I'd also recommend Clay Risen's piece on Rhee in the latest Atlantic.

No, he shouldn't send them to public school as a matter of policy. He should do as the Clintons did, whcih was choose the option they deemed best for their child.  Children have only one childhood, and only one time in elementary, junior high, and high school.  What should be taken into consideration is what kind of school or schools would work best for Sasha and Malia.

Please Jason, Obamas, not Obamas' -- all three times.  Are you a grauduate of the D.C. public schools?!

I wonder if any DC public school is equipped to handle the security requirements the Misses Obama will need.  I thought Amy Carter wasn't allowed to play outside during recess because the playground was too close to the street.

johnclm beat me to it. A very interesting article about her struggles with DC establishment. It really taught me a lot about DC education -- being a tertiary student here doesn't give you a whole lot of knowledge on the local public elementary schooling.

Depends on the definition of "should," as a certain someone might say.

What are the good DC elementary / middle schools? I know Wilson and Banneker are frequently championed as good D. C. public schools, but neither of his daughters will be looking at high school unless he wins a second term.  I went to MCPS until high school so I confess I have no clue even though I'm from the area.

Based upon how Amy Carter and Chelsea Clinton turned out, I am pretty sure the Obamas are heading to Sidwell Friends.

it's one thing to make a statement like President Carter, it's another when you see Amy Carterr wasting her life away.

Let me know when DC Schools improve, that will be something.  

Detroit has lost their schools and is mired in another financial crisis and will be losing more students and population.  I can't imagine DC doing much better.

I would caution the author of this article over  automatically casting Ms. Rhee as the hero in a battle, which is what you did rhetorically.  As someone who will soon be a public school teacher, I can assert that the situation is more complicated and needs more insight than a passing comment in a blog post....

Even setting aside the best education, and there are arguments to be made that the sheltered environment of private school may not always be the best education (didn't hold Obama up any...), there's also the security issue. In public school, guaranteeing their safety may not be feasible, or at least not reasonable.

John Eaton Elementary: good enough for ratnerstar, good enough for the Obamas.

clumsy- Eaton aside, Lafayette, Oyster, and Janney are good elementary schools.  Oyster, in particular, is bilingual and where Michelle Rhee sends her kids, so the rumor mill is pointing there are a possibility for the Obama kids.  Junior High, I don't know as well.  I went to Deal, but I hear it's gone downhill since I left (as has Wilson, my old HS).

CRS- come on, you think the defining difference between Amy Carter and Chelsea Clinton is the schools they attended?  Sidwell's a great school, but it doesn't have the power to make or break a person's entire future.  Anyway, there are plenty of very good DC public schools, especially at the elementary level.  

The one thing that the Obamas should certainly NOT be taking into account in choosing schools for their children is the political impact, on DC, on the schools there, on public opinion generally, or anything else politically related.   That would be completely irresponsible.  Their job as parents is to make the best choice they can for the well-being of their children given their means and their highly unusual circumstances.  There are arguments for public schools and their singular virtues as there are for private schools.  They must weight the benefits and burdens in light of their knowledge of their own children's strengths and weaknesses.  However, these children are not on the planet to be used as political tools to which they cannot by definition give any informed consent.  Quite simply, they are not to be used IN ANY WAY.  They are entitled to the best that their parents can give them, for their own sakes alone.

My son attends a DC public school, a public charter school that is.  I bet I've done more research on DC Public Schools than anyone here on Talkback and I can tell you, there are good ones and bad ones, just like in any system.  I happen to live near a terrible DCPS school and a terrible charter school but selected an outstanding charter school.  I am sure the Obamas will do whatever is right for their kids, including their kids' unique requirements for security and privacy, but I hope this high profile school search does not create an opening for ignorant people to bash schools that they know nothing about.

I'm hardly an expert, but it strikes me that we all become simple, idiotic amnesiacs when we talk about education.  It's as though none of us ever went to school ourselves or have any sense of what growing up is like.  We suddenly forget about the wide-ranging social ills that plague certain communities.  We don't remember that many of our formidable and most memorable events transpired after the bell rang.  We forget that we, because we're human, blame our parents for everything wrong in our lives.

