A recent civics assignment has stirred up quite a controversy throughout the state of Virginia. The Daily Caller reports that Liberty Middle School teacher Michael Denman “recently forced his (Civics Honor’s) students to support President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign by conducting opposition research in class against the Republican candidates.”
Students were instructed to look into the candidates’ backgrounds for “weaknesses,” to create a strategy of how those weaknesses could be used by the Obama campaign, and to identify an office in the campaign that might receive their research. No students were assigned to conduct opposition research on the president.
The teacher’s behavior was so indefensible that a spokesman for the Virginia Education Association made a special point of noting the teacher is not a VEA member. (The Fairfax County Federation of Teachers hasn’t commented, either way.)
“This assignment was just creepy beyond belief – like something out of East Germany during the Cold War,” one father told the Daily Caller.
The father did have some advice for all teachers: “Leave politics out of the classroom. Present a balanced viewpoint, teaching children to listen to all sides and think for themselves.”
