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Special Report
A Reality Check
Obama is told by educrats to send his daughters into the "trenches" of D.C.'s public school system.
In his haplessly earnest commitment to egalitarianism, Jimmy Carter lugged around his own suitcase and sent his daughter Amy to a D.C. public school. As she trotted off to Thaddeus Stevens Elementary, Carter could console himself with the consistency of his convictions.
Will Barack Obama follow Carter's example? the press wonders. Washington, D.C.'s mayor, Adrian Fenty, wants him to, as do Robert C. Bobb, president of the D.C.'s Board of Education, and board member Mary Lord.
Bobb and Lord have ludicrously urged Obama to send his daughters into the "trenches" of D.C.'s public school system. They write that "no private option offers President-elect Obama a personal reality check on the No Child Left Behind mandates he campaigned to reform. Public school parents see test-prep squeezing out art. They push for quality. As the law's reauthorization looms, what better crash course on its impact than to have kids in the trenches? Now that would be a change any family can believe in."
That the president of D.C.'s Board of Education and a board member counsel an incoming president to deprive his daughters of a superior private school education in order to use them as a "personal reality check" and "crash course" on the failures of No Child Left Behind says all you need to know about the insanely politicized character of D.C.'s public school system.
But the advice, while cruel, is perversely consistent with liberalism's logic: sacrificing the immediate educational good and opportunity of children for the sake of some ill-defined greater political good defines the mindset of the National Education Association. Don't let children leave public schools, the attitude goes. Keep them in the trenches, lest people lose confidence in the system and money and resources drain away. If this means most children receive a crummy education, oh well; a larger good has been achieved.
Moreover, since "equality" is defined by the NEA as sameness of outcome, its proponents have to try and restrict opportunity ruthlessly, as opportunity generates so many differences of outcome. "Equality" and liberty can't coexist. Of course, those who hold this ideology rarely subject their own children to it, dropping them off at posh private schools before heading off to make egalitarian-style arguments at NEA meetings.
While Bobb and Lord may want Obama's daughters in the "trenches," a growing number of public school teachers don't want their children anywhere near them.
According to columnist Clarence Page, "who reluctantly moved my own child to private school after the fifth grade," public school teachers from big cities are more likely to send their own children to private schools than parents in the general population.
Citing a Thomas Fordham Institute study, he writes: "In Obama's hometown, Chicago, for example, 38.7 percent of public school teachers sent their children to private schools, the Fordham study found, compared to 22.6 percent of the general public. In Washington, D.C., 26.8 percent of public school teachers sent their children to private schools, versus 19.8 percent of the public."
These stats are worth remembering the next time the NEA cranks out a report on the unsettling growth of homeschooling, charter schools and private academies. Obama has served up plenty of this propaganda himself, casting perfectly reasonable conservative educational policies as a betrayal of the public school system. But he sensibly if hypocritically exempts his children from these stances.
From press reports it appears that Obama's daughters will be spared the fate of Amy Carter. He already sends them to private schools, and Michelle Obama took a look around the Georgetown Day School this week, a private school known for its progressive educational practices.
At the Georgetown Day School, its children of destiny take their first steps toward an egalitarian society free of hierarchy and distressing disparities by calling teachers by their first names, and the students enjoy a curriculum heavy on "community service." Tomorrow's social engineers, after all, have to be educated somewhere, and the pampered egalitarians of the Democratic Party certainly aren't going to expose their children to the "reality check" of D.C.'s public schools.
About the Author
George Neumayr is a contributing editor to The American Spectator.
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JAWilson| 11.13.08 @ 6:15AM
I have my kids in the CPS in a Math and Science Academy and they are doing fine. Obama should do the right thing and put the girls in the public school system if he is a true leader.
drudge ette obama| 11.13.08 @ 6:31AM
The Obamas should send their children to whatever school they wish.
However, if it is to private schools, then they must be pressed to ask why. Drugs, danger, low expectations, too low-brow?
