Education Secretary Arne Duncan said that the President's speech, which will air at noon on C-SPAN and streamed live from the White House website, will "call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens."
Wow -- As we used to say in Texas, those are fightin' words!
The Department of Education created educational resources for teachers related to the speech, including an "I Am What I Learn" video contest in which students will make videos that describe "the steps they will take to improve their education and the role education will play in fulfilling their dreams."
There he goes again! Grab your torches and pitchforks!
Naturally, these provocative goals and inflammatory suggestions have caused an uproar of Town Hall proportions. Jim Greer, the Chairman of the Republican Party in Florida decries the "use of taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America's children to his socialist agenda."
Greer writes, "The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the President justify his plans for government-run health care, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other President, is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power."
Oklahoma state Sen. Steve Russell told AP, "It gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality...This is something you'd expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein's Iraq." But do kids in North Korea and Iraq have Jonas Brothers lunchboxes?
Some school districts in Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia, and Wisconsin have decided not to show the speech to students. Others are offering parents the chance to have their kids opt out.
Texan parents in particular are apparently up in arms (and, in Texas, they know how to arm themselves). But Sarah Winkler, school board president in the tiny town of Alief, Texas and president-elect of the Texas Association of School Boards, told The Houston Chronicle, "I just don't see how this would be an indoctrination technique...It sounds to me like these are all things we try to teach our kids. We want them to work hard and pay attention and do the best they can."
Run her out of town!
(Blogger's note: I went to middle and high school in Alief. Go Alief-Hastings Fighting Bears! Ahem.)
Back here in the Garden State, the New Jersey Department of Education urged teachers to make arrangements for students to participate, but said it was ultimately a local decision.
Bowing to all this pressure, the Department of Education recently changed its online lesson, removing an encouragement that kids write about "what they can do to help the President" and instead describe "how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals."
Naturally, the last think you'd want to teach kids is that they have any say or responsibility in how their government works. As JFK might have put it, "Ask not what you country can do for you OR what you can do for your country...just look out for Number One."
So to be perfectly clear: Grownups disrupting town hall meetings GOOD. Kids writing letters to the President of the United States. BAD.
As with most political controversies, there's a big, fat learning moment that's bound to be missed. If Obama could say it without totally sidetracking the issue, it would go something like this:
My fellow young Americans and future leaders, we live in a time when people who don't know what they're talking about are louder, ruder, more passionate, more hyperbolic, better armed, and larger in size than ever before, so here's the thing:
Keep your eyes and your minds open, and don't let anyone do your thinking for you.
Now that's a lesson well worth learning.
Joel Schwartzberg is an award-winning essayist and author of "The 40-Year-Old Version"