Actions not words

President Obama’s address to school children across the country generated plenty of misguided controversy. Most detractors were concerned with the Orwellian nature of the address, but that seems overblown. Personally I have enough trouble getting my kids to mow the lawn so I’m not too worried about them joining some Obama Youth Movement.

The real outrage should be focused on Obama’s hypocrisy. The president says he wants to encourage students to improve their academic achievement yet his actions tell another story. Earlier this year, Obama ended support for the private school choice program in Washington DC. According to the administration’s own education department, this program significantly raises academic achievement at one-quarter the cost of the district’s public schools.

In spite of the evidence, Obama condemned DC’s children to low academic achievement at the hands of a failed and pathetic public school system. The lesson students should learn from this speech won’t be found in any suggested teaching plan from a federal bureaucracy – actions speak louder than words.

[Letter to the Editor - Farmington Observer. Published 09/10/2009.]