The wealthy and priviledged Obamas are able to send their daughters to the best school money can buy. So they do. The girls attend Sidwell Friends. Mr. Obama decided this summer, however, that two of his daughters' classmates would not be able to return. They are too poor. They must go to Anacostia High School, where fearing for one's personal safety is part of the daily grind.
Today's Post editorial about two recent studies, one analyzing the efficacy of the voucher system for the kids enrolled in it and the other simply studying crime rates in the DC public schools, indicates that Obama is not living up to his promise to "do what works" when it comes to education.
"The D.C. voucher program has proven to be the most effective education
policy evaluated by the federal government's official education research arm
so far." Equally adamant was his opinion that vouchers paid off for the
students lucky enough to win them: "On average, participating low-income
students are performing better in reading because the federal government
decided to launch an experimental school choice program in our nation's
capital."
I know that politics is a dirty world wherein lobbyists and special interest groups with either the dollars or the block voting get to control what happens and where the money goes. One handy example of this is that in all the thousands of pages of health care reform in the House, and the obvious need to cut costs somewhere, there is not a word about medical tort reform. Why? Malpractice lawyers give lots of money to the Democratic Party.
The most pitiable victim of this type of special interest and lobbying are the children stuck in failing public schools. Fascinatingly, the lobbying group most opposed to allowing children escape failing and dangerous schools are the Teachers, and thus it follows that our elected representatives who get money from them are just as opposed. And yet all of those members of the House and Senate who rally behind a cry that we must invest in our public schools, fret that vouchers will destroy them, and do their best to kill off the vouchers in the most politically-amenable way possible, well, they all send their kids to private schools. Just like the Obamas.
The editorial ends posing an interesting question.
As we've said before, vouchers aren't the answer to Washington's school
troubles; we enthusiastically support public school reform and quality charter
schools, too. But vouchers are an answer for some children whose options
otherwise are bleak. In Washington, they also are part of a carefully designed
social-science experiment that may provide useful evidence for all schools on
helping low-income children learn. Why would a Democratic administration and
Congress want to cut such an experiment short?
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