If to public schools, then they must be pressed to ask why? Obama's "Image" over best interests of child? Why would any parent knowingly put a small defenseless child into den of despair? We all know what became of poor Amy Carter as she struggled aimlessly through her adulthood and is supported by her father probably even to this day as a woman in her 40s in Atlanta.
Here's a prediction any idiot can make. They'll put them in private schools and cite the security problems of public schools, all the while complimenting the public schools that they visited.
This is so easy that a 5th grader could do it.
yvonne| 11.13.08 @ 6:38AM
public schools suck.
duh.
the dc school system is NOTORIOUSLY bad!
obama's presidency (which hasn't even begun yet) won't change that fact overnight.
use your brains, people.
anyone ho had the money would send their kid to a private school....at least, it would be considered as an option.
i choose not to teach in regular public schools because the system is toxic and stifling.
the obamas should send their kids to the schools of their choice.
Rachel Cody| 11.13.08 @ 7:18AM
I think it should be the daughter's choice and not the media, the advisers or anyone else's. After all, this decision effects the children and not anyone else. We as the public can be very opinionated but ultimately the kids are the ones who actually go to school.
Grissie| 11.13.08 @ 7:31AM
This should be an enlightening process to watch. After listening to the press yap about the difficult transition for Obamas girls moving into the Whitehouse. Difficult ? Looks to me like they haven't had one bit of problem hamming for the cameras. I doubt seriously the adjustment will have any negative effect. Moving from one mansion to the Americas mansion. Private school to Public school surrounded by Secret Service. Teachers under scutiny, administrators under the magnifying glass. Michelle Obama hanging over your shoulder. Yup, as a teacher thats just what I would long for. NOT.
Haven't heard anyone express concerns for the other students and their families thrust under the microscope of the Obama presidency. I suppose every child "so blessed" to be classmates of the Obama daughters will be thoroughly "vetted" as Joe the Plumber, even though their father wasn't. Disparaging I'd say.
Brian| 11.13.08 @ 9:06AM
So if a far-left Democrat like Obama can abandon the public schools, why is it that I'm forced to pay taxes to support them? I don't want to send my children to them either?
All children should receive public funding to ensure they all are educated, agreed.
But why the public school monopoly? Why not open it up to competition?
Belgium's done just that for years. There are no "public schools" in Belgium, the schools are privately run and funded with public money. That's what we should do here.
Captain America| 11.13.08 @ 9:45AM
Obama should do the right thing, ask for a school voucher.
Doctor Right| 11.13.08 @ 10:04AM
I'm already completely sick of Obama's little girls...
Like the children of all Lib-politicians, they will atend posh, private schools while their all-wise Daddy and his fetching wife work with the Libs in Congress to deny "middle class" Americans the right to get their kids out of failing, government-run public schools...
And yet, the very people who are the most harmed by these policies (the "middle class", black families in urban centers) are the ones who turned-out the vote for Obama...
So until they wise up and realize they've been used (repeatedly) by the Democrat Party, they get what they deserve...
Did I mention that I'm already completely sick of Obama's little girls?
Bill Erdmann| 11.13.08 @ 10:23AM
My Judo instructor (a 6th degree black belt) taught at a high school in a far southeast suburb of Chicago for years until he retired about four years ago. He used to entertain us with horror stories of the feckless, often violent youths he had to deal with in his remedial math class.
When his then-six-year-old daughter uttered some "gutterspeak" that she had picked up in her local government-run indoctrination center (i.e., public school) that morning, my Sensei and his wife decided then and there - that's it; no more public school for their kids. His son, now 16 and a national Judo competitor (brown belt), was also diagnosed with a "learning disorder". My Sensei first sent his kids to a local parochial school (where he befriended a number of African-American parents also fed up with the badly-run local public schools), then home-schooled them for a number of years. His son is now a sophomore in a local Catholic high school where he wrestles for their varsity team. The young man, being home-schooled, had to undergo a rigorous admissions process that consisted of a written exam and several interviews.
