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Cakedaddy wrote:

GORDON wrote:To repeat myself, can you imagine the crap that would be said if fascist Bush had done this?

Turns out he did. Well, one of them did. The first Bush pres asked school kids to send him a letter explaining how they can help with issues of the time. I've heard it play over and over at the airport this morning. They may be taking it out of context because they only play the sentence where he asks for the letter.

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.'"

Said one parent in an e-mail to Broward School Board member Stephanie Kraft: "I will not tolerate my children being brainwashed by this man."

Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer on Wednesday criticized what he called Obama's plan to "indoctrinate America's children to his socialist agenda."

In his opinion, Notter said in an interview, having childen listen to the country's elected leader "is some of the purest of civics education." Letting them choose whether to not to attend would set a bad precedent, Notter said. He compared it to students who might object to saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

Broward Schools Superintendent James Notter wrote in a memo to principals Thursday that students will not be allowed to opt out of viewing Obama's address. The district has encouraged civics education through programs such as Kids Voting Broward and by watching presidential inaugural addresses, Notter wrote, so letting students skip Obama's speech "does not align with our practices and responsibility to provide a well-rounded, quality education for all students."

Letting them choose whether to not to attend would set a bad precedent, Notter said. He compared it to students who might object to saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

TPRJones wrote:tl;dr

If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

When critics lashed out at President Obama for scheduling a speech to public school students this month, accusing him of wanting to indoctrinate children to his politics, his advisers quickly scrubbed his planned comments for potentially problematic wording. They then reached out to progressive Web sites such as the Huffington Post, liberal bloggers and Democratic pundits to make their case to a friendly audience.

TheCatt wrote:I wonder what it said originally.