Barack Obama, at a speech to the NAACP on July 14:
“We need to fix and improve our public schools, not throw our hands up and walk away from them.”
The Associated Press, yesterday evening:
President-elect Barack Obama and his wife have chosen Sidwell Friends School for their two daughters, opting for a private institution that another White House child, Chelsea Clinton, attended a decade ago.
ABC News, a few hours earlier:
An Obama aide added, “Mrs. Obama is the product of public education on the South Side of Chicago and she believes strongly in the importance of good public schools for all kids…”
… except her own, of course.
Barack Obama spent four years as Chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, part of a $500 million project to fix, reform, and otherwise spiff up America’s screwed up public schools. Must not have worked much.
Yeah, yeah, I know — it’s a personal decision that parents should make based on what’s best for the kids. Blah, blah, blah. But do you remember the “day after the election” episode of The West Wing where Matt Santos made the opposite choice? For all the right reasons? (Everyone’s watching TWW in reverse nowadays.) That was cool.
Show me a politician whose kids go to a public school, and I’ll show you a guy with a real incentive to make public schools perform. I think thousands of kids trapped in DC Public Schools just got screwed.
Mmmmm… Change.
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Sidwell Friends is where a lot of politicians’ children go. Because of security reasons mainly. I do not fault the Obamas for choosing a private school. Those girls need to be somewhere that is safe and to have friends that know what it is like to be in the public eye because your parents are in politics.
Does this really surprise anybody?
He’s a joke!!
@maverick2464 — “Because of security reasons mainly.”
I don’t buy that reason.
Big deal if Sidwell Friends has upgraded security features. Any school the Obamas wanted to choose would suddenly have the best in-school security in the country. I guarantee it.
You don’t think the U.S. Secret Service could turn the most dangerous school in America into a freakin’ fortress in eight weeks?
Only the particularly naive could be actually *surprised* by this–but I completely agree, it’s still a huge discouragement. Our schools are in awful shape, but when even the Great One’s policy is “AVOID!”, what hope do the parents and kids have who can’t afford to escape to the bastion of private school and who don’t have what they need to homeschool properly?
Ditto TheEyeSeesAll’s comment.
Maybe he should just homeschool the girls… then he can have yet another first under his belt.
I’m not surprised they chose Sidwell Friends, and I CAN see where they’re coming from (and besides, Chelsea Clinton seemed to fare rather well from it). If I was in his situation, I’d have to see what the schools programs were like. In my area, public schools are better funded and have better programs than the private schools. If a school district is shit, and you want a decent education… you have to do what you have to do. I’m not familiar with how school funding is conducted in the DC area, so I can’t say how the public schools are, I just have my experiences here to base my opinions on.
I wouldn’t send any children of mine (if I had any) to the schools where I live now. I’m moving to one of the richest school districts in Ohio, where the public schools rival about any posh private school. Ohio’s school funding is based on property tax, and when you have a suburban town that’s 80% apartments and 20% Stepford-like residential you have serious $ rolling in (versus funding in a town of 38000 where I live now where median income is $18K with a LOT of government-subsidized housing)
You really can’t blame the guy, the conditions our public schools are in is horrible. They need to be fixed, and untill then I wouldn’t send my kids (when I have them ) to public school either. There is no education in this country, public school is a freaking daycare. I went to school with 4000 other kids(not that long ago)! No one ever talked to us about college or called us out when our grades were slipping, no one bothered to do anything about drugs, gangs,sexual harassment or racial discord on campus untill parents would raise questions about these issues. T
On one hand, I can understand this move. I would imagine that setting up some sort of security for the Obama kids in the private school would be much easier, as they have done it before. Maybe I am cynical…oh, hell, I totally am… but, sadly, the Obamas are going to be more of a target for assassination than any other president/first family in recent history simply because they are black.
