Skip to main content

Obama's back to school speech, why are Republican's scared?

In the wake of President Obama's speech to all students welcoming them back to school and stressing the importance of studying hard and staying in school. Republican politicians are up in arms over this, saying that the president is overstepping his boundaries and using this to push his policies onto children. Hmmm, did these same politicians have a problem when Reagan and Bush Sr. did this? Here's why we shouldn't be scared about Obama's speech:

"I believe a case can be made that the decline in the quality of public school education began when Federal aid to education became Federal interference in education." Ronald Reagan

"If you serve a child a rotten hamburger in America, federal, state, and local agencies will investigate you, summon you, close you down, whatever. But if you provide a child with a rotten education, nothing happens, except that you're liable to be given more money to do it with. Well, we've discovered that money alone isn't the answer." Ronald Reagan

"We think there is a parallel between federal involvement in education and the decline in profit over recent years." Ronald Reagan

"You don't have to go to college to be a success ... We need the people who run the offices, the people who do the hard physical work of our society." George H.W. Bush

"I'm not what you call your basic intellectual." George H.W. Bush

"Rarely is the question asked. Is our children learning?" George W. Bush

"It is time to set aside the old partisan bickering and finger-pointing and name-calling that comes from freeing parents to make different choices for their children." George W Bush

"Columbia carried in its payroll classroom experiments from some of our students in America." George W. Bush

Honestly, the last one is so convoluted, I don't even know what to say. Our country has been run by a republican administration for twenty of the last twenty-eight years and out educational system has quickly become one of the worst in the world. It is not the teachers faults, because I know many teachers who are intelligent, nurturing and determined, but we have over sized classes, not enough resources, and spending usually goes to areas that do not help the children.

Let's wait til after Obama's speech to ridicule him. After reading the quotes I was able to find by his predecessors, I don't think the nation's children are in bad hands.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

White Privilege

This was a post I wrote on Facebook after surprisingly not seeing any moaning about the Documentary by Jose Antonio Vargas, titled White People Dayyum! I just scrolled my timeline and not a single white person got their feelings hurt by White People. I unfortunately haven't seen it, but the number of fake accounts that popped up on twitter, tells me it was a damn good show. Here's the thing. If someone of color aka non-white says "White Privilege," are you offended? If you said yes, then you are exhibiting white privilege. It has nothing to do with how hard you work or study, how you stayed out of trouble, because here's the thing, that is entirely the point. Somewhere out there, there are 100 Black, Spanish, Native American, Arab, Asian, who worked and studied as hard as you and never got in trouble, but they don't have what you "earned" or achieved. Stop looking at the one person you know who isn't white that achieved as your benchmark. Loo

11 Rules of Life - Bill Gates?

I read this on Facebook this morning.  A friend had posted it and said that every child should have to receive this. I of course read it and started to think.  I immediately wondered who really wrote this, as I rarely see things like this attributed to the proper person.  I immediately found it was written by Conservative Charles J. Sykes when he wrote a book about how America is dumbing down our youth.  I read it twice and started to wonder how true it was.  Below is a link to the actual picture I saw. So let's look at each of the rules and analyze them. Rule 1: Life is not fair — get used to it! - Life is not fair in that we are not all afforded the same opportunities based on race, creed, color, socio-economic background, but in general, those who are afforded the same opportunities to succeed are very often rewarded for their individual efforts.  Sure there may be underlying circumstances, but hard work is proven to pay more often than not and those who strive for succ

Quickie Review - Finding Vivian Maier

While I thoroughly enjoyed the film, especially the first 15-20 minutes, I was a little bothered by the way the film played out. The interviews with the clearly disturbed brother, sister and the mother, who obviously, was in for a cut, didn't need to be in the film. Then the woman who suggested abuse, yet seemed to have her life defined by Maier, as she tried to muster every ounce of emotion and fake guilt. Her friend, more than happy to be party of the charade. People who talk about abuse for the first time, usually don't do so on camera. The fact these scenes were so prominent, shows that they felt wronged that they were not rewarded. Maloof on the other hand, seems to disappear from the documentary during this part, almost hiding away from the fact, he went from complete praise, to even making money off of her, to destroying her personal legacy. He almost mentions the family of boys taking care of her rent, as an afterthought. Her burial spot, never shown, yet a video of her