in Central Florida. I know they got calls that were about
half in half in favor of the speech. But they caved to the militant right wingers as usual here.
Here is an editorial from a nearby paper...they criticize the school superintendent and the GOP chairman, Jim Greer.
Obama's Classroom Speech: Tune In the PresidentSuperintendent of Schools Gail McKinzie has brought disrepute on the Polk County school district, discredited students' ability to put critical thinking to use and has dishonored the highest office in the nation, the presidency. She has done so by making optional the live showing of President Barack Obama's national television speech to students today at noon.
..."If the message of education is not the way forward for students and our nation, what is? Ignorance?
So it would seem.
They go after Jim Greer's many statements as well.
And there are a few great letters, giving me hope again for this fundamentalist area.
Listening to speech is patriotic.Parents, where is your patriotism? President Obama is speaking to our children - our future leaders. He's talking to them about their education, their hopes and dreams for their future. Do you think for one minute he will talk to the students about health care, the war in Iraq, bipartisan issues? No way.
You people should have lived during World War II when patriotism was of the utmost importance in our lives. War with Germany and Japan was not a passing fancy - we blocked our windows at night so as not to light up the skies for enemy fighters, we had gas-ration stickers, and we could not buy butter, meats, sugar, coffee, and we were allowed one pair of shoes per year. And we all supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his efforts toward peace.
President Barack Obama is going to encourage our kids to do their best.
Here is a good one about the school leaders caving in.
School cave-in is bad civics lessonLet me get this straight: For the past eight years, it has been the official policy of the Republican Party that the president of the United States is a unitary executive" whose powers allow him to violate the fourth, fifth and sixth amendments to the Constitution and decide without judicial review about the application of international law to the (illegal) practice of torture, but apparently does not extend to speaking to public school students about their upcoming school year.
I don't know whether state Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer is stupid, presumptuously partisan, racist or merely cynical for taking this piece of hypocrisy to the national media. I do know that his goal is to diminish President Barack Obama without any real evidence and in a manner consistent with the assortment of hooligans who confuse disrupting town halls with winning elections.
That the Polk County school district has decided to cave to this partisan putsch and subject President Obama's speech to prior restraint is, to me, one of the worst civics lessons an educational institution can give its students. What it has done is contribute to a generation of eroding what has become pejoratively referred to as civics-class democracy.
And for good measure, one more.
Avoid speech precedentIt's sad state of affairs when the president of our country can not speak to the students of this nation to encourage them to get the best education they can. The precedent is now being set.
If the president can not speak to the children of this country because his speech might be political, then all elected officials will now not be able to speak to the children. So Rep. Adam Putnam , Sen. Bill Nelson and the rest of the legislators will now be unable to speak in the schools because they are elected officials.
Our School Board members are elected officials, so the same applies there. Superintendent of Schools Gail McKinzie is appointed, so she may still speak to the students. Oh, wait a minute, she is appointed by elected officials so she is ineligible also.
People are upset over this, they really are. I found out that many people I knew called them, as did I.
One of the ones who disappointed me the most was assistant superintendent of school-based operations. He listened to the
loud voices of the right instead of listening to the equal number of voices from the left.
Tonjes said he fielded a constant flood of calls Friday, from parents adamant that the district not telecast Obama's speech, and just as many parents who felt the president shouldn't be censored. Even though politicians routinely visit Polk classrooms to address children on a variety of issues, Tonjes said the hubbub surrounding Tuesday's speech was reason to formulate a special directive that gives parents the option of not exposing their children to the presidential message.
"If it was a moon shot and he (Obama) were going to be talking about the moon, that would be different," Tonjes said.
So glad to see the local paper come out and print the letters and the editorial.