Many Listened to the President; Some Tuned Him Out

The speech aired live in all Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools, apparently with a minimum of drama.

School systems in several surrounding counties let individual schools or teachers decide when and whether to let kids watch the speech. Early reports indicated many Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools had few or no opt-outs. But Joe Mahaffey, father of two CMS students, wrote to Superintendent Peter Gorman, objecting to South Mecklenburg High doing a graded assignment based on the speech.

Mahaffey said an automated phone message from Principal Maureen Furr said students who sat out the speech would still be responsible for doing an assignment on setting goals.

The President's remarks were made to 1,400 students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va., and carried via Internet and television across the country to an estimated 56 million children.

"If you quit on school, you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country," Obama said in the speech. "What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. The future of America depends on you."

The decision by administration officials to broadcast the speech on a nationwide basis drew the ire of conservative groups and other parents who said it gave Obama a chance to preach a political agenda to students, and that it was a waste of school time.

Obama is not the first President to speak nationwide with students. President George H.W. Bush did the same thing in 1991, and a question-and-answer session between President Reagan and high school students was carried live in 1986. Bush's speech was bitterly opposed by Democrats -- for much the same reason as Obama's talk was opposed by conservatives today.

Much of Obama's talk centered on his personal experience.

"My father left my family when I was 2 years old, and I was raised by a single mom who had to work and had struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn't always able to give us the things that other kids had," he said. "There were times when I missed having a father in my life.

"So I wasn't always as focused as I should have been on school, and I did some things that I'm not proud of, and I got in more trouble than I should have."

At Harding University High, a west-side magnet school, daily schedules were rearranged so all students would be finished with lunch and in class to watch the speech live at noon. No one asked to sit out, said Principal Alicisa Johnson.

Students in Keisha Kirkpatrick's chemistry class, chosen as one of eight classrooms around CMS that media and others could visit during the speech, listened quietly.

Sixteen-year-old Brandi Bright applauded quietly when Obama appeared on screen. Brandi, a junior who wants to become a teacher, said afterward she already knows it's important to work hard and graduate, but "to actually hear a President -- I know he didn't like pinpoint me out, but I felt like he was talking to me."

Daquan Jackson, a 16-year-old Harding senior, said he thinks the time would have been better spent learning chemistry.

"I think I already know what I have to do," he said. "I want to learn."

To people like Mahaffey, the parent of the South Mecklenburg High student, the speech itself wasn't the problem.

"I do not have a problem with the President trying to inspire young minds... Nor do I object to goal-setting exercises," he wrote. "However, political ideology, like religion, is personal and has no place in the classroom. to insist upon a graded activity such as this gives the appearance of indoctrination and should not have been considered."

At Alexander Graham Middle School in the Myers Park community, just four of the school's 1,000-plus students opted out of hearing the speech.

In Kellie Chapman's sixth-grade social studies class, 24 students watched the speech on C-SPAN, then talked about it afterward. CMS Area Superintendent Joel Ritchie, Principal Will Leach and three journalists listened in. The key points the students drew from the speech, they said: Learn from life's setbacks, don't make excuses for not trying hard in school, and get a good education now so you can land a good career later.

"You up for the challenge?" Chapman asked.

"Yes," the students replied.

"That didn't sound too good."

"Yesss!" they yelled.

"And whose responsibility is it to get a good education?"

"Ours!"

As the class filed out to go to lunch, reporters asked Taylor Sharpe what she thought of the speech.

"I loved it," she said. "I almost started crying."

As she spoke of her desire to help solve social problems like homelessness, the aspiring dancer/actress/singer with bright pink shoelaces in her sneakers began tearing up again. What, someone asked, could she do now to start being part of the solution?

"I'll try to study math harder," she said, smiling. "I'm not good in math."

And at Providence High School, just three students opted out.

"It was no problem -- not eventful," Principal Tracey Harrill said.

About 40 eighth-graders from Bishop Spaugh Community Academy in west Charlotte watched the lunchtime speech in the school's media center. School leaders planned to replay the speech for the entire school at 2 p.m.

Some students who viewed the live speech said they were surprised and glad that Obama was honest about his life growing up, and some of his struggles.

"He had the courage enough to tell us that he made mistakes in his life and he still managed to be successful," said Brandy Archie, 13. "When he said that it takes hard work to be successful, that inspired me."

Others said many of Obama's remarks echoed things they'd heard from their teachers or family members. But they said hearing it from the president made it more powerful.

"I think I'll try harder to do my work so I won't do good, I'll do great," said Rochelly Rodriguez, 13.