However, TheEyeSeesAll has a good point. If they really intended to have the girls in public school at all, they could have done it and it might have actually benefited the public school in question to have that sort of security and incentive to be more of a high quality school.
But really, we shouldn’t be surprised.
i do agree with the maverick’s comment on here. i read in a magazine that there are 6 secret servicemen for EACH child. so no matter what school they would send the girls to, there would be quite a few of the SS in the classrooms with them. maybe the obamas are really worried about the girls’ safety since barack has gotten some death threats already.. i’m not a parent but if i had kids, their safety and well being would be my #1 concern!
That’s what parents are supposed to do. Believe it or not schools can’t solve the problems with drugs, gangs, sexual harassment or racial discord. Those are familial issues, parental responsibilities.
This shouldn’t come as any suprise.
The O-girls currently attend one of the top elite private schools in the nation, the University of Chicago Laboratory School.
http://www.ucls.uchicago.edu/about/
Michelle Obama is a board member there.
So even when the big O was having all that fantabulous success making Chicago Public Schools the pride of the nation, they still weren’t good enough for his children.
The Obamas do not determine how many guards their children are assigned, the Secret Service determines that based on threat levels. Presidential children are especially well-guarded because of the chances of kidnapping.
It’s hard to say if the Obamas attending public schools would have benefitted the schools at all, it may create more problems. Would the teachers get paid more to deal with all the extra security needed? Would the curriculum magically be better funded? Would funding levies be passed suddenly? Probably not. Chances are, parents may complain about the distraction caused by having 12 Secret Service agents in the classrooms and on campus and assume the school is covering the cost of the security (and who WOULD cover the security needs that need to take place *in* the school).
For more on this story and all the other crazy headlines from our schools, check out http://detentionslip.org
It isn’t hypocritical to say that the public school system needs reform and to put your kids in private school as a result of that assessment. It’s called being a good parent and putting your kids first (if you can afford it). Furthermore, it makes perfect sense to place them where the school is well-prepared to handle the multitude of issues that having high-profile, at-security-risk children. Would you admire parents who put their children at risk just to improve their public approval rating? There really was no other choice for these girls. The Obama’s are modelling good parenting values for all Americans, and they should not be mocked for their sincere efforts. Go pick on PETA or Madonna, better yet Ashlee and Pete. Why are Ashlee Simpson and Pete what’s his name famous anyway? I can’t tell if they actually do anything other than get photographed.
I imagine Darla you’d also be lauding the Obama’s for putting their children in a public school if they had chosen to do so. So, really, they could have done no wrong.
“The Obama’s are modelling good parenting values for all Americans, and they should not be mocked for their sincere efforts”
So it’s a GOOD thing when parents get to make educational choices that benefit their children? You might explain that to Mr. Obama and the rest of the Democrats who oppose voucher programs.
The Obama girls need to be somewhere secure. No doubt, even in the DC public schools, they would succeed but there are other factors. And they were in a private school before.
This story isn’t really a Deceiver gotcha!
I wouldn’t send my enemies to D.C. schools.
You can’t fix public schools, because they’re a unionized subset of a government controlled entity. When’s the last time the government reformed itself? When’s the last time a union reformed itself? Ha. Ha.
The only way public schools could get better would be for them to operate like an actual business. That cannot happen in a government institution, especially when the employees are union.
Private and homeschooling are the answers. That way, inept teachers and teachers who that hit on the students actually get fired. Anyone who thinks there’s hope for public schools needs to watch Stupid in America by John Stossel. You can probably find it on YouTube.
@islero47: “I wouldn’t send my enemies to D.C. schools.”
I dunno … I lived in the District for seven years (moved a few hundred miles away in 2007), and DC Public Schools include some of the most active & engaging “charter schools” in the nation (http://www.dcpubliccharter.com/pcschools/index.html).
I’m sure Obama would have had his pick, regardless of the waiting lists that most normal people are subjected to.
