Educational choices

Clarence Page:

Parenting humbles any of us who try it -- even new residents of the White House.

Choosing a new puppy? Ha! The Obamas face a much tougher public relations dilemma: Are they willing to put their school-aged daughters where daddy's political promises have been?

The education world is waiting to see whether Sasha, 7, and Malia, 10, will be sent to private school while their father continues to oppose tax-supported programs that offer a similar choice to less-fortunate parents.

The question of vouchers as an alternative to public schools crosses color lines, but it is particularly appropriate for the nation's first African-American president.

Black students disproportionately find themselves in underperforming schools. In fact, opinion polls by think tanks like the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies have found black parents favor vouchers by larger majorities than white parents do.

Yet teachers unions lead opposition to such alternatives, even though studies like a 2004 Thomas B. Fordham Institute report find big city public school teachers to be more likely than the general population they serve to have their own children in private schools.

In Mr. Obama's hometown, Chicago, for example, 38.7 percent of public school teachers sent their children to private schools, the Fordham study found, compared to 22.6 percent of the general public.

In Washington, D.C., 26.8 percent of public school teachers sent their children to private schools, versus 19.8 percent of the public.

A voucher program Congress imposed on the District in 2004, which granted $7,500 a year for 1,903 students, emerged as an issue in Barack Obama's third televised debate with Sen. John McCain.

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... No single remedy can fix challenges as complex as those posed by public education. Every child learns differently. But Miss Rhee's defense of "choice" offers the right direction.

Any program that expands educational choices also opens opportunities for more kids who don't have enough chances to move up the ladder to a better life - maybe even to the White House.

As a parent who reluctantly moved my own child to private school after the fifth grade, I appreciate the value of school choice. But what about the kids left behind in failing schools?

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My grand children in San Antonio are in a private school and I have noticed a significant improvement in their education and demeanor. The biggest difference is not how much money is being spent by the school, but is the requirement that they learn. That basic concept seems to be omitted from public classrooms today.

The teachers either do not or are not permitted to demand that students learn and that they act respectfully in class. The loss of discipline and standards seems obvious to those of us outside the schools, but those running these institutions don't seem to mind that much.