Back-to-School with Obama

Posted by Gordon on September 4, 2009 at 8:30pm


Obama plans to systematically “embed positive behavior” into America’s Kids


By Marinka Peschmann, Special to C F P Friday, September 4, 2009

Some conservatives are under fire for claiming President Barack Obama’s back-to-school address is actually an indoctrination tactic intended to brainwash America’s school children with his political ideology as opposed to the White House’s stance that Obama’s address is a harmless Presidential reach-out to simply encourage kids. Are conservatives correct or going overboard? Let’s let Obama’s education record speak for itself. In 2007, then Senator Obama introduced education legislation which “systematically” “embeds” “positive behavior” into America’s kids to “achieve important social outcomes.”

First, let’s look at Obama’s initial plans for America’s school children scheduled for September 8. According to the Obama White House press release, “As children across America go back to school, President Obama will deliver a national address directly to students on the importance of taking responsibility for their success in school…“In advance of this address, the Department of Education is providing resources developed by and for teachers to help engage students and stimulate discussion about persisting and succeeding in school.”

Next, as we now know, the White House in cahoots with the Board of Education created a lesson plan that included pre-address and post-address school assignments. The students, pre-K through sixth graders, were asked to write answers to questions like “What is the President asking me to do?” Then after listening to President Obama’s speech, the students would be instructed to write letters answering “what they can do to help the president” that teachers would later use in the classroom to “make students accountable to their goals.”

As CFP reported here, the White House has since withdrew their call for students to help Obama, claiming it was an “honest misunderstanding.” The address was meant to be an “inspirational, pro-education” message as opposed to a pro-Obama narcissist exercise.

Recall, prior to the election, then presidential hopeful, Barack Obama’s, experience with education was working with William Ayers, the unrepentant domestic terrorist and former Weather Underground Operative. It was Ayers, now a “distinguished” professor in Chicago, who served as “Collaborative” co-chair and crafted Chicago public school education policies to Obama’s chairmanship in the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC). CAC reportedly funneled over US$100 million to radical activists and radicalized students. Story here.

Moreover, as CFP reported, prior to the 2008 Presidential elections, on September 27, 2007, then Senator Obama introduced the “Positive Behavior for Effective Schools Act” in the Senate. Obama’s education bill, S.2111, significantly redesigns and amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to allow, in part, for “State…local educational agencies, and schools to increase implementation of early intervention services particularly school-wide positive behavior supports.”

According to Section 3, “the term `positive behavior support’ means a systematic approach to embed proven practices for early intervening services, including a range of systemic and individualized strategies to reinforce desired behaviors and eliminate reinforcement for problem behaviors, in order to achieve important social outcomes (emphasis added)…” Story here.

Section 5 called: “Teacher and Principal Preparation to Improve School Climate,” mandates a new requirement for teachers and principals. It is described as “an understanding of social or emotional, or both, learning in children…such as positive behavior support.” Obama’s bill also provides for “instructional leadership skills to help teachers” satisfy this requirement.

In Section 8 Obama’s bill creates what’s called the “Office of Specialized Instructional Support Services” which shall “administer, coordinate, implement, and ensure adequate evaluation of the effectiveness of programs …” via a new “Director” who provides “continuous training and professional development opportunities for specialized instructional support personnel” comprised of “school counselors…social workers…psychologists, and others…” These “instructional support personnel” provide “assessment, diagnosis, counseling, educational, therapeutic, and other necessary corrective or supportive services…” for students.

Obama’s bill intends to extract–without restrictions from Title I funds. The bill “re-designates” funds to allow State educational agencies to “allocate funds to develop and implement coordinated, early intervening services (including school-wide positive behavior supports) for all students, including those who have not been identified as needing special education (emphasis CFP) but who need additional academic and behavioral support to succeed…”

Obama’s bill did not specify the “systematic approach” he plans to “embed” in America’s students to achieve the “desired behaviors” or “important social outcomes” his legislation mandates. Inquires to former Senator Obama’s Presidential campaign and now to the White House to define them have thus far gone unanswered. Perhaps Obama should explain to parents exactly what he means before he addresses American’s innocent school children this Tuesday. Indoctrination? Yes, no?

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Comment by Josie on September 21, 2009 at 9:54pm ICK! Just stumbled on this just now.........yeah I am SLOW!

You all KNOW The 1 will do this schtick next year. I will have my daughters excused from this brainwashing crap. You know the Dems had a hissy fit when Bush 41 did this, & there was no bellyaching to be had because Bush 41 didn't use this as a propaganda tool, unlike THEIR Dear Leader! Perhaps, therein lies the rub with these Dems: they raised a big stink about this school speech with Bush because with the Left, it's always a sinister plan, you think? I do think this!