George Joyce

In a nationally televised educational address next Tuesday Barack Obama is scheduled to, according to the Department of Education, “challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning.”

Concerns by many Americans that Mr. Obama’s televised address to schoolchildren will simply represent a forum for socialist indoctrination are wildly “overwrought” according to a Wall Street Journal editorial today:

“America’s children are not so vulnerable that we need to slap an NC-17 rating on Presidential speeches. Given how many minority children struggle in school, a pep talk from the first African-American President could even do some good.”

While the WSJ editors criticized some of the Education Department’s post speech lesson plans they also condemned those “columnists who spy a conspiracy theory behind every Democrat” for “spreading alarm.”  

Could a pep talk from the first African-American President “do some good” for minority students as the WSJ editors argue?  Back in September of last year Steve Gilbert of Sweetness and Light pondered over our first African-American president’s prior academic performance:

“By his own admission, Obama spent his final two years in high school skipping classes, playing basketball, doing cocaine and getting drunk.”

After high school, Gilbert notes the following about Obama:

“Similarly, his admission to Harvard Law School is highly questionable. Where are his LSAT scores? And how does one graduate from Columbia without honors and yet get accepted at Harvard Law? Lastly, his ascendency to the Presidency of the Harvard Law school would appear to have also been a case of blatant affirmative action, since the student Obama had only written one legal paper — and that was quite short and remarkably undistinguished.  So where are his grade transcripts?”

If Confucius were to describe a democracy, he’d probably say that the people are the “parents” and the rulers are the “children.”  Children are normally required by their parents to be open and transparent about their grades at school.  Barack Obama has sealed off his transcripts from the people.

Is it possible for the first African-American president to inspire minority schoolchildren about education when he continues to hide the record of his academic performance?

Many of us had to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for our learning because our gender and skin color actively worked against us on college admissions panels.  There were others however who could get drunk, do cocaine, skip class and still make it to the Ivy League.

Lao Tzu once said that “you gain by losing, lose by gaining.”  Now I think I know what he means.