Barack H. Obama Elementary is Closing Its Doors - What Message Does This Send to Students?

According to The Ticket, A Yahoo News Blog, a school bearing Barack Obama's name will permanently close its doors at the end of this school year (2011). Barack H. Obama Elementary in Ashbury Park, New Jersey, is closing its doors due to low enrollment, says Bruce N. Rodman, a state appointed school district financial monitor.

The Bangs Avenue School elected to change its name to Barack H. Obama Elementary in 2010. Administrators believed the name change would send a positive "subliminal message" to the students each time they walked through its doors.

The Ashbury Park School district has six schools under its watch, and Rodman says finances has forced the closure of one of its schools. Student enrollment at Barack H. Obama Elementary has dropped 35 percent in the past 10 years, so the choice of which school to cut seems obvious to administrators.

Clearly, the name of the school has nothing to do with its closing, because the name change only occurred 1 year ago. However, Obama naysayer's will undoubtedly jump at the chance to label the school closing as "Another Obama failure."

Instead of focusing on a name change, Ashbury Park School District administrators would have served its district better by aiming to strengthen the academic skills of its students, as opposed to relying upon a "subliminal message" alone to get the job done. The subliminal message concept is not a bad idea, but it should not have been the only school improvement tactic, or even the main improvement tactic.

If the Ashbury Park School administrators believe subliminal messages can help change the course of a child's academic future, perhaps they should consider the message this particular school closure will send: "When the going gets tough, it's time to cut and run."

- Source -

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20110318/ts_yblog_theticket/barack-h-obama-elementary-to-close