Something’s Changed at Brandywine School District
Yesterday when I found out that the Brandywine School District was not going to be showing the President of the United States’ speech to our children on Tuesday, I went to their website to get some addresses. The one thing I noticed was that there was a graphic on Meet the Finalist night with times and places over the next few weeks. What wasn’t there was what I saw today — a graphic about President Obama addressing the school children. No official word yet. No response to emails. But something has changed. I imagine a reverse-911 call from the school district is forthcoming.
Tags: brandywine school district, Education, President Obama
Why is this important?
not related to this thread, but a general question – who gets to write articles for this blog?
The way I read it, it means one of two things. Either they are getting ready to reverse course, or more likely, this is their cop-out. They post this link so you can watch the speech at home. That way they can say they were not completely against it, just didn’t want to show it in school.
Scott P, your two choices are where they probably are going. In two-and-a-half days we will know. But as I said in the post, the ol’ reverse-911 call from district headquarters should be coming soon.
I wonder if they got feedback from parents. I hope so.
rj,
Under the recent comments, there’s a button you can hit that says “contributors.” You can click on each name to get our self-written bios and individual articles.
You could also read this article: How Delaware Liberal Works.
I can tell you that BSD board members certainly received unfavorable feedback from this BSD parent this evening. What a disgrace.
thx for the info. i presume any invitation-to-write is after some amount of blogging. strictly speaking i am probably not as left leaning as your staff. i claim to be libertarian, but steve “i am the light of the world” newton seems to think i’m not. well, irrespective of whether i meet the rqmts for Club Newton, i still see myself as libertarian. however, this blog is a bit more spontaneous and interesting than the libertarian one. probably doesn’t matter because i’m too busy any way, and currently a few time zones away. well it makes for interesting reading. good luck.
“…strictly speaking i am probably not as left leaning as your staff.”
Check your ass. Is there a hammer and sickle tattooed on it?
nope. i guess i’m safe then.
As opposed to Miscreant, who has a hammer and sickle up it.
Thanks for the heads up, Nemski. I just sent this to the BSD Board and cc’d the new superintendent:
I have read, with no small amount of horror, that BSD, has fallen victim to national politics of the most poisonous kind and will refuse to allow the children of Brandywine Hundred the chance to listen to an address from the President. I am a 1976 BHS graduate who walked to my local public schools from my parents’ home in Windsor Hills.
In elementary school, I remember occasionally being a participant in some national event by means of a television set wheeled into class. What I never lacked as a BSD student was a sense of being an American; of belonging to this country in a meaningful way.
I was so proud to pledge to the flag in the morning and to bow my head in silent prayer. I was so proud of my country, our democracy and yes, my President.
Shame on the school administration that would now show kids that it is OK to turn their backs on the President. These school children will all grow up thinking that there is something wrong with hearing what the elected leader of the nation has to say to them. That is unamerican and it is wrong and a terrible disservice to this democracy.
You, Board officials, are abetting a decision that will confuse school kids and make them less able to understand what it means to live in our great democracy.
Barack Obama is the democratically elected leader of America. If he wants to tell the children of this country to be good, stay in school and buckle down, isn’t that a message that they need to hear? Who are any of you to tell these children that they can’t hear it?
So what about all the other school districts?
wonder how the folks we gave a forum for their recent elections AT BSD feel?
Tom S, Indian River won’t be showing it (surprised?, I think not) and Red Clay is saying it is a class by class decision. So far, that’s all we know.
do you think Sidwell Friends in DC will show the speach?
John Young reported that the Christina school district was showing the speech and allowed parents to “opt out” their children.
yes UI, CSD is allowing the speech. There may be a resource issue as far as getting all kids to it “live”, but there is no prohibition on showing the speech including afterwords as a replay. Any parent that objects is welcome to opt out their child, with NO consequences whatsoever.
has anyone seen this yet? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqcPA1ysSbw
any thoughts on it. I think it’s half nice, and half creepy
I think the source of the controversy was the over-reaching of certain DoE functionaries who decided to provide lesson plans that were explicitly political.
Unfortunately, this compromised the speech in a way that could not be undone.
Personally, I would have preferred that Obama give his speech on Constitution Day (Sept 17), which all schools are required to observe by unfunded federal mandate. Provide actual academic content rather than a pep talk.
I think Indian River is not showing it because they’re closed that day in observance of the police officer killed last week. I could be wrong, though.
MM, I just went to their site and it says nothing about that they are closed on Tuesday. BTW, what a dumb reason to close. It’s a teachable moment, not a vacation day.
I guess it’s not that one. I know one or two of the districts down there are closed for the day. Read that somewhere.
Nemski,
It’s in the upper-right of the site. School closed Sept. 8.
http://www.irsd.net/
D’uh. I was looking at Florida’s Indian River School District. 😉
And I’ll stand by my statement that IR is losing a great teachable moment.
I agree.
Can we all agree that, even if the controversy had not erupted, it was a kind of bullshit thing to do in the first place? Wouldn’t a better use of the bully pulpit be an address to parents, imploring them to emphasize education in their children’s lives? How about a presidential exhortation that every child should do at least 30 minutes of homework each day, and that the adults in their lives should help them or at least check to ensure it’s done?
