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Photograph of President Barack Obama's signature on a wall in a health classroom at Southwest High School in Green Bay, Wisconsin by Pete Souza/White House. Obama was at the school for a town hall meeting on health care in June; the school's phys ed and health staff asked the President to sign the wall.
Following criticism of President Obama's plan to speak about education to schoolchildren, the White House released the text of the speech yesterday. Last week, one parent in Texas, apparently concerned that his school district hadn't approved the speech, told the NY Times, "I don’t want our schools turned over to some socialist movement." Fortunately, the "socialist movement" seems limited to "If you quit on school - you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country" and "I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter."
The speech emphasizes hard work and responsibility, with Obama referring to his and First Lady Michelle Obama's own childhood challenges: "I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had"; "Neither of [Michelle's] parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country". In the "if at first you don't succeed" vein, the president mentions how JK Rowling was initially rejected by many book publishers. Obama also gives examples of American students who overcame obstacles—language barriers, brain cancer, bouncing between foster homes—and are now succeeding.
Some excerpts follow; you can read the full text here. The speech will air on C-SPAN and stream live on the White House website at 12 p.m.
I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.
...No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust - a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor - and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.
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I'm no Democrat, but the Republicans have fuckin lost it. The president can't make a PSA during back to school now without having someone call him a socialist? Give me a break. You want to talk about indoctrinating children, how about how you assholes take them to church from babyhood so you can force them to become members of your religion? That's indoctrination. Obama, on the other hand, is making a speech. Which 99% of the kids will totally ignore and/or forget 5 minutes after it happens.
The problem was never with the speech. The problem was with the lesson plans that the Department of Education whipped up.
That's BS reasoning that people came up with after the fact. The initial opposition was based solely on the fact that Obama was giving a speech to schoolkids and had nothing to do with lesson plans.
Just look at the FLGOP chairman's response (which he now claims he didn't write).
Because if George Bush or Dick Cheney wanted to speak to school children wanted to speak to some school children in Vermont, liberal Democrats wouldn't have made it out to be a lecture from Stalin, right?
George Bush (the elder) and Ronald Reagan both gave speeches just like this one when they were in office. Nobody complained. The Republicans are just kooky, preaching to their choir and guzzling the Kool Aid all at once.
Not as polarizing, especially Reagan.
And my example was Vermont because complaints about President Obama's speech came from Texas.
So you didn't really get my point.
Your "point" was not worth addressing. All three speeches are nationwide, the complaints aren't only coming from Texas, and as far as I know nobody in Vermont had a cow when Reagan or Bush gave their speeches.
Some with severe BDS would have made a stink, as there are crazies on all sides. The main difference is that the right-wing crazies are amplified by talk radio.
'Because if George Bush or Dick Cheney wanted to speak to school children wanted to speak to some school children in Vermont, liberal Democrats wouldn't have made it out to be a lecture from Stalin, right?"
You have an excellent point and this is completely true, and I think it's a good reason why no one would try to use this sort of event to say anything terribly political.
Yeah, I don't see the big deal here Republicans...
Obama school speech: worst fears realized. Brainwashing, Bolshevism and blasphemy. Protect your children!
See:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/obama-brainwashing-obama-brainwashing/
I like what Laura on your blog says:
The Republicans are right:
If all the kids stay at school, hit the books, work very hard, don’t drop …
where will they find the morons to vote for them?
where will they find the desperate to clean their toilets?
where will they find the imbeciles to believe their hate speech?
where will they find the morons to watch Fox News every day?
The Republicans see the danger:
If all the kids stay at school, work hard, …. their children will have to work harder ( getting some As instead of Cs like Bush)!
haha hit the nail on the head.
conservatives are afraid kids will end up being smart enough to pick up on the bullshit that this country is based on.
what a bunch of church lusting morons.
"I don’t want our [state, federal, and locally funded] schools [that teach a state mandated curriculum] turned over to some socialist movement."
heh!
You really couldn't be more incorrect with this statement, and it shows the willful ignorance of liberal Democrats when it comes to federal/state powers.
Our schools are not state, federally and locally funded?