We imagine instead that the answer to the question "why isn't our children learning" is to be found exclusively in teachers' employment contracts.  We imagine that one's lot in life, and the success of a community, and the country, all rests on the shoulders of those lazy, incompetent teachers who have never had to work in the real world and who, you just know, take their tenure (which they've enjoyed, along with a small salary, for a hundred years) as a license to commence the burn-out phase of careers devoted to trying to cram some knowledge, basic intellectual skills, and worldly understanding into the thoroughly distracted and already well-fucked-up minds, if you can call them that, belonging to your precious little brats.

I don't have the answer to education reform.  What I know is that, in the words of Hillary Clinton, it takes a village.  Everyone has to work together.  Instead, what I see (with a public high school teacher in my immediate family), is an adversarial relationship.  I see scapegoating of teachers.  I see endless discussion of teacher accountability and almost no discussion of parent accountability.  If anyone wants to make a teacher's job dependent on a kid's achievement, then you had better agree to remove entirely from the stats the scores of kids whose parents don't return calls, don't show up to parent-teacher conferences, and, when they do, plainly demonstrate that they're the chief problem in the kid's life.  Better yet, let's put their names in the paper under the banner headline, "The Following People Suck at Raising Their Kids According to Unified School District 235."

Teachers are easy and, today anyway, irresistible targets.  It was not always thus.  A long time ago, if a parent got a call from a teacher, little Joey was in deep shit.  Parents and teachers worked together.  Today, parents get a call from a teacher, and they don't yell at little Joey.  They yell at the teacher.  Many parents today are mental children.  They can do no wrong.  They are overly sensitive to anything that might be construed as criticism.  And those are the ones who even care enough to act as advocates for their kids (or, really, themselves).

We are simply *too quick to assume* that teachers are the main problem, or even a big part of the problem, or that teachers' unions are the main obstacle to accomplishing anything positive.  Cops and firefighters belong to unions too, and they are routinely given their props for heorically serving their communities, some bad apples notwithstanding.  Not so with teachers who, it seems to me, are universally regarded as scum.  Some might regard that attitude as demoralizing.

There are so, so many teachers who work so very hard for not very real money and care a lot, maybe more than you, and stay up nights worrying about your kid, whom they may well know better than you do, and who, believe it or not, know more about teaching than you do.  They deserve a fucking thank you very much instead of the constant abuse and condescension -- from *everyone*.  Their idiot administrators, their extra idiotic idiot board members (the lowest rung of elected officialdom), and the ignorant "taxpayer" who, don't you know, pays their salaries all of whom seem to assume that teachers, generally speaking, just don't care and just don't get it.  Some professionals might regard that as aggravating.  I don't think most such critics have an inkling of what teachers are like, as a group, or what it's like to be a teacher.

I don't know what to make of these proposals regarding tenure.  I know that there are bad teachers in this world.  I also know that a lot of irrational bullshit gets directed at teachers that would otherwise result in their losing their jobs, given the fact that the watchers are often dumb, ignorant, and hysterical, including political bullshit.  Being a teacher, especially today, is like being a judge.  It's good to have some room to do your job free from the often stupid passions of the people.  So I don't know.  But, I'll tell you what:  These sorts of proposals deserve to be viewed with at least some skepticism, and not merely seen uncritically as good policy up against those greedy job-security-wanting teachers, because what I'm hearing is "If we could only fix the teacher problem!"  That's far too narrow.  We need to *work together*, show just a little good will toward our hard-working, dedicated teachers, and stop making them, reflexively and at every turn, the enemy.

I agree with reganad and roidubouloi: I don't think Obama should make decisions about his kids' education based on political symbolism or calculation.  But I also think he shouldn't make decisions about my kids' education on those grounds, either.  Jhildner is right: what passes for debate on this topic is based almost entirely on unconsidered preconceptions.  The kids themselves are just political footballs.  

On the issue of teacher tenure: Like it or not, teacher tenure is a form of compensation.  If you're already worried about the quality of the teaching pool, don't you have to at least consider whether cutting compensation may worsen the problem more than it improves it?  Won't it make the job even more unattractive than it already is?

Amy  Carter attended public school in DC for only one year.  

And what's the problem with Amy Carter anyhow?  What is she doing that's so awful?  I don't know anything about her.

What liebig said.

