September 8, 2009 12:20PM 

# What’s Wrong with the President’s Speech? 

By [Andrew J. Coulson](https://www.cato.org/people/andrew-coulson) 

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The controversy over the president’s speech to school kids has focused on the official curriculum guidance — which in its original form seemed to assume that American schoolchildren would have the same response to presidential addresses as [Chris Matthews](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/13/chris-matthews-i-felt-thi_n_86449.html).

As I write on Forbes​.com today, there is an entirely different aspect to the speech that some may find [much more troubling](http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/08/obama-education-speech-private-schools-opinions-contributors-andrew-j-coulson.html).

##### Related Tags 

[Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [Center for Educational Freedom](https://www.cato.org/center-educational-freedom) 

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