K-12 is supposed to be 100% funded by the state and local governments, and have zero influence on the cirriculum.
http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/index.html
Over time, of course, egotistical politicians have done a great job of screwing up this country by usurping the 10th Amendment and declaring that federal funding and federal control is important to the greater interests of the nation. Nixon and block grants helped this modern-age blurring of the state vs. federal powers, and every President since him has only made matters worse.
The federal government has expanding the Department of Education over the past few decades and our K-12 education has only declined.
My rant is tangentially tied to this, but my overall view on this is that who cares if the President speaks at your kid's school? Odds are your kid won't take anything away from the visit and 20 years from now he/she will just remember that Obama visited.
You post only proves that the OP was correct.
Also, if I recall correctly, Horatio Alger was a capitalist bedtime story, not a socialist one.
People are such idiots. Replace "socialist" with "black" and we're getting at the real heart of what's on these people's minds.
It must be a miserable existence to be an angry, bitter, sad old Republican. (I'm not saying all Republicans are this way, but lately they've let the crazies take over).
Of course Gothamist would put up Barak Obama bombing the hallways of a school. Not good to have your tag as your name though.
This is funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofxVMlU97yA
The Antichrist wants your children to study hard and stay in school! Repent! The end of days draws near!
This speech couldn't possible cause any more harm than having drills to hide under one's desk in the event of a nuclear attack...
On C-Span, right now, they're airing President Reagan's speech to the children.
Reminds me of a funny story.
A girl I went to college with was non-plussed when her interviewer told her that, if she came to the school, she would have to "wear a card." She was like, really? Why? and he just insisted a few times that she must be prepared to "wear a card." Finally she realized he was saying "work hard," not the other thing.
Maybe rethugs are afraid Obama will make their darlings wear a card.
Black meet Kettle.
When President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, 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.
"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.
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."
But did any of the Democratic congressmen accuse Bush of attempting to promote fascism?
and our curricula are not state mandated? I suppose that could be a little more nuanced, but my general complaint was with people who pick & choose the parts of state socialism they like.
The fact of the matter is that an address from a democratically elected president is probably unlikely to be an outright socialist indoctrination and this, from the get-go, should neither have been news nor a controversy.
Right! Democratically elected! That is a big difference between this speech and Criminal Bush's, Mr. Rolltide_23.
Over the weekend a nickname occurred to me for all the "Obama's a socialist / fascist / born in Kenya / you shut up when you're talking to me!" folk:
Tonyas.
Sore-loserdom. Lowest-common-denominator mindset. And if we can't succeed one way, we'll just take 'em out at the knees. (Sometimes fun to hang out at bars with, though.)
That's Tonyas - sorry for the bad link.
Actually, the democrats did complain about George H.W. Bush making a speech to schoolchildren
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/When-Bush-spoke-to-students-Democrats-investigated-held-hearings-57694347.html
you know what?
freedom of speech. let him tell those kids to drop those iphones or xbox controllers and start paying attention in school....some kids will pay attention, whether they retain any info is another issue. Most likely those kids will probably be txting each other about their summer vacations...
put a jonas brother next to obama and then they'll pay attention.
people are just full of nonsense
It is unbelievable that some idiots are opposing this speech being broadcast to schoolchildren.
The president telling kids to study hard and take responsibity for their futures -- yeah, that's really controversial .... sigh.
Hey Trilby16..which President gave a speech in 1991? Thats 1991. And for the record, the second George Bush was elected..TWICE. You are a sore loser. Get over it moron.
Well. Not really.
How can kids possibly "study hard" with all these Presidents lurking around?
wake up sheeple....
Democrats">http://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/democrats-turned-1991-george-h-w-bush-speech-to-schoolchildren-into-spanish-inquisition/">Democrats Turned 1991 George H.W. Bush Speech To Schoolchildren Into Spanish Inquisition":
He's not saying anything that parents, grandparents, mentors, coaches, teachers, etc. aren't already saying... he just happens to have the power of celebrity on his side.
he's promoting graffiti! look! and chairman mao himself used to say "keep fit, study well, work hard"!!
a commie if i ever saw one! lol