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Va. middle-schoolers assigned opposition research on GOP candidatesPublished: 1:16 AM 03/22/2012By Kalyn McMackin - The Daily Caller A Virginia middle school teacher recently forced his students to support President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign by conducting opposition research in class against the Republican presidential candidates.The 8th grade students, who attend Liberty Middle School in Fairfax County, were required to seek out the vulnerabilities of Republican presidential hopefuls and forward them to the Obama campaign.“This assignment was just creepy beyond belief — like something out of East Germany during the Cold War,†one frustrated father, who asked for his family to remain anonymous, told The Daily Caller.The assignment was for students to research the backgrounds and positions of each of the GOP candidates for president and find “weaknesses†in them, the parent explained. From there, students were to prepare a strategy paper to exploit those weaknesses and then to send their suggestions to the Obama campaign.Liberty teacher Michael Denman, who declined to comment, unveiled the assignment in mid-January when he broke the Civics Honor’s class into four groups, one for each Republican candidate. The students were then to collaborate as a group and research the backgrounds of their assigned candidate.Denman assigned two kids to write a paper revealing the identified “weaknesses,†two to write the attack strategy paper and two others to locate an individual inside the Obama campaign to whom they could send the information.“My classmates don’t actually know a lot, but a few of us tended to agree that the most recent instruction on this project just didn’t seem right,†one of the students told TheDC. “Mr. Denman didn’t tell us where to find the information, just to research on them.â€As a result, the school received multiple phone calls from parents frustrated with the political nature of the assignment, the father told TheDC.“I was shocked that a school teacher would so blatantly politicize the curriculum of a middle school classroom,†the parent said. “I asked [my child] if a similar assignment had been handed out to examine the background and positions of President Obama to see if the teacher was at least being bipartisan.â€No similar assignment was given to research Obama’s history, identify his weaknesses or pass them along to the Republican candidates.John Torre, a spokesman on behalf of the Fairfax County Public School system, insists that students were never instructed to actually send their results to the Obama campaign.“Instead, the teacher simply asked his students to find out the name of the office that would receive such information,†Torre wrote in an email to TheDC.Torre explained that Principal Dr. Catherine Cipperly, who refused to comment, discussed the matter with Denman, citing that students should have been given a choice to research candidates from either major party.“The principal advised the teacher that he should emphasize to his students that this assignment was meant to learn a process and not to endorse a particular candidate,†Torre said. “The teacher agreed with the principal’s direction.â€
There's a reason why patriotism is considered a conservative value. Watch a Tea Party rally and you'll see people proudly raising the American flag and showing pride in U.S. heroes such as Thomas Jefferson. Watch an OWS rally and you'll see people burning the American flag while showing pride in communist heroes such as Che Guevera. --Bob, from some news site
