Obama says D.C. public schools don't measure up to his daughters' exclusive private school

[brentspeak]

While conveniently leaving out the Captain Obvious fact that the millionaire parents who send their children to Sidwell Friends can afford to be 1000x more devoted to their kids' education than the barely surviving parents who send their to D.C. public schools.

Sidwell Friends parents: Bank executives who got a bonus for dreaming up a way to increase customers' credit card interest rates to 29%; insurance company executives who get bonuses for raising policyholders' rates; Washington lobbyists who get paid big bucks to keep the diseased system in place

D.C. public school parent: Minimum-wage employee desperately trying to scratch up that few extra hundred dollars to pay for her new increased credit card bill, courtesy of the Sidwell Friends parent

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/27/AR2010092701766.html

Obama: D.C. schools don't measure up to his daughters' private school

By Nick Anderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 27, 2010; 9:30 AM

President Obama said Monday that his daughters could not get the same level of education from D.C. public schools that they receive at the elite private school they attend.

Obama, following a path chosen by some of his predecessors in the White House, chose to enroll his daughters Malia and Sasha in the Sidwell Friends School soon after he won the 2008 presidential election.

The president, in a television appearance Monday morning on NBC's "Today" show, was asked by a woman from an audience whether a public school in his home city could measure up to the standards of his children's private school.

"I'll be blunt with you: The answer is no right now," the president replied. Obama said the D.C. schools are "struggling." There are "terrific individual schools" in the city, he said, and because he is president he could "probably maneuver" to get his daughters into one of them.

[hlthe2b]

1. Exactly...

Decimate the public schools to make a point? That seems to be what we are doing.

[Unvanguard]

2. While your basic point is correct

your characterization of people who send their children to Sidwell Friends is hyperbolic and distorted.

[displacedvermoter]

9. So are the President's comments on this.

n/t

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

18. In what respect, Charlie?

[displacedvermoter]

22. Actually the name is Bob

Whenever a wealthy person shoots off his/her mouth about how the big money whatever they have -- call it housing, medical care, or here, schooling for their kids -- is better that what the poor are forced to accept, they sound smug and they clearly aren't comparing apples to oranges. This is over the top speaking from someone with an agenda, namely the destruction of teacher unions and the concept of a democratic public school system. Does the President really think he can make any public school in a place as challenged economically and socially as DC as "good" as the school his kids attend.

This is one of those "duh"! moments, as in, of course the school you pay tens of thousands of dollars in tuition to is gong to be "better" in so many ways than the public schools that have faced ten years of competition from the US Military -- and school building efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iraq -- for federal funding.

And by the friggin way, why isn't this "calling me out", which seems to get people on the other side of you on this and other issues in trouble on this discussion board?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

24. Calling you out?

I'm responding directly to your post.

:rofl:

[displacedvermoter]

23. DUpe, sorry

[Unvanguard]

21. The President's comments on this are obviously correct.

Questions of cause--on which the OP is closer to correct than the chorus of "education reformers"--are independent of that fact.

In any case, whatever the merits of Obama's comments, it is unfair to smear parents who send their kids to Sidwell Friends.

[littlewolf]

3. of course the president and congress let the school voucher system

that was in place expire so that parents had a choice of where to send their kids ...

[Brickbat]

4. I don't want to be all "Link? LINK???" because I totally believe it, but I would like a link so I

can forward this information on. Thanks.

The utter cluelessness is breathtaking.

[brentspeak]

6. Thanks, I forgot. Link provided

[Brickbat]

8. And thank you for posting it! Even though you've spiked my blood pressure this morning.

[hayu_lol]

5. Obama is more out of touch than I thought...

imagine that, a wealthy private school is better than the public schools around it.

Whoever would have guessed.

[OHdem10]

11. At least, Obama is the first Democratic President to answer this

honestly. Past Presidents skirted around the answer.

This question is always asked or some form of it. A slam
at wealthy Democrats who send their kids to private schools.

At least Obama took the question head on.

[Tarheel_Dem]

15. +1

[Brickbat]

7. Well, when your school asks $32K a student a year and can decide who gets in, then yes, it might be

just a little better. But is that really what we want for everyone, Mr. President?

[gratuitous]

10. Before you all jump to a bunch of unwarranted conclusions

The solutions for public schools do NOT (most decidedly do not) include any of the following:

1. More money for public schools. That may be a solution for any problems in the military, but schools would just waste any extra money they get.

2. Smaller class sizes. It doesn't really matter if a teacher has 15 kids in the room or 45; the information the teacher has to impart remains the same.

3. Higher wages for working people. That's a luxury our country simply can't afford if we're to make the world safe for Paris Hilton. Wages must remain low, and working people will just have to figure out how to juggle two or three jobs and still make time to devote a couple of hours a day to their kids' schooling. Otherwise, they're hopeless bums who deserve to fail.

4. Expanded programs for kids who don't learn in the traditional way. If a kid can't get it through rote repetition or has trouble taking tests, that kid deserves to be left behind, and we'll get him out of the system fast so that statistically speaking all the children can remain above average. What happens to the losers who are forced out is not our concern, until they're old enough to be tried as adults.

Okay, with this in mind, let's ask the experts, a bunch of overwealthy persons who have no background or training, tell us all how to fix things.

[Brickbat]

13. This post is AWESOME.

:thumbsup:

[Tatiana]

14. +1... I hope everyone gets the points you made. n/t

[Dogmudgeon]

12. Different Democrat, Same Shit

EVERY time a Democrat with kids is elected President (which is just about all of them), we are treated to the same wails of poutrage that the eeevil DemocRAT is a hypocrite, an elitist, and a non-Republican.

Chelsea Clinton's dad caught hell for sending her to the same damn school.

Of course the schools there are lousy; Washington DC is in the proverbial shitter, and it's likely to be thus until it comes out of its twilight status: "not still a Vassal City, not yet a State" (to paraphrase Britney when she was in the proverbial shitter). So when does DC gain statehood and self-government?

So where was our deep concern for social equality between early 2001 and early 2009?

--d!

[Tarheel_Dem]

16. I am so sick of these victim hitpieces. He was asked a question...

and gave an honest answer. Didn't Amy Carter and Chelsea Clinton both attend Sidwell? And no matter what answer he gave, the reaction would still be the same, and all too predictable. :eyes:

[Laughing Mirror]

17. Chelsea yes, Amy no

Amy went to DC public schools.

If I remember correctly, I think even President Ford's kids went to public school, but this was before he was President, and the family was living across the river in Alexandria.

[Tarheel_Dem]

19. Thanks for that.

:thumbsup:

[Hannah Bell]

20. carter went to dc public schools for elementary & middle school.

[SoxFan]

25. He's right.

And that's the tragedy. Pretending it isn't so won't solve the problem.

The DC public schools aren't good enough for Sasha and Malia. They aren't good enough for the son and daughter of a single mom in Anacostia, either. Hand-wringing about hurt feelings won't change that. Offer some solutions.