I live in Austin, Texas and George W. Bush sent the twins to our public High School – Austin High. Our Governor Rick Perry also sends his son there. It’s an ok school. I saw the hypocrisy in Obama a year ago when i realized his kids went to a private school.
Well, thats all fine and dandy for George W. Bush and Governor Rick Perry sending their kids to Austin High but Obama doesn’t live in Texas so he can’t send his kids there, can he?
He didn’t want his daughters punished with babies.
It’s a win-win for everyone.
Affirmative Action Hire and President Elect of the United States Obama (AAHAPEOTUS) gets to send his kids to the private school where they will get a great education and the school gets to meets its minority quotas thereby maintaining the government grant money it gets every year.
I beleive that Amy Carter went to public school when Jimmy was in office and nothing ever happened.
Sorry to the Obamanites, but if you make grand statements that “everyone” needs to make the change to “insert problem here”, and you are not even praticing what you preach then you are a Hypocrite. No amount of spin will make it look any different.
The Obamas are typical libs…make all kinds of noises about how they looove public education but send their lil’ libs-in-training to posh private schools. Most of D.C.’s public schools are crap and the school board has had many problems with corruption. Back in the early ’90s, even the children of the D.C. school superintendent went to private school! So in a way I don’t blame them.
But these same pols who send their kids to elite private schools don’t want the po’ folks to have the same opportunity to bail out of their dangerous, decrepit, badly-run ghetto schools and get a good, safe education somewhere else.
Until the public school system is actually FIXED, why should he send his kids to public school? They are currently still a mess & the teach very little except the standardized test questions, so why wouldn’t they provide their kids with the best education available? I believe most of those being critical would do the EXACT same thing IF they had the money & opportunity. It is just sour grapes that someone else can do what they can’t!
You just described Obama’s direct appeal to voters during the campaign.
I don’t know that I blame him for security reasons but…if we all keep sending our kids to private schools…public schools will not be fixed.
c’mon people-they need to be in private school for their own security and safety-the media attention and secret service activity would seriously disrupt the day-to-day operations of a public school in the DC area and create problems and such for all the other students. Makes sense to me. No big hypocrite issue here.
This article is really grasping at straws. Do you even think about what you write about?
Please educate us.
Gen. Powell’s children and the Gore kids went to at least some public school way back in the day…but they grew up across the river in Arlington, VA. There are some amazing public school districts out there that work really well and give kids a very strong education, but there are many more that are broken. And not everyone has the wherewithal to opt for private school. It’s too bad that the Obama girls won’t live their parents’ principles about public education, but not particularly surprising.
Do you think that a public school is a safe place for the children of a sitting president, especially Obama?
Really?
Even with all of the death threats?
Simon Scowl: “Please educate us.”
.
After reading this gossip blog a few times it has become obvious that such an endeavor would be a lost cause.
Well, maybe next time you’ll be able to provide some constructive criticism.
I have to agree with another poster that says it’s unfair to criticize Obama regarding his school choices. I guess no one reads the news that there have been death threats against him, and probably more every day, and he hasn’t even take office yet.
The difference between Bush sending his daughters to school is that 1) he was governor at the time, not president, and two, I’m sure he never had death threats against him because of his skin color.
America may have elected its first black president, but the racial ineptitude that displayed here is definitely a drop in the bucket for what represents. You’re saying Obama’s a hypocrite? Please, the average white, middle class suburbanite wouldn’t send their kids to public school, regardless if they’re a public figure or not. I’m sure most of you, undoubtedly white, would send your kids to public schools. And I bet the 700 billion dollar bailout that the same people who are criticizing him, god forbid, if something happened to his kids, like kidnapping, you would turn around and say “oh, that was so stupid sending them to public school, why didn’t he just send to private school for security reasons like other presidents.”
Seriously, are you guys that unhingedly angry that a Democrat president or black president (or both)?
