Or, reason to homeschool number 10,018.
Via the Daily Caller, the problem with rabidly liberal teachers in institutional settings:
A Virginia middle school teacher recently forced his students to support President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign by conducting opposition research in class against the Republican presidential candidates.
The 8th grade students, who attend Liberty Middle School in Fairfax County, were required to seek out the vulnerabilities of Republican presidential hopefuls and forward them to the Obama campaign.
“This assignment was just creepy beyond belief — like something out of East Germany during the Cold War,” one frustrated father, who asked for his family to remain anonymous, told The Daily Caller.
The assignment was for students to research the backgrounds and positions of each of the GOP candidates for president and find “weaknesses” in them, the parent explained. From there, students were to prepare a strategy paper to exploit those weaknesses and then to send their suggestions to the Obama campaign.
Liberty teacher Michael Denman, who declined to comment, unveiled the assignment in mid-January when he broke the Civics Honor’s class into four groups, one for each Republican candidate. The students were then to collaborate as a group and research the backgrounds of their assigned candidate.
Denman assigned two kids to write a paper revealing the identified “weaknesses,” two to write the attack strategy paper and two others to locate an individual inside the Obama campaign to whom they could send the information.
At least they weren’t singing songs to Dear Leader, but I’m sure that’s what happened in the non-Honors classes. I’m not sure which is creepier at this point: forcing kids to do oppo research or actually sending it in to the Obama campaign. I would have loved to have seen how Denman graded the “projects.” 10 out of 10 for correct liberal thinking! 5 out of 10 for not assessing the evil weakness of Rick Santorum’s patriarchal religious affiliation and obvious misogyny. Yea! 10 out of 10 for seeing how easy it would be for Obama to defeat Obama-lite, that etch-a-sketch Romney!
Liberty Middle ranks as a 9 out of 10 on greatschools.org or in the 91st percentile for the state. In theory, it should be one of the shining examples of where folks would aspire to send their kids. In reality, it serves as a shining example of what’s wrong with state-run education in the hands of liberal union shills.
UPDATE: Allahpundit puts shelves politics and looks at the bright side: he says the teacher should be praised for teaching the kids how to be young, enterprising journalists. Heh. He writes:
The good news: The class is now more or less qualified for work in America’s mainstream media. If you’re going to push your politics on kids, at least teach ‘em a trade.
He may or may not have also told them to send their research to Obama’s campaign. Another useful journalistic skill — learning to coordinate with Democrats for professional gain and the advancement of the cause. In a world of high Hopenchange unemployment, shouldn’t we congratulate this guy for looking out for his students’ bottom line?
True enough. At the rate jobs are disappearing, better cover your bases!
Filed under: 2012, Education, Liberal angst, Unions | 4 Comments »