My husband and I kept our second grader home today. Not because we thought that President Obama’s speech was going to be filled with partisan vitriol—we knew that it wouldn’t be. But when our son’s teacher sent us an email that she would be showing the “historic speech” I decided to have a conversation with the school principal (the teacher was out for the day) to learn what the motivation was for taking learning time out for this speech.
Here’s the upshot of our chat: after a back-and-forth about the importance of telling kids that education is important and how the principal is happy to have anyone tell the kids to stay in school, especially the President of the United States, I asked him if he’d stop class to show a “stay in school and learn” speech by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. His response? “Why he’s no friend of education.” With that response, he made my point. You see, the education establishment’s participation in this Obama PR effort was not about the message, it was about the messenger. And that was why we decided to withhold our ADA today.
I recently learned that Oakland Tech High School in the Rockridge/Temescal neighborhoods of Oakland loses 400 students between freshman and senior year (650 freshman enter, 250 seniors graduate). I honestly think that the president should not only tape a video aimed at these kids, but make a personal visit. There are children in this country that would be well-served by hearing from the nation’s first African American president that staying in school is important. But our neighborhood K-5 school does not have an attendance problem and nor does our middle or high school (the high school basically does not have a dropout rate to speak of). In my view, we do not need to take away math and reading time for this political PR stunt. The teachers could always assign it as homework.
I do hope that someone in the Schwarzenegger Administration, or perhaps a legislator, find out how many classes in the state took time away from learning to show this speech. If I were Gov. Schwarzenegger, I would then tape a “stay in school” message to be shown in the classrooms. I daresay that very few, if any, California teachers will show it.
We are new to the neighborhood and to the school. While I had an open and friendly conversation with the principal, I may have very well marked my son for trouble in the months and years ahead. I hope not, but this was one of those times that my husband and I just couldn’t “go along” in order to not make waves in this left-leaning community we live in.
Note: On this same subject, don’t miss the featured op-ed by Lance Izumi on today’s FR home page.
September 9th, 2009 at 12:00 am
That would be a fair point in some cases and may even be in yours, but I would point out that there have literally been hundreds of times when Presidents of the United States have taken class time away from school children for visits, speeches, letters (You can go back to Lincoln for that)etc. and I don’t recall anyone complaining. To me this whole thing is an example of how this country is getting too overly partisan.
September 9th, 2009 at 12:00 am
I should add to my earlier comment that I think the President whatever you think of his politics is a great example for young people that if you work hard enough, you can overcome obstacles (and of course a personal visit to every school that needs to hear that message isn’t feasible) But I will also agree that the Principal was an idiot for his comment about the Governor.