Obama Sends His Kids to Private School, Won't Let Poor Parents Do the Same

Kevin Glass | September 28, 2010 9:32 AM

Barack Obama yesterday lamented that the private Sidwell Friends School he sends his daughters to in the District of Columbia is much better than the best of what the local public D.C. school system can offer. The Washington Post

reports

But top private schools and suburban public schools continue to draw many families out of an urban public system long regarded as dysfunctional.

Tuition at Sidwell is more than $31,000 a year, according to the school's Web site.

What, do you suppose, is the per-pupil expenditure of D.C. public schools? According to a recent study, the DC school system spends over $28,000 per student. Now, taking tuition numbers and per-pupil expenditure makes for an imperfect comparison, but the amount spent to educate children at the best private schools in D.C. and throughout their public school system are too close to explain the absolutely massive achievement gap between students who are products of these systems.

Throwing money at the education system won't make it better. Washington, D.C. has proven this. Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress, however, killed the DC Opportunity Scholarship program, one of the most promising reform programs that D.C. has ever seen. There's still hope for D.C. public schools, but Barack Obama has shown no interest in trying to help improve their situation.