/10629497/Obama’s-Address-to-Students-Across-America-September-8-2009-Menu-of-Classroom-Activities-PreK-6 and look at the original version of the lesson plan and in that context do you really think “help the President” meany ANYTHING except what he was referring to in this speech (work hard at your education, take responsibility)?
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“I believe in peoples right to arms, but I don’t think anyone outside our military & law enforcement need own automatic weapons, mortars, etc.
perfectplanner”
I call shenanigans. It has been illegal for the general public to own automatic weapons for decades. To obtain a fully automatic weapon or military use weapons (mortars), a federal license is required. Anyone who supports the second amendment would know that, and wouldnt say it in a newspaper blog.
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