Teach your children well
In Wednesday’s Washington Update Tony Perkins took aim at President Obama’s upcoming address to American school children and flubbed the facts in his very first sentence:
The U.S. Department of Education announced that Barack Obama will become the first President to address the nation’s schoolchildren next week.
Obama is not the first president to address the nation’s schoolchildren, and the Department of Education’s announcement does not make this claim. In fact, the article to which Perkins links states that President George H.W. Bush made such an address in 1991. President Reagan addressed American students as well.
Perkins also took to FOX News to criticize the President’s address and misrepresent his education record. Thinkprogress has a terrific fact-check of Perkins’ dubious claims.
Following up on both of these attacks, FRC kept at it in yesterday’s Washington Update, claiming that one of the 8 exercises listed on a sheet of suggested post-speech activities — “Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president” — was “the core question” related to the President’s address. (Note, the lesson has since been replaced, as FRC acknowledges.) However, the other 7 questions centered directly on the students’ goals for themselves, and the Department of Education describes the content of the speech thusly:
the president will speak directly to the nation’s children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school. The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning.
(Perkins also mused that “The timing of the speech is certainly suspect as he is embroiled in a very controversial policy debate…” but perhaps the timing of the President’s address to schoolchildren is related to the fact that the school year is starting.)
You might think that an address by the President of the United States — whoever it is — encouraging children to work hard, set goals and take responsibility would be that rare speech that wouldn’t get politicized and distorted by the religious right. Unfortunately, you’d be wrong.