School Districts Ban President Obama's Education Speech
9/18/2009 —
Schools that did not show President Obama’s Back to School Speech on September 8th:
Newport-Mesa Unified School District
City of
East Allen County Schools[11]
Brewer school district[13]
New Albany-Plain Local
Schools that did not show the speech, but allowed teachers to show a recording of the speech at a later date:
Penn-Trafford school district[27]
Plum Borough school district[28]
York County Schools[31]
Non-ideological reasons cited for not showing the speech:
2. School did not have technical capacity to show speech (e.g. did not have televisions in every classroom, or lacked the bandwidth capacity to stream the speech)
3. School decided that running the speech would be an interruption and would take time away from the curriculum. Some schools also did not run the speech because it interrupted first day of school procedures. Other schools did not show the speech because it ran during scheduled lunch period.
Other trends observed:
1. School districts and schools allowing teachers to decide on whether or not to show the speech on a class-by-class basis
2. Allowing students to opt out (some schools required a parent-signed permission slip)
[2] http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-schoolkids5-2009sep05,0,2023699.story
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[8]
[11]
[16] http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090904/NEWS02/909040357/1009/NEWS01/Some+schools+won+t+show+kids+Obama+s+speech
[17]
[21]
[23]
[26]
[28]
[29]
[31]
