January 16, 2009 1:43PM

President Obama and the D.C. Schools

By David Boaz

For the third time in 30 years, a president has to decide where to send his school‐​age children after moving to Washington, D.C. And having school‐​age children naturally gives any new president a particular interest in the D.C. public schools. A big headline in today’s Washington Post (actual paper copy) proclaims, “Obama Interested in D.C. Schools.” In an interview with the Post, President‐​elect Obama said he was determined to be part of the local community and that

he and his wife had specifically discussed working with the D.C. public schools, using their own celebrity and success “as leverage to get kids and parents and teachers excited about the possibilities of an education.” He said he was “trying to think about regular visits to local schools to meet with kids and meet with teachers and principals” and reiterated his desire to open up the White House “in ways that haven’t been done before.”


At a policy level, he said that he had met D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee but had not spent much time with her and that he expects his incoming Education Department secretary, Arne Duncan, to be “interested in how the school experiment here goes.”

But the next sentence acknowledges that

Obama’s two daughters are attending the private Sidwell Friends School.

So he’d like to make regular visits to the D.C. public schools, but he ain’t sending his own kids there. Which is perfectly understandable. Neither did Bill and Hillary Clinton. Or Al Gore. Or Vice President‐​elect Biden’s son. Indeed all their children attend or did attend Sidwell friends. The Carters sent Amy to D.C. public schools, but that was the last time a president did so. The Obamas don’t seem to have considered public schools. They’re sending Malia and Sasha to Sidwell, a school of choice for the Washington elite.


Of course, the Obamas also sent their daughters to private school in Chicago. What’s most striking to me in all of this is that Obama has named Chicago school superintendent Arne Duncan to oversee the nation’s schools, even though in seven years he wasn’t able to produce a school in Chicago that Barack and Michelle Obama would send their own children to. “What he did for Chicago, he can do for America”?


Perhaps Obama and Tim Geithner believe that taxes and public schools are for the little people. And it would be nice if they’d give the little people a break on their taxes and a choice of schools.