Obama continues to oppose tax-supported voucher programs to less-fortunate parents who also would like their children to attend a quality private school. It’s rather ironic who opposes school vouchers.
From ChicagoTribune.com, by Clarence Page, on private school vouchers:
…The question of vouchers as an alternative to public schools crosses color lines, but it is particularly poignant for the nation’s first African-American president.
Black students disproportionately find themselves in underperforming public schools. In fact, opinion polls by think tanks such as the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies have found that black parents favor vouchers by larger majorities than white parents.
Yet teachers unions lead opposition to such alternatives despite studies such as the 2004 Thomas B. Fordham Institute report that found urban public school teachers to be more likely to enroll their children in private schools than the general population is.
In Chicago, for example, 38.7 percent of public school teachers sent their children to private schools, the Fordham study found, compared with 22.6 percent of the general public. In Washington, 26.8 percent of the public school teachers sent their children to private schools versus 19.8 percent of the general public….
Michelle Obama offered a clue to what her family’s choice will be. She toured the private Georgetown Day School this week. Another clue: Their daughters currently attend the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, one of Chicago’s top private schools. Private school also was the choice of Bill and Hillary Clinton for their daughter, Chelsea. The most recent presidential child to attend a District of Columbia public school was President Jimmy Carter’s daughter, Amy, in the late 1970s.