Friday, November 21, 2008


Obama Daughters Will Go
to Sidwell Friends School

Tuition? $28,442.00 a year per student (not including extras)

On February 20, his campaign (Obama's) issued a statement headlined, "Response to Misleading Reports Concerning Senator Obama's Position on Vouchers" that said,

"Senator Obama has always been a critic of vouchers." The statement went on, "Throughout his career, he has voted against voucher proposals and voiced concern for siphoning off resources from our public schools." It noted that Mr. Obama's education agenda "does not include vouchers, in any shape or form."


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10 comments:

Motherhen said...

Must be nice to be an elitist! Can you imagine what private schools could do with the 15k that tax dollars spend on public schools in DC? Can you imagine what type of doors would open up if some of those inner city kids could get the vouchers and move to a better school?

What kills me is we, the tax payers, pay taxes for public schools. Therefore, should we, the tax payers, be allowed to send our children to the schools we choose, whether it be a better public out of our zone or a private?

Adrienne said...

The only solution to this is to not allow "government" schools. If all schools are privately owned the market will take care of bad schools and bad teachers. The huge chuck of change we pay for schools should be reduced to a minimum to help low income family with tuition.

Tuition would be reasonable because there would be competition. Teachers would get paid what they were worth not what the NEA says they should be paid.

Until that happens (which it won’t) I highly recommend home schooling until, of course, the Obamanation makes that illegal.

Dymphna said...

I don't have a problem with this. DC schools are the worst in the nation. My mother worked two jobs to keep me in Catholic school when I was a kid growing up in DC.

I despise what Obama stands for but I'm glad he doesn't play politics with his daughters's education. As for vouchers, it's never going to happen nationally because many parents don't want poor kids going to school with theirs.

belinda said...

Oprah can foot this bill , you know how much she loves education.

Mark D. said...

First, I don't blame the Obamas for not wishing to inflict their children with a public school education, particularly in Washington, D.C. No parent with the option could responsibily send their child to any public school in D.C.

Second, what I do blame the messiah-elect for is his refusal to allow poor parents -- particularly poor minority parents -- from having the option via vouchers to rescue their own children from the hell-hole of public education in D.C. and most other urban areas.

Third, the best option for education overall would be the abolishing of the public schools and their replacement with private schools. But that is an unlikely event. Baring the elmination of public schools, vouchers are important because they introduce an element of realistic competition into the educational system -- vouchers allow the economically marginalized to have enough resources (via the voucher) to be able to access private education for their children, thereby forcing the public schools to compete for students. Market mechanisms are allowe to come into play, leading over time to an improvement in the overall quality of public education.

Barring vouchers, the public schools will always have a monopoly over the education of the children of the poor and the marginalized. And that, more than anything else, will ensure that the children of the poor and the marginalized will stay poor and marginalized themselves.

Joe of St. Thérèse said...

It's time to ax public schools one of my acts when I'm running in 2012

Adrienne said...

Mark - great minds again. The government (as I said earlier) should be thrown out of the "business" of education.

And yes - the whole point of the post was:

1. Obama's by virtue of their money can send their daughters to a decent school (good for them!)
2. He denies that option to less wealthy people (shame on him)

Adrienne said...

Joe - I'll vote for you!!!

Even the so-called "great" public schools are a disgrace. Our high school is rated very high and the kids that go there are functional idiots.

About 25% of my husbands music students are young people and the difference between home-schooled and public school kids is beyond remarkable.

belinda said...

It cracks me up how the homeschoolers are "bitch-slapping" the American school system.
I fear for them though, you know people hate it when they're made to look bad.
...Oh ,and how.
I am hoping that the homeschooler's can help us to circumvent the X-Mark chip system too. You know people who can think outside of the box.

Elisabeth said...

Oh, goodie. Sidwell. Another bastion of pseudo-Quaker (Friends General Conference) liberalism. Somehow this does not surprise me. These folks will be following the Pres into the potty and offering to help him clean up, afterwards, to show their adulation.