I think it is the obligation of every parent to give their kids the best education they can afford and the obligation of government can be said to be the same.  Of course, political hay will be made of everything and it is the obligation of the Obamas to respond to that in a way that does not imply some sort of arrogance.  There is the future of children at stake.  Incidentally, I was very impressed with Malia.  At the beginning of the campaign, the Obama family did a group interview where they talked about the family.  Michelle and the kids agreed that they didn't like that  Dad left his big shoes and his heavy briefcase in the foyer.  And then  Malia began to make a comment.  Barack shifted slightly, bracing for whatever was coming next.   Malia interrupted herself and turned to him and said something like, "It's not that bad Dad."   I thought to myself that here was a child who, while speaking, could be sensitive to the feelings of her father in a way that implied that those feelings were more important than what she had to say.  Or, she was coached not to say anything bad.  Either way, I was impressed.

reganad

I concur absolutely.  The children's best interests should always come first. And I have little doubt that's what Michelle and Barack will ultimately base their decision upon, they seem to be very good parents.

jhildner

I think the home environment is at least half if not more in the education equation, because it is really a collaborative effort between the school system and the family.  I think that cooperation between student teachers and parents is vital for a child to reap the full benefit of the educational experience.

-------------

I am largely the product of the public school system, mostly the relatively awful public schools in Southern California and South Florida in the 70s and 80s. Both of which had pretty abysmal records back then. In high school I actually had a science teacher who quite obviously didn't know anything about science, often I as a ninth grader found myself correcting him.  He was also the soccer coach, and I knew the team was in deep trouble when I observed him referring to the basic rulebook far too often. After about half the school year passed the principal found out that the guy didn't even have a college degree, bogus credentials.  That was a couple of hundred students who got cheated out about six months of our education.

I also had a sadistic shop teacher at the public Deerfield Beach middle school, who had one of those 3 foot long three-quarter of an inch thick oak paddles with large holes drilled in it so as to reduce the aerodynamic drag when it was swung. He paddled me viciously once for flirting with a girl.  Bastard!  My mother was not at all amused, telling him that if he ever laid a hand on me again, she'd go after him with a tire iron or some such threat, and my mother was never person to make idle threats. Mom did not not believe in corporal punishment, but she was a big believer in self-defense.  :-)

God only knows what my limited learning-disabled brain could have accomplished if it had only been freed of the stupendous drag factor on my intellect created by some of the cretins who often only halfheartedly tried to instruct me during my of diverse and far traveled primary school education.  I must've gone to 10 different schools and it became a real bummer trying to get to know new people most every year, and trying to prove myself over and over again. By the time I actually became accepted, it was too late I'd already rejected the whole underlying premise of  social acceptance by any group.

I have some fond memories of the public Palms elementary in LA and a good teacher there, Mrs. Arnault in first-grade.  Also my first public school experience in kindergarten in St. Louis, Delmar Harvard, which was considered superior, seemed positive.  I went to Hillel a parochial private school in Miami for a time, where I had at least one good teacher, Mrs. Singer, who encouraged me. Unfortunately I was ostracized by the other children because of my last name, and because I was poor. "You're not a real Jew, are you Aaron," they would say.  It's funny I used to hear the exact same thing from my non-Jewish schoolmates in public schools, not to mention my own family members who were not Jewish.  "You're not a real Jew, are you Aaron?"  Fuckers!  :-)  I was talking to my friend who is Jewish and is of mixed racial and ethnic heritage, and she said it best for those in our generation, you're never really totally excepted anywhere, you're rejected in some ways or to some degree by each group.  Which apparently gives a person the continual perspective of the outsider.

My favorite school was an unaccredited private/public school on a commune called Ananda up in the Sierra Nevadas of Northern California.  It was an interesting three-story building where we started out every day on the roof watching the sun rise and listening to stories read from the Bhagavad Gita.  Those stories, almost singularly, have stayed with me through the years when much of my early education experiences have faded from memory.

Of course, it always comes down to individual teachers in the end.  One great teacher can make up for the failings of an entire educational system, and even breakdowns within a family, such is the power that one dedicated person who genuinely cares can exercise over a student's educational life. In the final analysis, education seems to be something of a crap shoot in this country, you never really know what you'll get.  But my advice would always be to look for the best teachers.  In my opinion that, more than any other consideration, is what the system and parents owe their children.

I don't know about DC, but I know there are some fantastic forward looking public schools in New York like this one.  

