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Politics K-12 kept watch on education policy and politics in the nation’s capital and in the states. This blog is no longer being updated, but you can continue to explore these issues on edweek.org by visiting our related topic pages: Federal, States.

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Detention Slip Over Obama School Video?

By Alyson Klein — April 07, 2008 1 min read
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The presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., may have put some officials at a New York City high school in a sticky situation, after filming students doing their own version of the candidate’s “Yes We Can” speech as part of a class project.

The campaign sent the video out as part of an e-mail to potential donors and posted it on Obama’s campaign Web site. That’s apparently a violation of the New York City school system’s regulations, which prohibit filming in school buildings for political purposes, according to the Daily News account. But Mark Sweeting, the principal of the Bronx High School for Performance and Stagecraft, argued the filming of the video at his school did have an educational purpose.

“The bottom line is I have a senior Hispanic female student that is now interested in politics. I have a male African-American student that is being raised by a single mother that is now in tune with what a superdelegate is,” Sweeting said. “That to me is outstanding. That to me is inspirational.”

What do you think? Is this a completely inappropriate use of school resources? Or a great way to get kids to care about the nitty-gritty inside baseball of the primary? Let us know in the comments section.

(Update: Watch the video below.)