Homework for Students, Parents & Teachers

After President Obama Speaks Tuesday

 

 

No matter what your position is on the controversial televised speech by President Obama, scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday, here are some take-home questions for discussion around dinner tables, and when contacting your representatives in Congress and the White House:

 

1.       Mr. President, the point of your speech is that each of us should take personal responsibility for our own futures. Yet you continue to push for a socialized health-care system which would transfer the responsibility for quality and payment from individuals to the government. That's the opposite of personal responsibility. Moreover, you oppose tort reform, private-market initiatives to give us more choices, and the creation of health-savings accounts. All of those would cut costs, improve quality and give each of us a powerful financial incentive to manage our own health-care more wisely. How do you explain this inconsistency?

 

 

2.       In your autobiography, Dreams From My Father, you state that you broke the drug laws repeatedly as a teenager and young adult, Quoting you on page 92: "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though. . . ." ("Blow" is a slang term for cocaine.) Your book does not include a shred of remorse or repentance over that past drug use, nor did you turn yourself in for prosecution and rehabilitation. In contrast, our parents and schools bend over backwards to urge us NOT to take drugs. So why should we listen to you for advice on taking personal responsibility for our own behavior?

 

 

3.       You say you want kids to work hard in school and do their homework diligently. Let's look at the basic 3 R's, starting with reading. You have admitted that you have not read the bills that you and your Administration are pushing, including the health-care bill that is now being debated. You don't understand the details, nor grasp the implications. It was the same way with the stimulus spending bill. What kind of an example does that set for students?  

 

 

4.       The second basic academic skill, writing, almost always carries a rule in school, that students are not to use curse words in any form or fashion, or they will be punished or suspended. The idea is to train students to express ideas well, without resorting to the shock value of profanity, which degrades both the writer and the reader. Yet in your autobiography, these words appear: "f*cking," "b*tch," "sh*t," "motherf*cker," and many more. Is this the style of writing we should follow?

 

 

5.       The third academic skill is math. You said recently that your spending policies had cut federal spending by $2.2 trillion over the next 10 years. But according to the nonpartisan U.S. Congressional Budget Office, government spending under the policies you have put in place would INCREASE by $2.7 trillion over that time period. Meanwhile, that office projects that under your spending policies, the U.S. will have an overall deficit of $9.1 trillion - far and away the largest increase in the deficit by any President in American history. How do you explain such an enormous math error?

 

 

6.       Listening is another key academic skill. Teachers are always saying that kids today don't listen well, probably because of too much TV, video games, text-messaging and other activities that erode their ability to listen, learn and concentrate. But, Mr. President, you said that you sat in the pews of the church of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright for 20 years and never heard him say any of the controversial things he said, that caused you to distance yourself from him before the election. What kind of a role model are you as a listener for schoolchildren to emulate?

 

 

7.       Another key message in your speech is to urge students not to drop out of school. The best way to keep low-income, minority kids engaged in school is to make sure the school meets their needs. Then why did you sign that omnibus appropriations bill in March that ended the innovative school-choice solution for disadvantaged students, the Opportunity Scholarships Program, in Washington, D.C.? Four times as many families applied as there were slots. About 1,700 students were receiving up to $7,500 to pay private-school tuition in the D.C. area. Studies showed that they were doing better than the kids who stayed in the D.C. public schools, which spend $14,400 a year, and ranked last in reading and second-to-last in math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress standardized tests. So no wonder those families wanted out. Mr. President, you are able to pay the $28,442 per pupil tuition at the Sidwell Friends private school that your own two daughters go to. But these low-income families can't afford to send their children to the schools of their choice. It is possible now that thousands of kids will drop out, who otherwise might have "made it," because you cut their funding. How do you explain this, in the light of the "don't drop out" message of your speech?

 

 

8.       When it comes to science education, you state on p. 10 of your other autobiography, The Audacity of Hope, that you believe in evolution and global warming. But is there a shred of evidence that macroevolution - change from one species to another - has ever occurred? Isn't the scientific record really showing a lot of microevolution - genetic shifts within one "kind" of animal or plant life that may change the features of that species but not their essence? As for global warming, doesn't science now reveal that it is false, and human actions have not had any significant impact on planetary climate change?

 

 

9.       Sex ed and character development are an important part of the mission of schools today. Your model as a loving husband and committed father are excellent and worthy of emulation. However, during the campaign, when asked a question about abortion, you said you favored it and that you wouldn't want your daughters to be "punished" by an unwanted pregnancy. Mr. President, just about every family in this nation has at least one family member who was "unwanted." Does that mean we are "punishing" our families by our very existence? Also, as a baptized Christian, how do you explain your approval of abortion in light of Exodus 20:13, "Thou shalt not kill"?

 

 

10.   Peer pressure is a powerful force on young people today. "Good" people in your life make it easier to stay in school and do your best, while "bad" peers and advisors drag you down and keep you from reaching your dreams. Peer influence is absolutely crucial. You make this truth very clear in your autobiography. But it is troubling to see all the influential people in your life that most Americans would view as having had a negative or destructive effect on society. For example, in your autobiography you mention your boyhood mentor for nine years in Hawaii, the communist writer Frank Davis Marshall (1905-1987), who was reportedly a pedophile, pothead and anti-Christian in addition to his radical political activities and writings. We just witnessed the resignation of one of your "czars," Van Johnson, for anti-white and anti-American statements made as recently as this past spring, calling his fellow Americans with different political opinions "a**holes." There was much criticism of your friendship with urban terrorist Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground, and your well-publicized admiration for communist Saul Alinsky's book, Rules for Radicals, a blueprint for overthrowing the American way of life. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright's "hate speech" controversy comes to mind. And there has been much controversy over a number of your Administration's appointees who have cheated on their taxes and otherwise gotten into ethical or legal trouble. If these are the people who've influenced you and formed your heart, are you really the best person to be advising us on anything?