Obama Kids "Indoctrination" Claim Debunked By Politifact

Politifact went to the trouble of investigating a claim made by the Florida Republican Party that President Obama's upcoming address to schoolchildren will "indoctrinate" the kids with "socialist ideology." Their conclusion: a "pants on fire" lie.

We asked the Republican Party of Florida for evidence that Obama intended to discuss health care, banks, automobile companies or taxes with the nation's schoolchildren. They couldn't point us to anything.

A spokesman said the party was particularly concerned about the study questions the department had provided. "The goal of these materials is to tell students why they should support President Obama in his overall agenda," said Katie Gordon.

"If the former administration had done something like this, the media would be handling this a lot differently," she added.

We reviewed the study materials but didn't see any mention of controversial issues, let alone any attempt to indoctrinate students in socialism. The pre-K through 6th grade materials said the main ideas of the speech would be "citizenship, personal responsibility, civic duty." The materials for high schoolers mention "personal responsibility, goals, persistence."

As Politifact found, Obama's planned words are pretty innocuous, with a focus on doing well in school and behaving in class. That hasn't stopped some school districts from refusing to air the address.

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