President webcasts to all the schoolkids....

[CaptainHaplo]

CB - whether parents are invited or allowed to attend is up to the individual school district. The administration or DoE have nothing to do with that decision.

As for access to the speech itself, its transcript is SUPPOSED to be put up on the white house web site today so that adults can have it before the children get it read to them by the teleprompter president.

If I see it up, I will link it.

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

That's at least a criticism that's valid. The people out there saying a "stay in school, get good grades" speech is somehow akin to a Hitler Youth rally is beyond me.

my only participation in this thread will be to say this.

Why would Obama send such mixed signals to the nations youth?

Why tell them "stay in school, work hard and get good grades so you can grow up to be successful"?

THEN

turn around and bail out failing big businesses and banks left and right.

i dont really have a problem with a president wanting to address school kids... however i do have a problem with the mixed signals.

you want us to work hard? or do you want us to be on welfare?

make up your mind Mr. President

[Platapus]

Here is an E-mail we got from our school system

September 6, 2009
Dear LCPS Parents:
Last week the U. S. Department of Education sent an email to all principals in America advising them that President Obama would make a brief speech to students on Tuesday, September 8, about the importance of achievement, dedication to studies, and staying in school. Speeches with similar themes were given in the past by President Ronald Reagan and by President George H. W. Bush, although not on the first day of school.

Unfortunately the email was not sent to superintendents or other school officials. We issued a memo to LCPS principals to let them know that they were not expected to stop all school activity at noon for everyone to hear the President's speech at the same time. This was important because the chosen time for the live broadcast of the speech is on the first day of school and during the lunch hour for many of our students. Nothing in last week's memo indicated that showing the speech was prohibited. At the time of the memo we had not encountered any public or parental commentary on the speech.

All of that has changed and now a number of parents and others have weighed in with support for or opposition to the President's speech being shown in our schools. This controversy, unfortunately, is occurring throughout our Nation. In order to try to respect the wishes of all parents, we have issued additional guidelines to all principals.

Recognizing the differences that exist between our elementary, middle, and high school students, these guidelines are different for elementary schools than they are for middle and high schools. Our intent is to be sure that students have an opportunity to hear our President speak to them but also respect the wishes of parents who do not want that hearing to occur in school. My hope is that everyone will take advantage of the White House's posting of the speech on Monday to assuage any fears they may have.

We do believe that it is important for our young people to hear from the President of the United States of America, and we also hope that many parents will take advantage of the White House web cast or the posting that will occur on the LCPS website to view the President's speech with their children to reinforce the important messages of working hard in school and sustaining effort as a student.

In any case, please be assured that middle and high school students will be given the opportunity to view or not to view the speech whenever it is shown in their schools. In addition, parents of elementary students will receive at least one day's notice before the President's speech is shared with students and will be told the explicit procedures to follow if they do not wish their children to be part of the viewing.

It is unfortunate that we live in a time when a speech that I believe will serve a good purpose evokes such strong, accusatory responses from those who support and don't support the showing of the President's speech, but that extreme reaction may reflect more the political times in which we live than the importance of encouraging our students, by every means possible, to do their best in school.

We look forward to working with you and your children this year as we attempt to create a Climate for Success for every student. I hope that this controversy will not mar what is traditionally a very successful opening of school in LCPS.

Sincerely,
Dr. Edgar

[Platapus]

Posted on CNN

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...re/#more-67627

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event

Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.
I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.
I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and 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. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her 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.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.
That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn.

And along those lines, 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.
Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
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.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

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.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

A bit long winded but hey, he is a politician. Never say in 10 words that can't be said in 100 words.

About the best I can say about this speech is that it probably won't do any harm. I don't know what good it will do. A kid who does not want to apply themselves in school won't suddenly do so because of a politician's speech.

[CaptainHaplo]

Thanks Platapus.

Honestly, I have no issue here. Sure there are a few snippets on "policy" such as "how are you going to protect the environment" if you too dumb to graduate high school. But then again - he used the same logic with creating jobs. While I as an adult would question how a kid is supposed to do that with small businesses taxed to death, thats not somthing a kid is going to think of, so its a wash and I can see past it.

Overall, a decent speech that might make a few kids work a little harder, even if just for a few days. That's cool by me.

Sorry but I'm not reading through this thread. Could someone post a link to what Obama said, thank you.

edit. Oh he hasn't spoken yet. D'oh!

[Fish]

Is this thread for real?

Wait, it's satire, ....yes?

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Seth8530

Please don't speak unless you know what you speak of. I just so happen to be a senior in high school and i have yet to have a school day in all of my 12 years of public school that has started without our pledge.

Yes, my girls say the pledge everyday at school.

[Tchocky]

I remember the first time I had to say the pledge in elementary school. It was weird.

[August]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

I have no problem with a government subsidized higher education system. The benefits of living in a society of brain surgeons and rocket scientists are a lot greater than living in one of ditch diggers and bus drivers.

Really? Ever see a Brain Surgeon or Rocket Scientist dig a ditch or drive a bus?

Seriously, even if every student with the intelligence and drive to be successful could attend college completely free there would never be enough open positions in those fields to employ everyone.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

Thanks Platapus.

Honestly, I have no issue here. Sure there are a few snippets on "policy" such as "how are you going to protect the environment" if you too dumb to graduate high school. But then again - he used the same logic with creating jobs. While I as an adult would question how a kid is supposed to do that with small businesses taxed to death, thats not somthing a kid is going to think of, so its a wash and I can see past it.

Overall, a decent speech that might make a few kids work a little harder, even if just for a few days. That's cool by me.

Agreed. Good speech, I hope it helps some who need it. He's the President, he's entitled to speak to the students in public schools, just like Reagan did.

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

George H.W. Bush did.

Indeed he did but the media and congress's reaction was a little different... to say the least.

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.

http://video.ap.org/?f=VAAJN&PID=UlP...KghIunOf0Ut9rc

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Agreed. Good speech, I hope it helps some who need it. He's the President, he's entitled to speak to the students in public schools, just like Reagan did.

I read the speech. It was just fine IMO. Much to do about nothing over the whole thing. Life moves on.

[August]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

I read the speech. It was just fine IMO. Much to do about nothing over the whole thing. Life moves on.

I have to wonder is it nothing because the speech was always harmless or is it that way because they saw the way the wind was blowing and changed it to be harmless?

[antikristuseke]

Originally Posted by August

I have to wonder is it nothing because the speech was always harmless or is it that way because they saw the way the wind was blowing and changed it to be harmless?

I would bet on the first option, while he is a politician, he is not retarded.