P.S. 184 Shuang Wen School

http://www.shuangwen.org/

I would loved to send my daughter to a dual language school like that. She's been in some bad schools, charter private schools and public schools.  The charter school was the worst, some experiences similar to my own unfortunately.  Luckily she's in a great public school in Indiana now where she is actually learning and excelling in almost every subject, and there is nothing that makes me happier.

CRS9TNR.... I mean, honestly. Amy is an artist, and Chelsea works in finance. Are you sure about which one is wasting her life?

I'm not an online troll. I'm not. But, geez, you've got some unexamined value judgments going on with you.

liebig- you're right that tenure is a form of compensation.  On the other hand, it's not like Rhee's plan is just to cut tenure; in return, she wants to drastically increase teacher pay, so that it reaches well into the six figures.  

If my boss gave his employees tenure, that would no doubt entice more people to apply for jobs here.  That doesn't make it a wise business move.

Ratnerstar: Point taken.  But I can't help but feel that the parts of the plan that actually cost money are the parts less likely to get enacted.

I'm also not at all sure that what passes for "merit" under a new system is likely to be very appealing.  My kids' school already has enough incentives to focus on short-term test-score improvement that it might as well be called the Stanley Kaplan Elementary School.  If I had to endure that kind of program, I'd be counting the days until I could drop out.  

My sister's kid has started one of the top Montgomery County MD public high schools.  She's naturally weak at math, but compensates by giving it extra attention.  Last year in middle school, when they were taking one of those No Child Left Behind tests, her teacher reviewed her math answers.  She apparently had answered four of the questions incorrectly.  The teacher told her that she'd answered incorrectly, and gave my niece the opportunity to correct them.  My niece was able to correct three of the four answers.  As for the other wrong one, the teacher told her that she wished she could help her.  Apparently cheating teachers is another harmful effect of the disastrous No Child Left Behind act.

Jhildner, your family member is a teacher and so I'm sure there's backstory to your comment.  I'm troubled by how the concept of validating kids and giving them self-esteem has been perverted into raising them with excessive self-regard.  One of the manifestations is when a parent calls to bitch about a kid's B-.  My sister's friend used to teach art at Blair High, but moved up county because so many parents would call her about grades.

I've had mostly good teachers, but a few bad ones, mostly in terms of presentation, and in a couple of cases the content of their classes and their knowledge didn't seem that good.  But in no case did I find I deserved better or worse than the grades they gave me.  The one time I felt I got an unfair grade was in high school chemistry, then a strong subject for me.  I was initially given an A, but in fact had squeaked in an A+.  I just explained my reasons to the teacher, he saw it, and adjusted the grade accordingly.  Then in college I got some B- whereas I thought I was to get a B+.  I found that the work that I'd done better was weighted less, so the grade stayed.  In neither case did I involve Mommy or Daddy.

Liebig, if you follow the NY Times link through you'll find that Rhee plans to fund teachers' extra pay through foundation grants.

One thing not mentioned, what about the ethnic background of the public vs. private schools. Would the Obama girls feel happy in a pretty much all white private school, after a lifetime in mixed public ones? Public is probably more the way to go if we want to consider where the girls themselves might feel they best fit in.

ratnerstar, re: going to Eaton: Really? When? I was a fairly happy student there from '86 to '94, though after I left, I become acutely aware that it is essentially a publicly-run, privately-funded school. The shock I experienced when I went from Eaton, with its well-maintained building, newly renovated playground and motivated teachers to Hardy Middle, where I had not a single class in a room without a broken window, and books that were literally thirty years old, was quite stunning. In any case, if Eaton was good enough for the Santos children, it's good enough for some non-fictional Presidential children. =P

jhildner: Your defense of the beleaguered teacher is obviously heartfelt, and extremely eloquent. I've heard similar tales from friends of mine who've gone on to become teachers, and the problems caused by uninvolved parents, defensive parents, and just plain idiotic parents are certainly vast.

Nonetheless, the reality that teachers need accountability is stark and undeniable. I remember when I was in high school, being appalled to learn that (in my Virginia county) teachers were required to take continuing education classes in their subject to maintain their credentials; they weren't required to pass the classes, mind you, just take them. That isn't a system dedicated to responsibly maintaining a workforce.