Advocates of public education say that one thing that the public schools provide that homeschooling doesn't is "socialization". This "socialization" appears to be of the same quality that new convicts get when they're sentenced to prison for the first time. For a lot of kids attending big-city or even suburban schools, attending their local public school is not unlike being sentenced to prison. Their only "crime" is happening to live in the school district.
WallyG| 11.13.08 @ 10:31AM
They will not go to public school, they will go to the same trendy private schools all the other liberal "do as I say, NOT as I do" political hacks sent or send their kids. To some degree, the Secret Service protection for the kids makes "private school" a more resonable place for a President's children. However, the dems have run the DC school system for decades and it is among the most costly failures on the planet. By not sending their kids to the schools they run, they really are telling us how inept they are at all things they put their hands on!
Pecos Pete| 11.13.08 @ 11:30AM
Ahhh, I smell a bail out for the bankrupt DC public schools. Why not a federal grant of, oh, $30 billion? That would fix the problem. Right?
ACynic| 11.13.08 @ 11:34AM
Obama will send his kids to the DC public schools when Fidel Castro becomes a registered republican.
It is impossible to be a liberal and not be a hypocrite; sort of like hating Jews and being a Nazi. You cannot have one without the other.
Obama ALREADY has his kids in private school in Chicago.
In case anyone has not noticed, ALL those opposed to school choice have the wherewithall to send their own kids to private schools. The only folks coerced to send their kids to crappy public schools are the poor , usually black, inner city parents; whom, by the way, ALL vote democrat.
When is comes to their own well being, finances and maximizing opportunity, the most ardent communist/progressive/liberals are super-zealous, very greedy capitalists. Witness all the perks of the former Bolshevik nomenklatura or Castro and his inner circle.
Like the power structure of medieval Europe, today's hard core liberals/communists fancy themselves as royalty - free and wealthy to do as they please (and they do), while the serfs (that would be all of us) are forced by them to do as instructed (coerced).
Obama realizes that the education he and his wife received put them on the boat to success; despite the fact they are black. He also realizes that today's inner city pathologies are due to welfare, a culture of dependency, poor individual choices, and totally crappy schools.
But, since he is a liberal, ergo, a hypocrite, he will send his own kids to some fancy, schmancy private school; as did those other famous anti-school choice dirt bags the Clintons, the Kennedy's and, oh yes, Jimmy Carter.
Jimmy the peanut farmer, hate america first, Castro,Chavez, Kim Jong loving Carter took Amy out of public school within the first year of his incompetent presidency.
John M| 11.13.08 @ 11:53AM
I would really hope that the Obama family resists any advice to use their children as political props and consign them to a dismal education in the Washington public school system. If they love their children then put them in the best schools available, which in their case would be private. It is simply not worth messing up their futures to score a few political points.
megapotamus| 11.13.08 @ 1:23PM
Is Yvonne above really a teacher? Public or private, that is frightening.
Of course the Obama girls will be spared the blighted public schools. Just as certainly they will remain blighted as the problem has never been "funding" and certainly not federal funding. The problem is that, thanks to unionism, these institutions are run for the benefit of the unions first, then their membership and then for the actual consumers. If Barry thinks that public schools are not satisfactory for his own children he should think they are unsatisfactory for all children and therefore urge radical liberalization if you can forgive the term. He does not do so. Is it because he does not so think? Oh, no. Only a fool could want the status quo on the merits. So what is the explanation then? There is only one; he knows the system is a disaster for children but it is a boon to unions and the unions have been very very good to him. He wants that to continue. Everyone else can just go to hell.
Kurt L| 11.13.08 @ 2:18PM
It seems our next president would want to use the full weight and expertise of our federal government to correct the DC school system to grant every student in the Greater DC area a quality education that the President, VP and all federal officials would be proud t osend their students to.