Sorry, just being pragmatic. You may return to your previously scheduled water-balloon fight.
Why not both, Geezer?
I meant it as one speech. For me, this administration is just one blown opportunity after another, even at the merely rhetorical level.
The real problem is that Republicans offer no sane counter-balance. Their base is their party. And because they were once one of the main parties in basically a two-party system everyone keeps treating them as viable… and newsworthy.
pandora, those guys (republicans) controlled the dialog for over two decades. i’d say they are still a)viable, and b) newsworthy. they might not be c) correct, but i would not d) discount them.
anyway i THINK geezer gets its.
“…even if the controversy had not erupted, it was a kind of bullshit thing to do in the first place… “
Can we all agree that, even if the controversy had not erupted, it was a kind of bullshit thing to do in the first place? Wouldn’t a better use of the bully pulpit be an address to parents, imploring them to emphasize education in their children’s lives?
Why would we agree to that? If you go to google and type in Obama+parenting or any permutation on that you get a few pages of articles reporting on speeches Obama made in the last year and half talking to parents about stepping up. He made a Father’s Day speech asking dads to step up. He hasn’t made a speech proscribing homework, but why would a speech by the most famous adult in the US talking to them about staying in school be a bullshit thing to do?
I keep asking this question and no one has an answer. It isn’t as though he is there to talk about NCLB (GWB or the War on Drugs (GHWB) or anti-government propaganda (Reagan). From where I sit, kids need more people reinforcing this message, not fewer. And from where I sit, if these kids’ grownups spent half as much time vetting what their TVs are saying to these kids as they do this speech, perhaps all of these kids would be doing a whole lot better.
I just received this email from Olivia Johnson-Harris, VP of BSD, which seems to reverse what we had understood to be the position of the Board:
Dept. of Education, Secretary Lowry left the Presidential Speech up to the discretion of the Districts. The logistics and timing made it extremely difficult for a “district wide” viewing of the Presidential live speech at noon. However, each teacher can view the speech individually either live or via the Internet at a time appropriate for their class to further discuss. BSD supports the president and we encourage individual teachers to incorporate the President’s message in their classroom discussion. This same decision was made by other districts in Delaware. Thank you again for bringing your concern to my attention.
Signals from peers have much to do with culture. Sometimes peer pressure lifts; more often it dumbs things down. In all cases, youth culture affects the entire society. A president who is already popular with youth is wise to use this opportunity to bypass the parental filter and engender aspirations in the next generation.
Holy SheepShit, Geezer does get it.
Why is it bullshit? Because you can’t make a speech to all students, from kindergarten to high school, and hope to accomplish anything. At what grade level do you aim your rhetoric? Your vocabulary?
Look at the DARE program — cops telling 5th-graders that drugs aren’t cool. Swell, because 10-year-olds still relate well to authority figures. By 8th grade, cops are the opposite of cool — and that’s the age group in danger of dropping out, isn’t it? Do you really think Obama is cool enough to talk them into taking school seriously — in 15 minutes, mind you.
C’mon. Do you really think it would accomplish anything other than to imprint the Obama brand on a few young minds?
Why is it bullshit? Because you can’t make a speech to all students, from kindergarten to high school, and hope to accomplish anything. At what grade level do you aim your rhetoric? Your vocabulary?
Personally I would have thought that the message of staying in school and working hard and personal responsibility to have some universal language and meaning — unless your expectation is that these kids have never heard these words in any context previously.
Do you really think Obama is cool enough to talk them into taking school seriously — in 15 minutes, mind you.
If he is not cool enough for kids to take him seriously on this, then they won’t take him seriously on whatever nefarious socialist agenda the wingnuts accuse him of. Besides no one is making any claims of how effective this may be. Presidents and First Ladies speak to schools all of the time. Kids write to the White House all of the time. And again, this is alot of sturm and drang over a 15 minutes that apparently won’t accomplish anything.
Yeah, don’t confuse what I”m saying with wingnut objections. My point is it won’t accomplish anything, not that it’s nefarious.
The message to stay in school is lost on grade-schoolers — that’s why I brought up DARE. Kids listen eagerly in 5th grade, and are smoking pot by 9th grade.
So I stand by my original claim — it’s a bullshit thing to do if you do it this way. Either do something significant or don’t bother. This falls into the insignificant category, IMHO.
The message to stay in school is lost on grade-schoolers
It isn’t lost on these grade schoolers if they hear it often enough and get it reinforced often enough. No one ever reaches everybody — whether you are trying to talk about policy or trying to add to motivation. It becomes a bullshit exercise if it is cynically done or done with grand promises of a game changing speech.
There was a broad expectation after Obama won that he would be a great role model for the values of school and working hard at it. I see this speech in the category of giving something back, and having the bully pulpit to do it. This isn’t much different from a visit to the school by some local pol who gives the same stay in school stuff, or the local fire chief providing the same message or the other litany of non-school related people students see who recite the same language. Even if it is bullshit, I still do not get why one more grownup reinforcing this message can possible be a bad thing.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing. But let’s face it, Cass, we voted for Obama because we thought he was better than “some local pol,” and so far all I’m seeing is the same BS PR crap that I’d see from some lesser light.