Rhee's experience is the perfect example of this. I've been following her adventures in the DC school systems off and on, and it's simply insane. She is the head of the DC school system, and she doesn't have the power to fire anyone. She has been begging the City Council to give her that power for over a year, and has finally given up and proposed this new "merit" system wherein she has to essentially bribe teachers to willingly submit themselves to performance checks that might result in their dismissal. (Mind you, I am glad to see her increase teacher pay and make it much more competitive. No problem there.) This is not a course of action that would be necessary in any sensibly run system. Employees need protections, but bosses need to be able to fire people in order to function. Without that, bosses are just politely asking employees to do their jobs, if that wouldn't be too much of a bother.

I think these kids should go where they are safest. This is NOt a President's decision its a parent decision and with the rise in hate crimes since Obama was elected I wouldnt take any chances.

Carol

Should the Obama girls go to public school?

Well, as someone who is in that particular business and has, over the course of a long administrative career, counseled many parents on exactly this choice, I say...

Michelle and Barack need to discuss what is best for their children and make the best choice for their family,irrespective of what anyone may say or think. Bottom line: Kids get one shot at an education and like it or not, parents are charged with that decision.

Then some parents have asked "Well Jaunty, what will so and so think?"

My response is always, "who cares? They're your kids, you are responsible, why would you give a rat's ass about what anyone else may think? When it comes to my kids, my wife and I do what is best and if anyone has a problem with it, they can kiss my ass."

Children are not political footballs or pawns to anyone's political agenda. If the Obama girls go to public school, great. If not, well, that is fine too.

Blackton, I think the student body of the public schools considered for the Misses Obama would comprise mostly white NW DC residents.  And off the top of my head I  think the UC Lab School was mostly white with some Asians mixed in.  Either way, the girls will be living in mostly a white world except at home.

Ironyroad, here's the Amy C asrte Link in Wikipedia, not sure if the info is accurate, but seems pretty good.

en.wikipedia.org/.../Amy_Carter

Thomassein- I gues it depends on your definition of success.  I think protesting the CIA involvement wth Abby Hoffman and then leaving working life to raise your children is a cop out.  Maybe she'll come out of her shell and do something, but she's 41 right now and doesn't have much on her resume.  I am sure her parents are proud of her and she has done some good.  But Chelsea's knocking down some great cash and got her Masters Degree from Oxford.  I think the majority would have judgements similar to mine.

I tried to discuss this topic during the campaign to get more backgorund on the candidates views on education, but we debateed Bill Ayers and Hope.

This subject is interesting because the Obama's are now in a situation similar to most lower middle class families.  Most families make their school choices by deciding where the choose to live.  This artrangement has allowed the Upper Middle Class to completely ignore the realities in Americas urban school districts by living Suburban.  

The Obamas will now have a similar decision with an added bonus, do they select a Charter School.  As a strong supporter of Teacher's Unions will they select a charter school?  With the Charters siphoning off the best & brightest whose families are active in the schools, will they accept their assigned school?

The probleem is largber than one family and most people aknowledge this by selecting private schools.  The hope it will get better.

My opinion is that the Obama's will make the decision based upon the best interests of their daughters and tacitly aknowledge the problems of DC Schools.  Perhaps in a second administration they can send their daughters to rejuvanted public schools, but I would not plan on that.

janus-  I was there from 83 to 90.  Small world, huh?   At the time, my parents lived in Mt. Pleasant, so Bancroft was actually my neighborhood school.  It wasn't such a great place then -- I've heard that is has since improved -- so a good chunk of parents managed to get their kids transferred to Eaton.  

Thanks CRS9TNR (are you thinking of switching to a more euphonias handle sometime?).  Wow -- it does seem as if Amy Carter is living an ordinary family life in Atlanta.  When I read the statement earlier about "Amy Carterr wasting her life away" I immediately thought that she was a known heroin addict who occasionally fronted as lead singer for a punk band.

I must say, no disrespect, but your comment above

"I think protesting the CIA involvement wth Abby Hoffman and then leaving working life to raise your children is a cop out.  Maybe she'll come out of her shell and do something, but she's 41 right now and doesn't have much on her resume.  I am sure her parents are proud of her and she has done some good.  But Chelsea's knocking down some great cash and got her Masters Degree from Oxford"

seems to embody one of the real problematic assumptions that distort American life:  the meaningless comparison of salary and academic credentials with no sense of what makes one person happy in life as opposed to another.  Maybe Amy Carter is doing what is right for her, and the negative comparison with Chelsea Clinton seems as random as a positive comparison with JFK's son who took risks flying that got him and others killed a few years ago

Nobody has the guts to say this, but the Obamas should send their daughters to wherever they'll be safest. Personally, I'd consider home-schooling with private tutors. Call me paranoid, fine. Their social lives can be enhanced under guarded circumstances. This could happen on a regular basis so they don't feel like presidential prisoners. There could be sleep-overs and play-times. I do not need to spell this out.