This could become the standard of what school systems should be. They should have graduates from the poorest sections of DC fully prepaired to go to any college in the country, or to become highly productive citizens upon completion of 12th grade. Today they are what school systems are about to become, drugs, violence and ignorance.
Martin| 11.13.08 @ 2:33PM
The JOKE is that (like the rest of his Administration) the suitcase Jimmy Carter carried around was EMPTY! It was a prop to make him look like the average guy (and he was certainly average - on his best day!)
Also, Amy Carter's stint in the D.C. Public Schools was hardly common, with hand-picked teachers, hand-picked classmates, special White House Chef food and with Secret Service Agents swarming around... it was hardly a typical experience in the 1970s D.C. school system.
Carter was a phony - and Obama is serving his Second Term for him!!!
Marc Jeric| 11.13.08 @ 2:38PM
Just as the "srong" unions have destroyed many American industries (e.g., car, textile, steel, electronics, food processing, etc., all of which have "outsourced"), so the "strong" teacher union has destroyed education. The unfortunate thing is we cannot outsource education, and so after 40 years of producing self-esteemed illiterate zombies we have elected Abu Hussein, community organizer from Kenya our president. Bravo teacher union, with 45% of them "teach" and 55% "administer".
Stan Redmond| 11.13.08 @ 2:39PM
Obama wants the US citizen to have the same healthcare benefits senators receive. Obama will opt out of public education, like he did of public campaign financing, because he doesn't want his children to enjoy the same wonderful public education system lefties like him created and endorse (enforce) on the public. What a strange irony.
Gazinya| 11.13.08 @ 11:23PM
Now, Now. Remember that the Big 'O' had, at his disposal, over $100 million to distribute to the public schools in his district. Unfortunately he couldn't spend any of it on the nine different grant proposals to improve reading and writing and science classes. It seems all of it went to ACORN, New Democrat Party and other like minded 'community organizations'. His children will not be subjected to untutored free market thinking that has grown such a huge literate, educated, underclass. He will force his children to learn something.
Daphne Kenward| 11.14.08 @ 6:43AM
Where people send their kids, its up to them. It's not a public matter, it's a private one for responsible parents, which the Obama's obviously are.
jamese| 11.14.08 @ 12:19PM
The Secret Service will have just as big a say in where the Obama daughters go to school as Barack and Michelle. America in 2008 is not Jimmy Carter's America of 1976.
For reasons of personal safety, the girls should go to a small private school.
tom| 11.14.08 @ 1:46PM
DC Superintendent Michelle Rhee sends her two daughters to DC public schools. Private choices tell us so much about public figures. To allow his daughters "choice" while denying it to the poor black residents of DC is just the hypocrisy that we have come to expect and reward.
TruthMan| 11.15.08 @ 10:20AM
George Orwell exposed the hypocrisy of Marxism years ago. When the pigs (liberals like Obama and Michelle) took over the farmyard, they were given special treatment because they were too busy serving the common good to deal with day-to-day problems. The Obama's will send their children to a small private school to spare the DC public schools the headaches associated with secret service protection. It's for the common good. It's to every poor DC child's benefit that the Obama's children go to a private school.
conservativechick| 11.18.08 @ 1:43AM
I think Obama should put his money where his mouth. Since he's so bent on all this mandatory health care and mandatory civil service, and is bent on taxing people into oblivion so they can't afford their school of choice for their own kids, while he makes his choice for his own kids. I don't think everyone should be equal, but if Mr. Obama is against vouchers and choice for the rest of us, then he should lead by example. I also expect his daughters to do the mandatory civil service before any of my own kids go off to be reeducated. As if the government knows better than the parents. Welcome to the U.S.S.A.
Anne| 11.20.08 @ 9:40PM
I am poor and my kids went to a private catholic School. We paid plenty of taxes to the Public School. It's our choice. Why can't it be Obama"s? When parents teach their Children how to behave at home and not leave it to the teachers..things would improve at least 50% in the public schools without a cent being spent!!