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June 3, 2012

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Obama: Stay in school and ‘stay focused’

Clark County School District not sure how many local students saw speech

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AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

President Barack Obama, accompanied by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, talks to students prior to delivering a speech on education at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va., Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009.

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Published Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009 | 9:26 a.m.

Updated Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009 | 11 a.m.

Obama's speech

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In a pep talk that kept clear of politics, President Barack Obama on Tuesday challenged the nation's students to take pride and ownership in their education – and stick with it even if they don't like every class or are overcoming tough circumstances at home.

"Every single one of you has something that you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer," Obama told students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va., and children watching his speech on television in schools across the country. "And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is."

Presidents often visit schools, and Obama was not the first one to offer a back-to-school address aimed at millions of students in every grade. Yet this speech came with a dose of controversy, as several conservative organizations and many concerned parents warned Obama was trying to sell his political agenda.

That concern was caused, in part, by an accompanying administration lesson plan encouraging students to "help the president," which the White House later revised.

Obama did not address the controversy in his address, focusing instead on directly addressing students.

“I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, and supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working, where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve,” he said.

“But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, the best schools in the world – and none of it will make a difference, none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities, unless you show up to those schools, unless you pay attention to those teachers, unless you listen to your parents and grandparents and other adults and put in the hard work it takes to succeed. That's what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. ”

Clark County School District Superintendent Walt Rulffes said the district had received numerous calls from parents about the speech, which was broadcast live on the White House Web site and on C-SPAN.

Schools in the district were able to decide whether to show the speech to students, but parents who didn’t want their children to see the president’s speech could ask that their children be given an alternative activity.

The district instructed principals to determine how the speech would be used at each school, but students generally weren't going to see the speech unless it tied to related course work, such as in political or history classes.

School district spokesman Dave Sheehan said Tuesday the district does not know how many students were shown the speech because the decision was made on a class-by-class basis in the district’s 350 schools.

“It just would be an impossible task right now to find (that) out,” he said.

Some schools told the Sun this morning that no teachers were showing the speech, despite the OK from the district to do so if they wished.

Representatives in other schools said they were not sure whether teachers were showing the speech.

Sheehan said the district continued to receive numerous calls from parents today, but he had not heard reports of problems at any of the schools because of the speech.

A spokesman for the Clark County Republican Party said that while “the content of the speech was fine,” concerns and protests over the president’s address were justified.

“What he said was fine, you cannot disagree with the things he said, although I will say that’s a parent’s responsibility, that’s a family’s responsibility, to go over those things, and once you start supplanting the parent’s responsibility and passing that off and thinking the government’s going to handle that, we go down a dangerous road with that,” Ron Futrell said.

Futrell said many of the concerns before the speech were because of Obama’s political agenda and a distrust of what he would say to the students.

“The reservations that many people had prior to his speech were based on Obama’s agenda of making government larger and more intrusive into people’s lives,” he said. “That’s an absolute natural apprehension based on Obama’s history.”

Some Republicans are also upset because of the suggested lesson plans provided by the U.S. Department of Education to go along with the speech and a "I Am What I Learn" video contest the department is sponsoring for students to show how they “respond to the president's challenge,” according to the department’s Web site.

“To me that sounds more like a polling project than a speech to the kids,” Futrell said. “I think people should have reservations about our kids being used as a polling project by the president.”

Local Democrats disagreed with the Republican protests, saying the president's speech was inspirational and not political.

“President Obama’s message to students to take personal responsibility for their education – to stay in school and study hard – was an inspirational one,” said Nevada Democratic Party spokeswoman Phoebe Sweet. “This chance for the president of the United States of America to speak directly to students was a good educational opportunity. Despite the rhetoric from the other side, the president’s speech was far from political, and a must-watch, according Newt Gingrich and Laura Bush.”

Obama used examples from his own life and that of his wife, Michelle, to encourage students to get a good education, even if they find it difficult.

“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 – none of that is an excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude in school.

“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,” the president said.

The uproar over the speech followed Obama across the Potomac River from Washington, as his motorcade was greeted by a small band of protesters. One carried a sign exclaiming: "Mr. President, stay away from our kids."

Critics accused him of overstepping his authority, and school districts in some areas decided not to provide their students access to his speech.

The White House posted Obama’s prepared remarks online Monday to give parents and educators a chance to review them before the speech.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan acknowledged again Tuesday that some prepared guidance for school officials included a suggestion that students could compose essays stating how they could help support Obama and his causes -- an idea the education secretary acknowledged was wrongheaded.

Before the speech, Obama and Duncan met with some 40 students gathered in a school library.

The president told students to "be careful what you post on Facebook."

"Whatever you do," he told them, "it will be pulled up later in your life."

"When I was your age," Obama added, "I was a little bit of a goof-off. My main goal was to get on the varsity basketball team and have fun."

During his meeting inside with students, one young person asked why the country doesn't have universal health insurance. "I think we need it. I think we can do it," Obama replied.

The president said the country can afford to insure all Americans and that doing so will save money in the long run.

Repeating remarks he prepared for the address to students across the country, Obama said young people should "stay focused, find something you're passionate about."

Obama said that not having a father at home "forced me to grow up faster."

One young person asked the president whom he would choose to dine with if he could make only one such selection.

"Gandhi," Obama replied. "He's somebody I find a lot of inspiration in. He inspired Dr. (Martin Luther) King" with his message of nonviolence.

"He ended up doing so much and changed the world just by the power of his ethics," Obama said of the inspirational leader Mahatma Gandhi. At another point, Obama told the students "a lot of people are counting on me."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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