Satyendra -- That's great if it works.  Can they really depend on foundations to fund their salaries -- indefinitely?  If so, that's good for D.C., but it's hard to see that as a large-scale solution.

Liebig, my limited understanding of foundation economics is they would have some self-perpetuating fund, not just some one-time grant.  They'd need to start with x times the annual value needed to augment teacher salaries, then pay for said augmentation from the dividends of what in today's environment should be a conservative investment.

Irony, you're right to point out that just because someone writes children's books and makes less money than some financial employee doesn't mean they're a loser.  The Washington Post ran an obnoxious story a couple of months ago about some inner city kid from DC who bootstrapped his way to an Ivy education, but was "only" employed as a social worker.  They out and out said that most of his peers were going to Goldman Sachs, therefore he wasn't realizing his full potential.

I'm trying to remember back when I was seven.  I think in a way living in the White House would be enchanting for girls that age, as close as you can get to being princesses in a castle.  Of course as Moran points out there's so much less freedom and they might feel constrained as they get older, want to go out on dates or just disappear for a few hours without having the Secret Service loitering nearby.

There's a dirty little secret about education:  Gresham's law applies.  That is to say that poor students drive out, or drive down the performance of, good students.  As researchers from Coleman to Moynihan to Jencks and his colleagues all discovered, schools are comprised of the socio-cultural baggage that kids bring from their homes.  Teachers and money are not unimportant but it's the students' home lives--and a parental supportive involvement with the culture of education--that is the best predictor and indicator of student performance.  This doesn't say that schools, their administrators and teachers, mustn't be held accountable.  Just that in this age of "no child left behind" we obviate the primary requirement of parental responsibility.

I am a product of the District's public school system.  In my time (class of 1966) Woodrow Wilson was ranked with Bronx Science and New Trier High Schools.  But Wilson's students then were merely a reflection of their parents:  doctors, lawyers, civil servants and other professionals who aspired similar academic and professional achievement for their children.

Should we should make getting married as difficult as getting divorced, getting divorced as easy as getting married and require licensure testing before allowing couples to become parents?  Would not that kind of draconian policy help create the almost universal kind of parenting to assure better academic performance in our public schools?

More realistically (and ethically!) as a society we should consider the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan's call for a national family policy to abet and encourage a wider appreciation and involvement by parents in their children's learning.

As for the Obamas?  Let them pick the schools that best provide for the individual needs of each of their daughters.  Hopefully Michelle and Barak Obama will also regularly review their children's lessons and homework with each child.

No parent for whatever reason-- even if President of the United States-- should send their child to a school of lesser quality than they can choose and afford.

Why should the Obama's be expected to make some phony political points at the cost of the children's well-being?

If the Obama parents want to make political hay at cost to themselves, fine.  But don't make you children pay for it.

janus:  Yes, well, I was appalled to learn that the Chicago Police Department did not require rigorous physical fitness tests when I read a story about the union resisting the superintendent's call to institute such tests.  That's what unions do -- act as advocates for their members.  But, of course, the real issue isn't whether your local cop on the beat can run fast or not.  As we know from Cops, the vast majority of policing is basically acting as social workers, and tackling widespread urban crime doesn't really involve a lot of foot chases.  My point isn't that physical fitness shouldn't be required for cops or that teachers should not have to pass exams every once in a while, but I wonder to what extent the *focus* on these sorts of things misses the big picture.  I just want to make sure that "education reform" doesn't amount to simply punishing teachers, not just because it's insulting to teachers but because it won't work.  I want to see evidence of a broader view that sees teachers not as adversaries but as partners in a community-wide effort.

I agree with Jason that there would be an idealistic, hopeful signal sent by having the Obama girls enroll

moran:  Kids need normal social interaction.  That means leaving the house.  I think you can rest assured that they'll be the safest kids in the world.

