Hey, Guess Who’s Not Going to a Washington D.C. Public School?
November 21st, 2008 by Evil Beet
Why, the Obama girls, of course!
Despite pleas from the community for President-elect Obama to send his girls to one of the (god-awful) Washington D.C. public schools, in hopes that his daughters’ attendance there would help the schools improve, Barack has opted to send Sasha and Malia to the presitigious Sidwell Friends school, a private Quaker school that Chelsea Clinton also attended.
What do you think of Obama’s choice? Should he have sent the girls to a public school?
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The Obama should send their girls to school where they will be safest. Period. They need a school that’s experienced with high profile kids and Secret Service protection. Choosing D.C. public schools would’ve been ridiculous.
his girls should go wherever they will get the best education – all kids should. lucky for them their parents can afford it.
The Obamas should send their girls to school where they will be safest. Period. They need a school that’s experienced with high profile kids and Secret Service protection. Choosing D.C. public schools would’ve been ridiculous.
(sorry for double post. Gah.)
um hell no. why hurt your children to try to prove a point?
I would have totally looked down on him if he had. and if you guys disagree, you probably don’t know much about DC.
No way…I wouldn’t even send my kids to a public school in the DC area…
They should go to school that has the most experience with high-profile kids that need a lot of security. I would not expect Barack to send his girls to some public school with all those nutsos out there who can harm them more easily – God forbid. Their safety is of utmost importance.
Hopefully that school will be safer and will protect them from the crazies from the red states.
his daughters shouldn’t be part of anything political, as much as possible. of course he should put them in the best school his money can buy. their well-being isn’t worth the pleas of a bunch of people who wish they weren’t ghetto and sending their kids to the ghetto schools they’ve let get rundown. i’m not a fan of obama for the most part, but at least he seems to be trying to take care of his kids.
hell to the N-O! not unless you wanna see it turn into the fuckin’ o-key corral between secret service agents and the students! no way, man.
His choice is perfectly understandable. Why wouldn’t he send his children to the best possible school? He can afford it. I would have done the same in his place.
Sending his kids to a public school in hopes it improves? Somewhat like sending $700 billion to financial institutions and hoping they improve. Doesn’t work that way.
I lived in DC for 5 years… and unless things have changed dramatically in the past decade, there are not a lot of bright spots in the public school system.
ditto thatlisa.
you don’t hurt your children for the sake of a symbolic gesture.
a good public servant doesn’t need to put his children in the middle of a problem to give himself motivation to work on it.
by the way, did we ever consider that the girls themselves might have had preferences about where they wanted to go to school? they’re people, not accessories.
No. I wouldn’t send my kids to DC public schools.
I think they made the right decision. It’s not about politics, it’s about the girls and their safety and getting the best education they possibly can.
Whatever is best for them. Bottom line.
Who would ask for otherwise?
No. Put them in private. It’s best.
why the hell not? let’s not confuse them now! the last time those kids were near another black kid in school was when the janitor had to watch his kids while his wife met with her probation officer. plus, as they get older the china white is way better quality when you buy it from kids at private school instead of public. good call, bro.
i think they will get a good education regardless, but safety is the big issue here for sure.
Meggie – -
Pleas of people who wish they werent ghetto? wow.
he should put them in a public school, if he wants to see them killed.
i’m not american so i don’t have an inside view (bet you don’t either though)
but these are kids, and he is a big change in your/the worlds politics, i would be almost scared he will be targeted in a nasty way, death styles
apart from that the obama family seems really collected and down to earth for a (god it seems like a crime to say change too often) but change
and he is a very intelligent man, his wife is also smart, wtf should their kids be used for anything?
america may have fucked up systems but that is no reason to put the new president and his family at risk. purely because the thought he might be attacked is disturbing enough..let the kids be safe..hopefully without distroying their sense of normality
censorthis, you obviously know a ton about this school–40% of the students of students of color
oh and:
“Sidwell Friends School is committed as an institution to the ideal of diversity with regard to age, economic background, ethnicity, gender, physical disability, political affiliation, race and sexual orientation in its student body, faculty and staff. ”
Well that sounds like a wonderful school to me.
hmm.. speaking from someone who went to private school… censorthis… I am assuming you went to public, yes? I was taught to do my research before I make disgusting comments.
