Bizarre headline of the year: “Obama’s Plan for School Talk Ignites a Revolt.” President Obama will speak today to public students across the country, urging them to work hard and to stay in school – and somehow this has become a front page controversy. Some things make you fear for this country’s future.

America has a real education crisis. As a high wage country, we have a massive investment in developing the best educated workers in the world. As a democracy, we depend on educated citizens informing themselves about the world around them so they can make informed choices about candidates and issues. As a nation of immigrants, we have a clear stake in a public school system that teaches the common language, history and learning that helps to unite us and make our diversity strength.

Yet, many of our schools aren’t working well. Our dropout rates, particularly those among low income students, exceed those of other industrial countries. Too many students graduate without the skills they need to be productive in an economy ever more linked to high technology. Too many come out of high school without the resources to get the higher education or training that they merit.

In many of our urban schools, what Jonathan Kozol called “savage inequalities” still sap the spirit. Many poor children go to schools that are overcrowded, in need of repair, with too few textbooks and dated equipment. Often these schools get the worst teachers, as the good teachers flock to schools in more affluent neighborhoods. The kids can’t miss the message: that the society doesn’t have much hope for their potential.

That’s why Barak Obama’s own story is so important. He personifies possibility, the notion that you can overcome great obstacles if you dedicate yourself. His election showed African Americans and other minorities that there need be no ceiling on their dreams.

So for him to speak to students, to tell them to stay in school, to apply themselves, to work hard, to dream big is important. It is exactly what we would want a president to do, particularly this president. One speech won’t change the world. But it may spark some hope – and it helps show that we as a society care about their education.

So why is this controversial? The uproar has been particularly severe in Texas, where several school districts, under pressure from parents, have decided to let children opt out of listening to the speech. Why? Because some parents are apparently worried that the president will indoctrinate their children with “socialist ideas.” The speech, they argue, should be screened for political content and reviewed by local school boards. A Texas engineer was quoted as saying, “I don’t want our schools turned over to some socialist movement.” The Republican Party Chair in Florida announced he was “appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology.”

This is ugly stuff. They are talking about the democratically elected president of the United States. They are suggesting that the president, chosen by a vast majority of voters to lead this country, is so un-American that one speech might lead their children astray – and we have Republican Party officials echoing this slander.

I only wish President Obama’s speech had the power they attribute to it, for it might then lead millions of children to stay in school and work harder. But it isn’t the silly exaggeration of the president’s influence that is so shocking, it is the notion that the kids have to be locked away when the president of the United States speaks.

We’ve now witnessed the Republican Governor of Texas fanning talk about seceding from the union. We’ve seen Republican leaders repeating the contemptible lie about “death panels” in the health care bill. We’ve seen zealots packing guns outside of presidential town meetings.

This is taking partisan or ideological disagreement to an ugly and dangerous extreme. It is the equivalent of the old days when the John Birch Society charged that Dwight Eisenhower was a communist. And just as Eisenhower and sensible people in both parties finally stepped up to discredit Joe McCarthy (as he had begun to go after the Army), it is time for sensible people to stand clearly against this nonsense.

Whether you agree with his policies or not, President Obama is the democratically elected president of this nation. His own life story makes his message about staying in school compelling. His speech today should be celebrated, not castigated.