Chan, but "quality" is a fuzzy concept.  I come from Chicago where there are some very fine public schools and also some very pricey private schools.  Some of those private schools are crap.  They're basically running scams.  They have good scores, sure, because they're a self-selecting group.  But they lack the resources or even the qualified personnel of some public schools.  I think that Michelle should observe some classes in various schools, get a feel for the places, meet with teachers and principals, find out about how the schools teach gifted kids, which these probably are, to make sure that they'll be sufficiently challenged and stimulated, and determine which school will make a best fit for their kids based mainly on those "interviews" and what their kids want.  I happen to think it would be nice if, based on that research, they found that a public school would make a good fit.  But, sheesh, let's not get all pious.  Nobody is suggesting sacrificing their kids' education to make a point.

jhildner -

Right-fucking-on!  My wife teaches math at an inner-city high school and the items you cited have become the litany of teachers nationwide.

EliD -

Your point regarding the sorry state of the home lives of some of these kids is too true.  In some classes, as many as a third of the kids have no address but are shuffled from relative to friend to shelter, and back again.  Is it any wonder they find it difficult to concentrate on subject matter?  They have living situations that defy imagination.

jhildner, I agree.  Not all private schools are fabulous, even the ones with great reputations.  Not all publics schools by any means are bad.

My children went to private schools through the 6th and 4th grades respectively.  For the last three years, they've been attending public schools.  But, we have access, thank the stars, to some of the best public schools in the country.

I don't know the D.C. school system except by its abysmal reputation and by personally walking by several of them while in D.C. and finding the look of them depressing in the extreme.

I suspect that there are in D.C. a few public charter schools that are excellent.

While it is not particularly relevant to the president of the United States, it ought to be pointed out and admitted that people send their children to private schools and to the Ivies, not just for the quality of the classrooms.

The advantage of both has a lot to do with old fashioned networking and the creation of Old Boy networks.  I have friends from kindergarten who are still close friends.  If any of them happened to be the chairman of a still solvent corporation, that would be useful to me and is often useful to grads of Sidwell Friends or Harvard.

It's easy to mock such considerations.  But what parent wouldn't buy every possible advantage for his kids?  Maybe a few would eschew this particular one, but not most.

Yo! Liebig got a "dissent of the day" at the Daily Dish! Or someone plagiarized L's comment about compensation. But either way, kudos to Liebig.

I'm late to this thread, but I have two things to say.

First, defining the "quality" of a school--for the unique person that is your child--is difficult to impossible.  Crappy public schools, of which I am a product, have certain advantages, most notably in terms of exposure of the child to people whose backgrounds are different from his own.  Some parents may not consider this to be an important part of a child's education, but parents who ascribe to progressive politics may consider exposure to children less advantaged than their own a crucial component of their children's education.  

Also, the Hawaii of Obama's youth was a place where the divide between public and private schools was at least as severe as it is in DC.  I know this because my cousins went to the same school as Obama, one of them at the same time.  In Honolulu in the 70s and probably still today, nobody who had any sort of higher aspirations for their children sent them to public school, and of the many private alternatives, Ponuhu, Obama's alma mater was/is the most elite, the Sidwell of Hawaii.  It is interesting to speculate where BHO would have ended up had his family elected not to send him to the "elite" alternative.

Yeah, that was me -- I'm a little embarassed about it, given the corrections from Satyendra, above.  Still, the second point stands.

aeromonas, excellent points about Honolulu public schools.  I know about Hawaii in the 60s and 70s (lived and worked there in '68).  Anyone who could scrounge up the money any way at all sent their kids to a private school, and Punahoe was the first choice.

Having gone to both public and private schools (the private one was actually far more spartan than the public being a military prep school) I can attest to the value of both.  My kids have had the same experience attending both excellent private and excellent public schools.  But, I would never if I had it in my power, let them go to crappy schools of either variety..

Nothing wrong, and maybe a lot good, in being exposed to a reasonably wide diversity of economic and ethnic backgrounds.  To a point.  I'm not interested in having my kids learn the intricasies of gang culture of any ethnicity.

And, I don't care if it is a cliché or a stereotype, that latter reason is why you're happy if there are a lot of Asian kids in class with your own.  They do, preponderantly, work their asses off in school, behaving well while doing it.

I don't want my kids in school with a preponderance of kids whose families don't value education and push hard at home for excellence.