Obama's online town hall gets kudos

Again.......I'm not sure access and information is a bad deal. We certainly seem to have an interesting use of the internet when it comes to playing sound bite after sound bite.

Three millions? Bet the next one will be even bigger as more and more people become unemployed - but hey, he loves a big audience for his big ego.

In his televised town hall meeting, President Obama continues to miss the point about "failing schools." The schools are not failing, the economy is failing the parents.

I've taught as either a volunteer or paid staffer at every level from the Head Start program up thru being a teaching assistant at SFSU. The best predictor of student performance is the resources - skills and attitudes - with which students arrive at school.

Students who arrive from neighborhoods where a high percentage of the adults - and particularly the men - are either missing or unemployed and recently released from prison, they arrive at school convinced that the American system is stacked against them.

The cure - and the only thing which will work long term - is replacing incarceration with employment. Even stratospheric budget deficits will not provide jobs for everybody. We shall see if Obama puts the poorest Americans first.

So let's see, he's already announced that spending money on preventing sexually transmitted diseases as an economic stimulus. Now people are asking that he legalises spliff as part of the stimulus.

Can't see how it will help the economy but it will be fun.

More "face time" for this unaccomplished narcissist.

When does he WORK?

Posted by: David Ferris | March 26, 2009 3:26 PM

I agree 100%. We continue to blame the teachers for the lack of involvment by parents. Sorry but it is NOT the responsibility of a teacher to teach social skills to children.

Were the questions plants, like they've been so many times before at forums such as this?

"...the White House says that Obama wasn't briefed about the questions in advance."

Well, as long as the Obama White House says so, that's good enough for me......

From the parent perspective I would like to see a system that not only educates the children but also gives the parents either a refresher course or an opportunity to tighten up some of the things that they might have missed the first time around.
I love helping my kids with their homework and I'm not too ashamed of saying that I can certainly benefit from such a refresher course.
The current focus on math and reading (to the exclusion of other courses) is something that I think is a bit troubling. If there is one thing that I would wish for my child, it would be a more well rounded education. We don't just need mathmeticians and scientists in America. We really need a bit of everything.
I'm not sure however, that anybody involved can honestly say that they, absolutely and positively can not possibly do any better than they are currently doing.
I know I never say that...about anything.
I can't wait until we cover punctuation.

expect the knuckle draggers to resent this idea.

this is their grasp of technology:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ir_mKso_qc

This was the greatest dog & pony show on earth. All softball questions with talking points for answers. Tv screen or telepromter makes little difference. The economy seems at first glance to be moving in the right direction, does that mean he won't need the stimulus money any longer. Does that mean it will not be necessary to spend the massive amounts of money he proposes.

I respect Obama he is a talented politician, President Obama seems to posse’s insightful, reasonable judgment on many issues, although in the case of marijuana prohibition laws I find Obama’s choice to answer with mocking humor to be lacking. Smoking marijuana is an easy thing to laugh about, it seems there is something about being stoned that brings a smile to people’s faces, however marijuana prohibition is not a joke. We should not be making jokes as millions of Americans are arrested for being caught on the wrong side of moral politicking, we should not laugh as we spend over 30 billion dollars a year going after Americans for smoking weed, we should not giggle and poke fun as we watch billions of dollars in tax revenue slip through our fingers each year, and should we not be jolly as thousands of people are murdered by cartels profiting from America’s moral hypocrisy. I believe there are profound latent consequences in prohibition that are not even factored in to our assessments of the effects of illegality, such as how we view the rule of law and the role of law enforcement in the community, the divisiveness between users and non users, the stigma of mental shock of incarceration. I say pot prohibition is no joke it has real costs paid for in real lives. Freedom is achieved in a country by placing responsibility in the hands of the citizen and not by the state legally enforcing morality.
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