Don’t be jealous because these two little black girls are already getting a better education than you ever did.
it’s pretty much up to them as to where they send there kids. they have their best interests in mind, so i don’t really care. i think they know what they are doing
I can’t believe anyone thought for a second that public schooling would be an option for the Obama girls. Security issues alone make it unfeasible.
Who cares? Why is the media making such a big deal out of this. Whether he sends his children to private school or public, it doesn’t change or negate the positions he has on public education. I don’t get the obsession with the topic.
On another note, I think it’s peculiar that his eldest daughter has his face but Michelle’s smile, while his youngest has Michelle’s face but Obama’s smile. It’s cute.
They should go to school in Chicago. Matter of fact the whole family should stay in Illinois.
I would just like to talk to the idiots that had the balls to say that the girls should go to DC public schools. Really, who is that ignorant to think that it would ever even be an option?
issue number 1: not all DC public schools suck. Just like not all urban public schools suck. Yes, the majority of public schools have disproportionate failure rates – and DC tops that list. But there are exceptions in every city, at every stage of education, that are producing tremendous results under exceptional pressure. I have every confidence that the discerning, involved parent can find a good public education for their child anywhere. And even in the failing schools – there are students who buck the trend in their classes every day (and teachers who put in extra hours to help them make it happen). Education, like so many other things, is not so binary.
issue number 2: I agree with pretty much everyone here that these kids are having their world thrown upside down in every way/shape/form – picking the environment that makes them safest and where people ar least likely to look at them like aliens… makes sense to me. Politicize Obama’s choices, not his choices for his kids. If you want to talk about public schools, focus on Obama attending all private universities and teaching at one? Not that I find anything wrong with that, but it’s far more relevant than the choices made by a man who just made his daughters the most over-exposed children in the world.
Sandy:
Excuse me, but “peculiar”? Sorry, but I think that word may be a little inappropriate. Suffice it to say, that they are both lovely, cute children and leave it at that.
I went to Sidwell for primary school (Go Fighting Quakers!!!!!) and moved to GDS, whic is another school the Obamas looked at, and I finally settled at Madeira, a girls’ boarding school. I had a wonderful experience at Sidwell nursery through 6th, and I know the Obama kids will have an amazing time there!!!!!
no sense in depriving his kids of a good education just to prove a point. gobama!
lol fighting quakers
They definitely shouldn’t go to a public school… there’s not a lot of safety there for high profile kids. I’m glad he’s sending them somewhere where they will be watched after more.
ThatLisa, don’t confuse censorthis with facts and reality. He is living in his conservative fantasy world of hate.
Wow, what a bunch of elitists! I went to public school for my K-12 education in New York. For K-8 I went to school in the Bronx and 9-12 I went to school in Harlem and I got a pretty darn good education. So good in fact that me and quite a number of my classmates ended up some of the nation’s top colleges. The bottom line is, not every urban area school is bad by default. And schools that have a bad reputation do have their fair share of Cinderella stories, you know, that one kid who got into Harvard a few years back (and I imagine the kid who get into Harvard didn’t have all the advantages the Obama’s have). How are we supposed to put faith in our schools and the education our children are receiving if our own president doesn’t have any faith in them? And don’t give me that security reasons bs. Get it out of your heads that urban public schools are packed and overcrowded. Even the schools I went to in New York (a school district infamous for its overcrowding) I had some classes with as few as 15 other students. Find a small public school. DC is bound to have at least one small public school.
wait a minute. how old are these girls again? isn’t sasha 7? gees, my 8 year old cousin would just barely be able to point out who obama, and now not only is she expected to recognize him, but his entire family as well? sorry, 7 years olds don’t care all that much about politics. and i feel like i have to address this diversity issue. sidwell says 40% of their students are of color. i go to a school where allegedly 37% of our student body is of color (not quite 40%, i know, but pretty close) and my friends and i have determined the school must be lying because we barely ever see any students of color. it turns out, the percentage of students of color at my school varies from as low as 10% to as high as 37% depending on what you qualify as being of minority descent just like the percentage of hispanics in the US varies depending if you include people who consider themselves to be white or black but of hispanic descent.
