Unfortunately, I’ve been in some public places lately where I’ve heard awful things from obviously racist individuals. REALLY awful. If I were the Obama’s, I’d send my children to a private school also. They are innocent children, and I’m sure would be safer in the atmosphere of a private school. He’s not “betraying” anyone. Sorry, family comes first, and there are just too many crazies out there.

It’s called having a safe environment for the girls. The Secret Service has to be there…at all times….and that would be harder to do in a large public school system. They are, after all, the President to be’s children. There are always nut cases out there who, unfortunately, would want to take advantage of that to cause more than just a little trouble. In this case, their safety comes first.

Obama is a hypocrite. He was on an education board for the public school system in Chicago and has not done a thing to improve the education there. In addition he did not even send his children to public school in Chicago. He should send his kids to public school so they can experience first hand the incompetent management and teaching of Democratic union members.

“Obama is a hypocrite”. No, Obama is a caring father who wants the safest environment for his children…who just happens to be the next president of the USA. As well as being safer in this Friends’ school, they will also get an excellent education. It’s called loving his girls.

The hypocrisy is not that he sends his children to private schools, it is that his and his like’s opposition to school choice denies others the same privilege.

ha, can we have secret service around our children every and all day paying for with tax payers money you want to pay for mine to be watched each and every day to.hes no better than anyone else and his children are just black and so is he.boy americans what a mistake you made voting for than thing what trouble this country will be in if you dont keep the republican in georgia on the senate.

Wow…emotions are still a little raw in GOP circles, huh? Dessie, I think most people would agree that it is worth spending taxpayer dollars to keep the children of the Commander and Chief of our country from being kidnapped. Obama may not be “better” than other people, but he’s a bigger target…and the consequences of his family being successfully targeted are much more sever than the average American.
It always strikes me as odd how Republicans who supposedly are so economically focused never get the basic economic problems behind their proposals. Of course, that probably explains why Bush increased the national debt more than all past presidents combined!
But remember when the big thing 8 years ago was that if we just contracted out all these inefficient government programs, we’d save tons of money and have them run so much better…then came Halliburton, a profiteering problems with the new contractors being brought in throughout government, and an explosion of the deficit and government spending as contractor costs skyrocketed. Now even Republicans admit we need to contract out less government work.
So when it comes to vouchers, here’s a simple question: If private schools cost $30K/year, how are we going to be able to send all the DC kids to them when we only spend $15K/year per student in DC? I’m sure some conservative think tank has developed “new math” to explain how this is possible, but the math I learned in my public schools tells me that the only way to do this is by doubling taxes or cutting the student population in half…and that says nothing about the fact that the private schools wouldn’t have the facilities or resources to handle all these extra students.

As I wrote in my journal here on bnet, this is a private matter, a family choice. Those girls will be hounded and followed for much of the rest of their lives and especially during their father’s years at the White House, they deserve the privacy afforded them at this private school. It is no one’s business where any parent chooses to educate their children. Education was the door that both of these people, Barack and Michelle, walked through to achieve the success they have had. It should be no surprise they would seek out the best possible education for their girls. There are much more important things the press and the public should be considering.

I don’t remember reading anything about President Bush’s daughters going to public schools.

I should have checked before posting – President Bush’s daughters attended private grade schools and a public high school in Austin, from which they graduated before Mr. Bush took office as President, so the President didn’t face the question that the Obamas face. I recall that President Carter enrolled his daughter at a public school in the District.
This interesting question will doubtless inspire an enterprising reporter to see where the sons and daughters of senators go to school.

So, Dessie, guess what? All presidents children have had Secret Service protection, and as a tax payer, I have no problem with that. So Obama’s children get the protection also. That’s just the way it is. When you become president, you and your family can have it too.
The current economic trouble as well as others has happened due to the Republicans. More of the same? No, that is way Obama was elected.

With this new time limit, forgot to put my name in again. Above post at 7:43 PM was mine…pagansister

If Michelle Obama chose to send her daughters to a public school some people would complain about the negative effect of all the publicity & Secret Service on the school. She has chosen to send them to a faith based private school…that’s her choice. Think how people would react if she had chosen to home teach them!

The point is Obama is denying parents who can’t afford private schools the most effective tool to reform education, vouchers because he is pandering to the teacher’s union. http://blog.beliefnet.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-comments.cgi/captcha/121/Tm9FBHK1q0jBEa72y4I4PPTRdEDkcayl5gXb2KLl

I was a student in the DC Public school system from 1962 to 1970 and expect that the security concerns for a president’s children in that milieu would be not just unmanageable, but very disruptive to the lives of other students. A smaller private school has obvious advantages on both counts.
When Republicans send their children to private schools we accept that this is the route of privilege. When Democrats do so they are reviled by those same Republicans as hypocrites and traitors. This is just so much partisan squawking of no substance whatsoever.

National Cathedral School is an Episcopal School and all private schools are not alike. Quaker Schools are not Episcopal Schools and Georgetown Prep is not St. Albans. Most discerning people know the differences, which believe it or not, often have to do with more subtle factors not particularly related to financial, political, or educational power. When people become aware of these subtle differences, they often change both religious denominations and schools. Denominational church preferences, probably as much as schools, say alot about one’s values and place a person definitively and sociologically in a particular place in the scheme of things.Sociology of religion classes can be very interesting in a society which does such a good job of pretending it is classless and
works so hard at being secular. But, any private school is better than a public school, particularly in the District of Columbia.