A teacher at a Kansas City charter school has been suspended for posting a video of his students marching and chanting in praise of Barack Obama on YouTube. At one level, the video can be seen as uplifting, with the students, all African-American middle school boys, chanting how Obama has inspired them to want to become lawyers, architects and entrepreneurs. At another level, the chants about Obama’s policies feel forced, scripted and more than a little inappropriate. Utterly unsurprising are the complaints about the overtly partisan nature and appropriateness of the video, which was recorded last May and only recently posted online.
The teacher in question has not been identified in media reports. The school’s director, Joyce McGautha, says she has been “advised by legal counsel to make no more comments about the video while the school investigates.”
Meanwhile, another Obama-related school controversy has been rattling around the edusphere. A Florida teacher has been widely branded an idiot and a racist for writing an inflammatory acronym on his blackboard for the word “CHANGE.” What was he thinking? wonders Joanne Jacobs. I don’t know, responds Matthew Tabor, and that’s the point.
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