The President's address to schoolchildren

I keep seeing this described in the press as an address to "all" public school children. But since the Federal Government can't actually require any school to put this program on, I hope that "all" simply expresses their hope as to who will tune in.

I've read through the Ed. Department's teacher's guide for the address several times (this is the pre-K through 6th grade guide) and am left wondering what this speech will cover. There's a lot about what the President will ask the kids to do and how the kids can help the President.

Maybe it's innocuous: "study hard and go to school." Typical for modern presidents, where our view of his role, sadly, has degenerated into a lot of this sort of thing. But harmless and actually a bit of good for the kids.

But I wonder whether or not this will be where Obama makes his push for community service, which his campaign had said he'd require of all students. The Mrs., who grew up in Communist Eastern Europe, rolled her eyes and said that was what they had to do every school year--two weeks of working out in the fields. You weren't actually required to do that, interestingly enough. You'd just have to repeat the school year if you opted out, that's all...

There's also the problematic phrasing in this teacher's guide:

"Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?"

Ummm...it is not important to listen to any of them! It is important for them to listen to us. We have absolutely no obligation, under any interpretation of our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, other founding documents, writings of the Founding Fathers, or of the whole premise of our system of government, to "listen to" our elected officials (or bureaucrats, for that matter). Our system is predicated on their listening to us, and there is not the converse idea of our needing to listen to them.

We are not wards of the state. We are free men. Our President needs to listen to us, and we go about our lives without needing him to tell us to do things for him. Now, again, if he's just going to tell the kids to study hard, that's fine. It's the advice of any adult to a child. But he gets no special consideration by being President, and he needs to remember that.

Univ. Chicago to allow mixed-sex dorm roomates

What could possibly go wrong?

Obama's higher-ed plan

The Weekly Standard's Andrew Ferguson takes a skeptical look. Ferguson discusses the division between seeing higher-education as mere job training (a view that grates on me) and education as creating a well-rounded person (that's closer to mine). I like the liberal arts ideal, and I think education is a good in itself (or nearly so). It creates a citizenry with the broad background that lets them see the relationships between different aspects of life, the universe, and everything. Rather than an existence narrowly focused on our chosen jobs.

Hmm...I don't think I've expressed that too clearly, but my point is that I like people to be well rounded.

Anyway, Ferguson notes that the apparently low college graduation rates are largely a result of immigration, and that it ignores the increasingly common return of older adults to college.

One thing that does stand out is the President's remark that high school or college drop-outs are giving up on their country. That line got some applause in Congress. I don't know that it's clearly questioning the patriotism of the drop-outs, as Ferguson and some of the guys at National Review have suggested. But it does fall into the category of treating a person's education as a national resource. In some sense, it is--it contributes to the health of the country. But there's a related tendency to regard it primarily as the possession of the country.

With that comes the attitude that the government can and should direct your path through higher education for its ends. If you don't go to college, you're seen as harming the country. Perhaps you'll be required to do what's best for the country, rather than what you see as best for yourself. The states already do that with regards to schooling up through the age of 16 (at least that's the legal drop-out age in Tennessee, last time I checked). That's been so long established that we don't really question the underlying principle. I don't have any desire to eliminate that, but I disagree with extending the guiding attitude to college. I doubt they'd be able to pass an education requirement for anyone past the age of majority, anyway.