Geez,everyone’s a critic
@ jennifer re: ” How are we supposed to put faith in our schools and the education our children are receiving if our own president doesn’t have any faith in them?”
Um who is putting faith in those schools? I’m not. Most parents who pay to have their kids go to private schools aren’t. I’m sure some public school are fine, and some are great, but if given the choice, I would definitely go private.
Seriously, find one president whose little children went to a friggin inner-city public school. And how on earth is SAFETY not an issue? The president’s family is always well protected for a reason, and sadly because they are black, there is an even stronger reason. Why the hell would the President put his children at a greater risk than ever?
And if you work really hard and have a lot of money, why the hell would you send your children to public schools? That’s (kind of sort of) like accepting welfare that you don’t even need.
oh and DC schools ARE that bad.. look into it. here’s one article
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/09/AR2007060901415.html
>:C
Private doesn’t mean better schooling..
The people that approved prop 8? Religious. Here in Australia, private = religious.
Thus, public is better.
I lived in DC for almost 20 years…The public schools are crap…everyone in DC knows this…however when we are putting millions of dollars into a baseball stadium and the gentrification of bad areas of DC, how can they not be? I have never been to nationals Park and really never want to go when I see the state of these schools on the news I went to Holy Child in Potomac, MD and received a wonderful education, no one is slamming public schools in general, but DC has some pretty bad ones….
@ MissPinkKate. The internet world is sooo small. You’re on metafilter with me too. :oP
Really censorthis?????
hell no! these girls need to not only be protected, but they need & deserve the best educations they can get…public schools can be great, but if the ones near them arent so wonderful or safe then why should they settle?
@ThatLisa re: “Um who is putting faith in those schools? I’m not. Most parents who pay to have their kids go to private schools aren’t. I’m sure some public school are fine, and some are great, but if given the choice, I would definitely go private.”
So basically all of America is paying taxes for no good reason, since the school systems we are all paying for are all awful. Let’s be realistic here. Considering the average household income in the US is about $50k and the average private school costs anywhere from around $10k-$30k+ at some of the country’s larger cities (NYC, LA, Chicago, etc.) the average American cannot afford to send their kid to private school. And that’s just the average income, meaning there are people that make below that. Even the US Census Bureau estimates only 11% of all students are enrolled at private schools. That means 89%, a whopping majority, of students go to public school. So yeah, it’s safe to say an overwhelming majority of parents are putting their faith in public schooling. Rather than offering the solution of just sending your kid to private school, why not work at fixing a problem that affects a large portion of families?
And no, I don’t believe safety is an issue for a 7 and 10 year old. Sorry, but as another poster already wrote, you honestly expect 7 year olds to know they go to school with the president’s daughter? Or for them to even care? They’re just as likely to know or care at private school. And by saying a private school is safer, you’re assuming all urban public schools are rowdy by default. Again, using my high school experience as an example, I went to school in one of the worst neighborhoods in NYC yet I survived without a scratch. And I had to ride the subway every day to get to school, without my own personal body guards. If they could get hurt at a public school, they could certainly get hurt at a private school. If someone wants to hurt you, they’ll find a way.
Why draw on personal examples? Amy Carter went to public school during her father’s years in office and would you look at that, nothing happened to her! And if they really wanted to keep the children safe, why not home school them? Private one-on-one tutors, the best education money can buy, right? And surely the girls couldn’t be safer anywhere else but at the White House?
Jennifer, honey, we’re not assuming anything about ‘all public schools’ – I went to public school a short distance away from DC in Virginia and the schools there are excellent.
What we are speaking about, specifically, is the state of DC public schools – go visit one and then let’s see. If you have any kind of heart, you wouldn’t want a dog that bit you to spend a day there.
And your comments about safety don’t make sense. It’s not the 7 – 10 year olds who are going to put the girls in danger – it’s the fact that these two girls’ welfare is an issue of national security and it’s a lot easier to abduct children from public schools that are so desperately underfunded they can’t keep track of truancy as it is. It would be unfair and wrong to task them with the safety of the Obama girls and by extension the safety of our nation.
Meggie- what? lol… do you know what ghetto even means? it dosent mean ‘poor’ or ‘broke’ or anything like that.
anyways the girls are lucky to be able to go to a private school. yes, it sucks that public schools arent that great… but it is good that our future prez understands that.