So until those little after-school clubs like the KKK, Aryan Nation, Neo-Nazis, etc, are labeled as domestic terrorists, I sincerely doubt you’d want your reality tv show du jour to be interrupted by breaking news of an incident with Obama’s kids.
Hey, Ugh–couple things.
1) No, Pres. W. Bush has just had death threats against him for every other reason under the sun, but, oh, that’s okay because he’s just The Awful Bush. I bet Obama won’t have his security detail keeping him in the car on inauguration day because the crowd is so hostile.
2) “average white, middle class suburbanite” — look, racism works both ways, okay? I don’t make assumptions about decisions other people make because of their skin color, and I’d like it if other people abided by this rule, too.
3) My problem with Obama doesn’t come from his skin color, gender, sexual orientation, heritage, birthplace, political party, middle name–etc. etc. (To be honest, I think he’s got more white in him than I do . . .) My problem with him comes with his policies, his stance on certain issues, and the fact that he’s, well, a hypocrite. None of those are racial. Sorry to disappoint.
Yes, of course. Well done.
Hey Ugh, sit here with me a minute and let’s talk a bit, shall we?
Let’s talk about:
George Washington
John Adams
Andrew Jackson
Zachary Taylor
Abraham Lincoln (twice before the big oops)
James Garfield (oops)
William McKinley (oops)
Teddy Roosevelt (an oops but not a fatal one)
Warren G Harding
Harry Truman
John F. Kennedy (once plus a really nasty oops)
Richard Nixon (twice)
Gerald Ford (twice)
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan (another non-fatal oops)
George HW Bush
Bill Clinton
George W Bush (three times)
Huh. All white men.
Blows your little theory to turdlettes now, doesn’t it?
Is the Jimmy Carter one that rabbit that chased him, and even swam in a lake to get him? I’m not even sure thats real. I was a real teeny little kid. That’s hysterical. It’s like that rabbit in the cave in the Monty Python movie. Wait it was Squeeky Fromme right?
Still death by rabbit would look awesome on a death certificate.
Squeaky went after Ford with a .45, she’s still in da big bunny hutch for it.
Jimmy was attacked by Mexican sniper rabbits.
Freaky, Tweaky, and Juan-Gustavo.
OMG, you weren’t kidding about the swimming rabbit were you?
I was only 7 at the time; that sure would have been an awesome bedtime story!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident
Okay, so change Jimmy’s stats to “once by semi automatic, once by slightly rabid rabbit”
Best. Wikipedia entry. Ever.
Hmmm it really gets annoying with your right wing bias and your simple a dumbass for this story. Like the secret service would want to have a presidents kids in public school…
Please stop trying to write about politics and stick to the idiotic droll you usually have to say. When you try it shows how stupid you truly are…
Well said.
Darn it, Deceiver… you must have been the one right-wing site to slip through the cracks of the left-dominated blogosphere. How dare you exist!
I think the bigger hypocrisy is that Obama tried to convince us that he was just one of us and McCain was the insanely rich, out of touch one, when his daughter’s were attending a private school with a tuition rate that about matches my annual income. Hey, kettle, your pot’s calling.
Maybe if we quit electing insanely rich people (on both sides) we’d quit having kids in these snooty schools the rest of America could never dream of affording. Oh wait, we tried that with Palin and she just got laughed at for being too down to earth.
A couple of things, and yes I know I’m late to the party.
1) Does anyone live in D.C? Seriously. Because I don’t and have no idea what their public school system is like. Is it really as bad as the media makes it out to be, because if so I wouldn’t send Hitler’s kids there.(Or you know what I mean.)
2) Obama has said that he wants to change the school systems. WANTS to. Not has. Not magically time-travelled to the future and already done. Wants to. If the system is broken, why would you throw your kids at it before getting a chance to fix the problem?
3) Security issues. Blah, blah blah. Secret service disrupting day. Blah, blah, blah.
