District 300 Gives Parents Opt-Out of Barack Obama Speech

As I was looking at how various area school districts are coping with President Barack Obama’s request to penetrate every school room in America, I was pointed to Carpentersville Unit District 300’s message to the public:

Message from the Superintendent:

“Some D300 teachers and principals are allowing their students to watch President Obama’s national address to American school children at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 8.

“The topic is the importance of education and setting/meeting goals.

“Parents who do not want their children to watch this Presidential address can contact their teacher so the teacher may make other arrangements for their children.”

It appears that District 300 is allowing parents to opt out of the “opportunity,” just as Crystal Lake Grade School District 47 is.

Huntley School District 158, on the other hand, is foregoing the opportunity. Here’s what Crystal Lake High School District 155 is doing.


Comments

District 300 Gives Parents Opt-Out of Barack Obama Speech — 11 Comments

  1. Cal, when previous Republican presidents addressed schoolchildren directly in similar broadcasts, was it part of a "Cult of Personality" and inappropriate? Should parents have been given the ability to "opt out" of speeches by Presidents Reagan and Bush? Do you think parents should have been uncomfortable that their children were made to listen to those speeches?

  2. I am afraid that an innocuous rah-rah speech on the importance of education is being used as an opportunity not to glorify the Obama "Cult of Personality" (so unlike the near worship of Ronald Reagan who plugged tax cuts and guns in a similar broadcast to students) but is instead being used by a vicious minority to indoctrinate parents and students to hate the President of the United States.

  3. From Politico.com:

    Obama isn’t the first president to be criticized this way. O’Neill recalled President George H.W. Bush made televised address to students in October 1991 as campaign season was heating up. A handful of Democrats denounced Bush’s address as pure politics. Bush asked students to “take control” of their education and to write him a letter about ways students could help him achieve his goals, strikingly similar to Obama’s messages.

    Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/26744_Page2.html#ixzz0QAYykYhS

  4. "On November 14, 1988, Reagan addressed and took questions from students from four area middle schools in the Old Executive Office Building. According to press secretary Marlin Fitzwater, the speech was broadcast live and rebroadcast by C-Span, and Instructional Television Network fed the program “t o schools nationwide on three different days.” Much of Reagan’s speech that day covered the American “vision of self-government” and the need “to keep faith with the unfinished vision of the greatness and wonder of America” but in the middle of the speech, the president went off on a tangent about the importance of low taxes:

    "Today, to a degree never before seen in human history, one nation, the United States, has become the model to be followed and imitated by the rest of the world. But America's world leadership goes well beyond the tide toward democracy. We also find that more countries than ever before are following America's revolutionary economic message of free enterprise, low taxes, and open world trade. These days, whenever I see foreign leaders, they tell me about their plans for reducing taxes, and other economic reforms that they are using, copying what we have done here in our country…

    "I wonder if they realize that this vision of economic freedom, the freedom to work, to create and produce, to own and use property without the interference of the state, was central to the American Revolution, when the American colonists rebelled against a whole web of economic restrictions, taxes and barriers to free trade. The message at the Boston Tea Party — have you studied yet in history about the Boston Tea Party, where because of a tax they went down and dumped the tea in the Harbor. Well, that was America's original tax revolt, and it was the fruits of our labor — it belonged to us and not to the state. And that truth is fundamental to both liberty and prosperity."

    In the same program Reagn opposed a California gun law claiming that he had heard from a burgler in prison that the criminals there would be cheering when the new law went into effect.

    Later George H.W. Bush also made an adress to the nations school children, although the content was less political.

    You are doing exactly what I first accused you and the legions of others who march in lock step with you delutions–trying to formulate hatred for the President

  5. I'm a Cary-Grove boy. As part of our classes, we listened to several presidential speeches- FDR up to Carter (Who was in office at the time). And I recall during the Iran Hostage crisis, the school broadcast Carter over the PA- I think it was when the hostage rescue failed but am not 100% sure. Not one kid or teacher raised an eyebrow. I am really not sure why this is so controversial.

  6. It strikes me as inappropriate, regardless of party.

    I have to admit to not have noticed the prior ones, probably because I didn't have a child in Crystal Lake schools.

    My son will make the decision himself, by the way.

  7. The basic premise of President Obama's upcoming message is for students to work hard, get good grades, and stay in school.

    Why do so many think this is such an abomination?? It's because messages like this DON'T get out by important roles in our country SUCH as the president that many kids in the now and upcoming generations are lazy and have entitlement mentalities.

  8. So Regan wasn't engaging in a cult or personality when he did it? He wasn't using communist brainwashing techniques on a captive audience? Why is that, Mr. Skinner? Why did it escape your notice while this is front page news worthy of eight posts? Would you care to respond or will you just delete this post too?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *