Quoted Text

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                  September 2, 2009

MEDIA ADVISORY: President Obama to Speak Directly to Students in National Address on Educational Success


WASHINGTON, D.C. – As children across America go back to school, President Obama will deliver a national address directly to students on the importance of taking responsibility for their success in school on Tuesday, September 8th at 12:00 PM EDT at Wakefield High School in Arlington. In advance of this address, the Department of Education is providing resources developed by and for teachers to help engage students and stimulate discussion about persisting and succeeding in school.  The speech will be broadcast live on http://www.WhiteHouse.gov and C-SPAN. The speech is open to pre-credentialed media. The deadline to request credentials is 6:00PM EDT tomorrow, Thursday, September 3rd.

September 8, 2009

PRESIDENT OBAMA DELIVERS NATIONAL ADDRESS TO AMERICA’S SCHOOL CHILDREN
Wakefield High School
4901 S. Chesterfield Rd.
Arlington, VA 22206

Media Pre-set: 6:00 AM to 7:00 AM (All equipment must be dropped at the site by 7:00 AM; media will not have access to their equipment from 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM.)
Media Access: 10:00 AM

Throw: 60 ft.
Cable run: 600 ft.
Live truck parking: Trucks should enter the entrance off Dinwiddie Street and will be directed on site. All live trucks must RSVP with vehicle information. Trucks must plan to park by 7:00 AM. Live truck operators must bring cable ramps.

Media entrance: Entrance number 2, off Dinwiddie St.

Media Coverage: This event is open to pre-credentialed media. To request credentials, please RSVP online at: http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/the_press_office/MediaRSVP-EducationAddress-9-8-09/. The deadline to RSVP is 6:00PM EDT tomorrow, Thursday, September 3rd.

All names submitted for credentials must be accurate and reflect the identification media presents at check points for entrance. RSVPs do not guarantee access. You will receive a confirmation e-mail if you will receive a credential to cover the event.

Quoted Text

School speech backlash builds
By: Nia-Malika Henderson
September 3, 2009 07:35 PM EST

School districts from Maryland to Texas are fielding angry complaints from parents opposed to President Barack Obama’s back-to-school address Tuesday – forcing districts to find ways to shield students from the speech as conservative opposition to Obama spills into the nation’s classrooms.

The White House says Obama’s address is a sort of pep talk for the nation’s schoolchildren. But conservative commentators have criticized Obama for trying to “indoctrinate” students to his liberal beliefs, and some parents call it an improper mix of politics and education.

“The gist is, ‘I want to see what the president has to say before you expose it to my child.’ Another said, ‘This is Marxist propaganda.’ They are very hostile,” said Patricia O’Neill, a Democrat who is vice president of the Montgomery County School Board, in a district that borders Washington, D.C. “I think it’s disturbing that people don’t want to hear the president, but we live in a diverse society.”

The White House moved Thursday to quell the controversy. First it revised an Education Department lesson plan that drew the ire of conservatives because it called for students to write letters about how they can help the president.

Then Obama aides said they would release the text of Obama’s address on Monday, a day before his speech is to be beamed into the classrooms – an apparent attempt to show skeptical parents ahead of time what he plans to say.

Obama’s speech to students was first announced late last month but criticism grew this week, as conservative commentators including Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin said Obama was trying to improperly influence the students. Beck even urged parents to take their children out of school on Tuesday to protest Obama’s speech.

The forum – a presidential address to students, where Obama plans to encourage them to take responsibility for education and do their best – might seem an unlikely forum for conservatives to make a stand. But some of the commentators said it was improper for Obama to insert himself so visibly into a classroom setting.

And it shows that the conservative anger with Obama and his policies is moving beyond the congressional town halls in August, where many members of Congress were loudly criticized by conservatives opposed to Obama’s health care policies.

Republican strategist Rich Galen said he didn’t have a problem with Obama reaching out to schoolchildren because “he is everybody’s president. But you have to be very careful that it is not seen as literally propaganda. The original idea to have them write letters about how to help the president crossed the line and the White House realized that.”

But Democratic strategist Chris Lehane said the protest against the presidential speech “shows at some level how desperate the right is to find an issue to challenge Obama on ...They have gotten some traction on health care, but the mere fact that they have jumped on this reflects that this is a party without a voice. Are they going to run in the mid-terms on a ‘Presidents shouldn’t talk to kids’ platform?”

The address has left districts in the awkward spot of deciding how to handle the speech. Six districts contacted by POLITICO all said they would leave it to local school superintendents, principals and teachers whether to show the speech – but all said they would provide alternative activities for students whose parents didn’t want them to see the broadcast. ...................>>>>....................>>>>.............http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/26744.html

Quoted from bumblethru

this speaks volumes when parents and schools are skeptical of a president speaking to their school aged children.

Quoted Text

When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings
By: BYRON YORK
Chief Political Correspondent
09/08/09 7:11 AM EDT

The controversy over President Obama's speech to the nation's schoolchildren will likely be over shortly after Obama speaks today at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush's speech -- they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue.
Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president's school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president's political benefit. "The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props," the Post reported.
With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. "The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students," said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. "And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'"
Democrats did not stop with words. Rep. William Ford, then chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate the cost and legality of Bush's appearance. On October 17, 1991, Ford summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the speech. "The hearing this morning is to really examine the expenditure of $26,750 of the Department of Education funds to produce and televise an appearance by President Bush at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC," Ford began. "As the chairman of the committee charged with the authorization and implementation of education programs, I am very much interested in the justification, rationale for giving the White House scarce education funds to produce a media event.".....................>>>>..............................>>>>............http://www.washingtonexaminer......arings-57694347.html

Quoted from GrahamBonnet

It was wrong when Bush did it and it is wrong now!

Quoted Text

Editorial: Classroom controversy: elementary politics
Wednesday, September 9, 2009


There, there. That wasn’t so bad, now was it?
To hear conservatives fuss and fret last week, one might have gotten the impression that President Obama was planning some kind of socialist indoctrination speech for the schoolkiddies he wanted to address yesterday.
But Obama’s words weren’t the least bit political; rather, they were just what a president’s speech to schoolchildren ought to be: encouraging and inspirational. (And Obama was hardly the first president in modern times to use his bully pulpit in this fashion; as a matter of fact, Republicans George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan did.)
Obama spoke of the need for students to fulfill their responsibility by showing up for school every day, studying hard and not giving up at the inevitable bumps along the road. And not just because he’s a gifted speaker but because he’s a minority who succeeded despite the odds faced by other minorities — as well as those who, like the president, hail from broken families — his message is likely to have resonated with at least some of the very kids most at risk for having problems in school......................>>>>....................>>>>................http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2009/sep/09/909_prrinrt/

Quoted Text