4) To Kristine waaaaay up there, homeschooling the girls would not be a first. Jackie Kennedy home schooled their kids, with about 12 to 15 of their friends so they wouldn’t be lonely.
Kaliska, interesting little tidbit I was (obviously) unaware of. Thanks for letting me know.
Okay, amended statement: Maybe he should just homeschool the girls to follow in the ever-worshiped Kennedy footsteps.
George Bush sent his two daughters to public school. Not too many people remember that, do they?
Has anyone thought of the possibility that perhaps Obama’s girls WANTED to go to their ORIGINAL private school? That perhaps they had friends who were going there and as children commonly do, wanted to be with their friends?
Also, Obama cannot be blamed for picking Sidwell Friends. The school has already been tried and tested and has proven that it is more than well prepared for the extra security, responsibilities, and peculiarities that are involved in educating Presidential children.
All this talk of hypocrisy is crap. Sorry, but Obama’s girls in the most likely case cannot go to public school. Their parents considered what was best and SAFEST for them, and probably also asked their opinion. Sending them to private school does not make them hypocrites. If Obama is going to fix the public schools then he can still do it. He DOES NOT have to send his girls to public school. He can send them wherever he damn likes, and just because they do not attend public school does not mean that he is not sincere in his conviction to clean up the public schools.
Yeah this one’s a dud. The two things have nothing to do with each other. Why don’t you criticize his support for gay rights while at the same time not being gay? Or his support for middle class tax cuts while not being in the middle class? His support for AIDS research while not having AIDS? Please.
This is a double bind, in which if he sends his girls to private schools, he has “deceived” people by supporting increased funding of public schools (somehow… right?). But if he sends them to public schools, he obviously only wants to support public schools because his daughters go to one.
This site would be full of just this story if this is what passes for mendacity here. Nobody could want to help anybody who isn’t an exact clone of themselves. Nobody could mourn the dead because they themselves aren’t dead. Nobody could run websites attacking public figures without themselves being public figures. It would lead to a lot of sore fingers.
Good grief. A whole lot of you must be Chicago public school graduates….
The point is that he opposes school vouchers and sat on a board charged with improving education in Chicago that did zippo. No improvement after millions of dollars spent. He sends his daughters to private school while blocking public school reforms. That’s the point.
Also, other presidents have sent their children to public school, to make the other obvious point. This is gonna be a long four years…..
Still not sure where the hypocrisy is. Former presidents had kids in public schools… and? What?
School vouchers are much more complex an issue, but they certainly aren’t public school reform. If anything it’s a way for opponents of public schools to try and cripple them by specifically targeting the emerging middle class students whose parents care a lot about their education. Just imagine if every (or most of the) smart and bright students were suddenly pulled out and all of the rest of the students were the layabouts whose parents don’t care. That would artificially cripple the public school system. Vouchers aren’t about public school reform. They are about giving taxpayer money to private schools. And also has little to do with the topic at hand.
hello, DC native here. the public schools are pretty much crap, and the white house is not in one of the better wards (i think the nearest hs is 3rd or so, not sure about elementary). the DC school system is consistently in the bottom 5 in the country. they’re corrupt, overfunded with poor oversight of use, violent (even the most affluent and best scoring school has metal detectors and police at the subway stop every day). sure there are charters. a few are even good. most are the sunshine and light school for personal growth – the requirements for founding a charter are basically 6 students, a written philosophy and good intentions. as for the people crying voucher programs, we had one in dc (congress told us we had to. they like doing that to us). it fell flat on its face when all the private schools refused to participate. why? because a requirement of the program was that the schools could not test voucher applicants, but were required to basically take all comers. not going to help anybody. they’re cleaning house now in the dc schools, but they are a long way off even from mediocre. they cripple smart kids and crush average ones – i’ve seen it happen.
i cannot think of the last president or VP with kids in the dc public schools. maybe if they lived in lovely, academically rigorous montgomery county it would be different. but they don’t, so… *shrug*