Why I Was Opposed to the President’s Address to School Children

Recently, the President announced that he was going to address school children (or “schoochildren,” according to his web site) about the importance of education. In what was likely a surprise to the White House, parents across the country became quite agitated about the event, some even planning on holding their children out of the event. The reaction of the President’s supporters was quite condescending and insulting. The detractors were called stupid, silly, racist, and “too dumb to raise their own children.” I was one of those opposed to the President’s address, and here’s why.

When the speech was first announced, the President released a curriculum to accompany his address. For me, it was this curriculum that was at the heart of the outrage. In it, the President planned to ask school children to "[w]rite letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president." My primary objection is the President was going to ask my first grader to help him do something. Such a question might be appropriate (and I’m being generous) in a high school civics class, but not to early elementary students. Furthermore, help the President do what, exactly? In the early days of the controversy, we didn’t have many details, so we’re kind of left guessing. I can’t think of a single policy initiative *I* want to help the President on, so, yes, I was uncomfortable with the prospect of the President using his position to bully his way into schools to ask for, at the time, unspecified help.

There’s also a matter of trust: I just don’t trust this President. You can, as some have, blame it on the fact that I’m a registered Republican. You can also accuse me of being a Fox News powered automaton, with no rational capabilities outside what the network tells me to think. If you want, you can even make up your own ad hominem or straw man as you see fit, but you’d be wrong in every case. I don’t trust the President because of all of the shady, and sometimes criminal people he has surrounded himself with for years. From unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, to America-hating, race-bating "Reverend" Wright, to Saul Alinsky. Even the recent "Truther" green jobs czar Van Jones, who the White House had watched for a while before recruiting who was then forced to resign (at midnight, no less) when his political views became apparent. Are We Lumberjacks has a nice quote from Bill Ayers:

That was said in 2006. So, then, when I hear friends of the President, even those thrown under the bus once he set his eye on the White House, say things like that, yes, I’m a bit concerned when he wants to address my child without me present. Michelle Malkin, for what it’s worth, seems to feel the same way.

As it turns out, the White House released the text of the speech he intends to deliver today, and there’s nothing controversial in it. There’s no telling what it looked like before the controversy arose, but, once the curriculum was dropped due to parents like myself taking an active interest in their children’s education (and "what could be wrong with that" right?), the speech is, on the whole, fairly unremarkable in its content. As one teacher said, though, since the speech is targeted for pre-K through 12th grade, someone is not being reached. It seems to me to be an awful waste of an hour of a whole bunch of children’s time, but if that’s the worst thing the President does today, then I’ll consider us lucky.