Obama and Biden will also improve NCLB’s accountability system so that we are supporting schools that need improvement, rather than punishing them.
….
They will also work to ensure that all children have access to a strong science curriculum at all grade levels.
….
Obama and Biden will address the dropout crisis by passing his legislation to provide funding to school districts to invest in intervention strategies in middle school – strategies such as personal academic plans, teaching teams, parent involvement, mentoring, intensive reading and math instruction, and extended learning time. [my bold]
….
Obama and Biden support transitional bilingual education and will help Limited English Proficient students get ahead by holding schools accountable for making sure these students complete school.

Since good suburban schools already have good science education, parent involvement, intensive reading instruction and so forth, these proposed strategies are a way to make bad inner city schools better, thus bringing the lower tier up to the higher tier.

According to a study by the non-profit Fordham Institute, 38.7% of Chicago Public School teachers send their children to private schools.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/11/obamas_private_school_shopppin.html

My apologies to dedicated, conscientious teachers, but it is my opinion that Barack Obama opposes vouchers because the teachers’ unions oppose them, and it is my opinion that the teachers’ unions oppose vouchers because vouchers would dilute the power of those unions.

I don’t believe vouchers are a magic bullet. I believe they are a short term solution to a long term problem, and just one of many options available.

And while I realize that Federalism is mostly dead in this country, it is still the case that a president’s ability to change anything about education is fairly limited.

Furthermore, he is by no means the first to promise to fix public education. I haven’t read anything particularly innovative in his policy proposals.

There is no particular reason to believe that a president, even this one, can fix public education at all, let alone before today’s first graders graduate high school.

There are students who can benefit from vouchers right now. If charter schools, which Obama strongly supports, are not a “distraction,” it’s not clear to me why vouchers should be.

Worrying about maintaining the current public school model even at the expense of students is a distraction from figuring out how to improve public education. The public schools fight all real change. Rhetoric about change, however, is welcome.

I haven’t seen any studies that show vouchers lead to most students being trapped in even worse schools than before the introduction of vouchers. I have seen study after study showing many of our schools aren’t very good. Yes, vouchers might distract this mediocrity. That’s the point of vouchers.

Now, you might retort, we already do have a two-tier system of public education: good schools in the suburbs and crummy schools, by and large, in the cities. Yes, but Obama opposes that and wants to change it.

If one wants to improve public education for all public school students, vouchers are a distraction.

On Februrary 20th, the Obama campaign released a statement on Obama’s views on education, which included the following:

“Senator Obama has always been a critic of vouchers, and expressed his longstanding skepticism in that interview. Throughout his career, he has voted against voucher proposals and voiced concern for siphoning off resources from our public schools.”

Full text of the campaign release here:
http://www2.edweek.org/media/obama_vouchers_response.pdf

In an interview with ABC news on June 16th, Barack Obama told Jake Tapper, “Well, the problem is, is that, you know, although it might benefit some kids at the top, what you’re going to do is leave a lot of kids at the bottom. We don’t have enough slots for every child to go into a parochial school or a private school. And what you would see is a huge drain of resources out of the public schools.”

Complete transcript of that interview available here:
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Politics/story?id=5178123&page=1

If anyone believes I’ve characterized Obama’s position unfairly
(“…Obamas send their kids to private school. The complaint is that they do so while opposing school vouchers, usually under the logic that allowing poor parents to pull their kids out of failing schools will hurt those schools even more.”) please let me know.

It might be the case that allowing parents to remove their children from failed schools will make those schools even worse. I don’t believe that this is likely, but it’s certainly possible.

But if that is a harm that justifies opposing vouchers, then why isn’t it a harm that justifies preventing parents from opting out of failed schools through moving to different school districts or private schools?

No, it’s only the children of the poor who must remain trapped in these schools. “Hey, we’ve all pulled our kids out of there, because we can, but you guys, you just take one for the team.”

No, our public schools should not be able to hold some students hostage in poor schools just to cover their own failures. Nor should some students be sacrificed for the good of other students. The responsibility of fixing a bad school should be on the school system, not on the kids. Let who can escape.

We are not here for the convenience of the Public Schools. They are here for us. Give out vouchers, start up charters, open the religious schools, do anything that gives the public more control over their children’s education. Why are we only worried about failing schools when someone mentions letting a few kids escape? Those kids who would be left behind are there right now.

But let’s say President-elect Obama does have that view, that school vouchers would help the students who get vouchers, but harm the students whose parents don’t apply for vouchers and or who couldn’t find a school that would accept a voucher to educate them? Isn’t Obama going to be the President of all the kids? If he believes that a policy would help a minority of schoolchildren but harm the majority, wouldn’t he be inclined to oppose that policy? Shouldn’t he oppose such a policy?

It’s not a “rich people have choices, so we should have the same choices” arguments. It’s a point about certain people acting in their own best interests while telling the rest of us to act in the best interests of the group. After all, the reason so many people are against school choice/vouchers/charters is because they think these things will harm the public schools, even if they help specific children. We’re told to do the best with what we’re given for the sake of the Public Schools first, unless you can buy your way out.

All of us, not just the children of politicians, have compelling reasons to get our children the best possible education. All of us have special circumstances we’d like to take into consideration. Yet most of us have to put up with mediocre schools because “choice” would mean putting more power into parents’ hands — a no-no for supporters of the status quo, to include Obama (I assume).

Embrace choice in education for everyone. Spread the joy.