Superintendent In-Chief?

Obama will be addressing public schools across the nation Tuesday.  This supposed inspirational call to action is complete with lessons plans, which over steps federal boundaries that are in place to allow states to implement a curriculum they see fit. These lesson plans enter a grey area between instruction and advocacy. In an initial draft of the plans some age groups are asked to write letters about what they can do to help the President. This is problematic as it tries to force kids to say that Obama and his presidency are inspiring and they should (or have to) respond to his call to action... schools should be leaving that choice to them.

Christina Erland Culver, former deputy assistant secretary for education, had this to say:

"That's where they kind of got into a slippery spot. Federal statute denies any authority to the Department of Education to provide any kind of curriculum or anything that can be passed down to the state, and that's part of the statute forming the Department of Education. So they kinda got themselves into this mess because they didn't really understand some ofthe key legal roles or the dos and don'ts at the federal Department of Ed"