In May I graduated from my public High School in St. Louis, MO. It was the most exiting and prideful event of my life. Little did I know I got out just in time.
On September 8 a visitor will greet the public school students of America over their TV screens. President Barack Obama will speak to my former comrades. I would hope the President could use his high office and the historic nature of his tenure to hit home some broad, well agreed upon tips and encouragement to our kids. Don’t do drugs, stay in school, don’t drink alcohol under age, and anyone in America can make it if they work hard.
That would be nice. However, President Obama’s Education department is trying to make this an exercise, not a special message. In the now deleted report, the administration is said to encourage teachers to participate in activities that will encourage them to “help the President”. Not help the country, not help our fellow citizens, help HIM!!!
Now I’m sure he’s not stupid enough to make a public push for government healthcare directly to America’s youth, but the mere pre and post speech activities leave members of the National Education Association, of which all public teachers belong and which is the backbone of the President’s party, alone in the classroom with some very ambiguous instructions on how to instruct kids to “help the President”.
This opens the door to liberal teachers (most are) having the excuse to gently or aggressively tap into the universal liberal ideal of “organizing a community”. But this community is America’s children. The very lives that are the easiest to mold and yield at least two votes each.
I encourage each of you to either go to school with your child on September 8, keep them home, or if your kid insists, or ask him/her to bring a digital recording device so that if the teacher gets out of line, you’ll hear about it and publically expose them.
If that’s not enough, I would like you to go to www.hallpassonthat.com. My good Tea-Party friend Dana Loesch has set this up to be a conduit through which we can oppose this open book youthful community organizing in schools we pay for. As the site’s motto says… “Parents, not the President, determine what you learn”.
Maybe most teachers are liberal, but most school administrators (the people who really call the shots) are conservative. Education policy tends to support conservatism. Education reformers, who really do little more than write books they can sell in bulk to their students who are required to read them, tend to be liberal. I agree that Barack Obama should have little to do with education, short of ensuring that there be a multitude of options for parents.
ReplyDeleteTeachers have little say over what they teach. College professors are a different story, but to make additional efforts to tie teachers' hands is not the right thing to do. What teachers should be doing is teaching all viewpoints, they should celebrate the variety of backgrounds and social contexts that are relevant to students and leave room for the students to make their own decisions about what they learn. School is not a place of propaganda, but it also shouldn't be a factory in which teachers regurgitate pre-approved facts. Teachers, even liberal ones, are not the enemy. As a liberal non-teacher, I do not consider it my responsibility to convert people. I do consider it beneficial to dialogue and let people make their own decisions. It is unfair to imply, as I think you do, that teachers have a vendetta against the country and want to turn us all into liberals. Many of them just want to teach us to think deeply about things.
I agree with some of this... however, I never said or think that teachers are the enemy. On the contrary, thet are near the top of importance to students.
ReplyDeleteBut...As an example, let's point out the Obama song at that elementary school. The administrators said they knew nothing. Teachers have the direct line to a student's ear... that's big.
Education is by no means conservative. The government (federal/state/local) is in the business of education. That doesn't mean I disagree, but that's a liberal/more government approach.
There is zero choice about schools. If you're not rich enough for private school, you are forced to a public school. Inner-city kids are forced to go to bad schools.
There's alot more to education policy than I can write now, but suffice it to say, more choice is the key to any reform.