No Moral Equivalence Between Reagan and Bush Address to School Children and Obama Indoctrination

Unlike Obama, these two Presidents didn't instruct students to read their books or make posters with quotes from their speeches!

Plus: Left Wing political indoctrination is pervasive in the public schools!

Trying to deflect attention from Obama's planned speech to the nation's school children next Tuesday, the Dems resort to their first excuse whenever they are cornered: "Republicans do it too." As usual, that phony moral equivalence falls flat when the facts are examined.

It's true that both President's Reagan and the first President Bush gave speeches to the nation's schoolchildren. But there is no evidence to suggest that either man used the Dept. of Education to issue guidelines for teaching plans to accompany the speech in the way Obama has:

PreK-6 Menu of Classroom Activities:
President Obama’s Address to Students
Across America
Produced by Teaching Ambassador Fellows, U.S. Department of Education

Before the Speech:
Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama and motivate students by asking the following questions.
...
Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?

During the Speech:

As the President speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note-taking graphic organizer such as a Cluster Web, or students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children can draw pictures and write as appropriate. As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following: What is the President trying to tell me? What is the President asking me to do? What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?
...
Extension of the Speech: Teachers can extend learning by having students:

Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.

Just how are teachers going to "make students accountable" for statements they write to "help the president?" Will students who fail to "help the president" receive lower grades than those who do?

After sending out these instructions to every school in the nation, the Dept. of Education has now scrubbed that requirement, after the fact. Also scrubbed from earlier communications to all schools was a request that students make posters with quotes from Obama's speech in large print. Perhaps because it was too reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution in China were millions were forced to carry Chairman Mao's Red Book with quotations from the leader's speeches.

FLAHSBACK: Dems Investigated Bush Dept. of Education after Bush Speech

Let's look back at the political fallout from the speech to schoolchildren by the first President Bush:

"The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students," House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said. "And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.' "

Two House committees demanded that the department explain the use of its funds for the speech, an explanation that Deputy Secretary David T. Kearns provided late in the day in a letter to Rep. William D. Ford (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. Education Secretary Lamar Alexander was out of town. [...]
Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.), chairwoman of the Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families, said it was outrageous for the White House to "start using precious dollars for campaigns" when "we are struggling for every silly dime we can get" for education programs.

Dem Political Indoctrination in Education an Everyday Occurrence

Why should anyone complain about this blatant attempt by Obama and the Dems to politicize public schools? This kind of thing happens every day! By way of the Black Commenter, we visit Motivation Truth, a blog by Adrienne Ross, who teaches middle school English in New York state:

Look, I'm not somebody on the outside looking in. I've been teaching in the same public school in upstate, NY for fourteen years, and the left-wing agenda has never been so obvious to me as it was this past school year. If you think that fair and balanced teaching goes on in all classrooms, think again. I'm not saying that every single teacher is involved in Democrat indoctrination. I'm not even saying most teachers are, but I am saying it happens--too often. You listen to kids long enough, you find out what goes on and you learn the anti-Bush, anti-Palin, anti-conservative sentiments being expressed.

After Obama won the election, my school went crazy. Leading up to the inauguration, the school decided we were going to show it live to every student. Now, I was sick to my stomach because I just didn't want to watch it, but I did believe that it should be shown, so I prepared myself to grit my teeth, suck it up, and just get through it--which I did. The problem was what went down leading up to that day--and for weeks afterwards.

Let me run you through a day at school leading up to the inauguration: walk into the building; go to my mailbox; find lesson plans about Obama to use with students that were placed in my box; leave plans in my box (I did not do them!); walk down the hall where there were Obama posters on my left and right--posters about Change, Hope, and all that rhetoric he was talking during the campaign; listen to morning announcements with some quote from Obama right before the Pledge of Allegiance (everyday); go to library and see books about Obama displayed; after school go home and check email; in email find suggestions from ELA professionals about how to incorporate inauguration activities into lessons; read email with information about different seminars and workshops teachers can attend about the inauguration.

Brave soul that she is, Ms. Ross took it to the next level and hit "reply all" to the email promoting Obama's inauguration and asked if the same treatment would be provided if a Republican won in a subsequent election? Oh sure... right? What did they do for President Bush in 2004? NOTHING!

I hope readers will encourage Ms. Ross to stick with it. We need teachers like her if we ever hope to balance out the blatant political bias that Democrats have instituted in education at every level.

How About This For a Lesson Plan?

Black Commenter suggested parents and teachers may want to use the following visual aid in teaching children:

If conservatives ever hope to right the balance with the liberals who have hijacked education and so many other fine American institutions we must fight back. The watchword must be: "SILENT NO MORE."