On September 8th at 12:00 PM EST, American public schools have been asked to have President Obama address students on the importance of education. The television speech outline speaks to challenging students to working hard, setting educational goals and taking responsibility for their education. This summary is on www.ed.gov/adminstration. This was done once before by President George W. Bush on October 2, 1991.
We have had some phone calls expressing concern on allowing this event to happen along with media reporting calls by some political commentators to stop districts from viewing this speech.
As a district we will respect the Office of the President and telecast the speech appropriate to our learning levels and curriculum. By policy we will also notify parents so they can have their student opt out of this televised speech. Parents as the students first teacher have the right to choose the appropriateness of this for their child.
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When will the parents be allowed to review the video and class materials.
ReplyDeleteFrom the AZ Central today:
ReplyDeleteTom Horne, the Republican state superintendent of public instruction in Arizona, said he's troubled that the accompanying U.S. Department of Education materials "are too worshipful toward Obama" and "educationally unsound."
"I think that good education practices are that children should be taught to listen skeptically and to analyze and to think critically, and none of that is in the materials," Horne said.
I am looking for the speech and the content as the "summary" link you offer above is offline.
ReplyDeleteOne lesson plan suggestion I read about has teachers instruct students to write letters to themselves regarding how they can help Obama. I suggest that a speech by John F Kennedy which famously and humbly posed; "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country", is glaringly missing the name of that president. Is this about building the presidents EGO-nomics or helping this countries seriously troubled Eco-nomics.
This sounds like an indoctrination of our children to support a man and his personal missions not the mission of a country. What does this cost? Is this school district able to support such expense? Is this a sound use of time and money during times of school district budget cuts, job losses and economic stretching? Where is the ROI (return on investment) the district and our Country is making at such a time like this?
As a parent I say our young people and their teachers could certainly make better use of the money and most likely the time.
Craig Cocciola, resident and parent Fountain Hills, AZ
Thank you all for your replies. Please realize FHUSD has heard strongly from both sides and the middle on this challenge. We are trying to create a situation that meets our social duty and protection of the individual rights.
ReplyDeletePlease e-mail me at bmyhr@fhusd.org and I would be happy to send you the curriculum posted by the U.S. Dept. of Education. We will also post the speech ASAP when made available on Monday.