Malia And Sasha Obama Sought By Elite DC Schools

IN a town abuzz about all things Barack Obama, the policy wonks and government insiders have been whispering and wondering about who will be who in his incoming cabinet. But among power parents in the nation's capital, there is yet another burning question.

Where will the Obama girls go to school?

Michelle Obama toured at least two of Washington's most prestigious private schools last week -- Sidwell Friends School and Georgetown Day School -- and touched off a frenzy of dreaming, gossiping and well-mannered jockeying among the Washington elite. Maret School, another exclusive academy, is also believed to be on the shortlist for the future first children, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7.

With annual tuitions that can exceed $28,000, these liberal-leaning schools have long brimmed with the scions of senators, representatives, financiers, diplomats, scholars, lawyers, journalists and even a few American presidents.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[joebiz]

The Obamas should send their children where ever they want and where the girls feel welcome.

My contention is that many of the posts above keep saying that it's harder to secure a public versus a private school. Why? If the Secret Service can take a president into Iraq and Afghanistan, couldn't it secure two little girls in DC public schools?

If these schools are so unsafe and violent and brutish, shouldn't DC school officials do something about it? Aren't non-presidential kids as important?

[Ariane]

>> "many of the posts above keep saying that it's harder to secure a public versus a private school. Why? If the Secret Service can take a president into Iraq and Afghanistan, couldn't it secure two little girls in DC public schools?"

One difference is that I think private schools have greater control of who they can admit on the school grounds..

The Secret Service does go with the President to many places, in some of which there is also substantial military support. It's not just a question of COULD they guard the kids, but balancing safety with the possibility of any spontaneity in their school experience. I think the Obamas, and the Clintons, have been influenced by the experience of Amy Carter who went to public school in DC and was reportedly unhappy, constantly surrounded by Secret Service, could not even go out for recess, and it made it hard for her to make friends or feel even vaguely like a normal kid.

>>"If these schools are so unsafe and violent and brutish, shouldn't DC school officials do something about it? Aren't non-presidential kids as important?"

Of course non-presidential kids are just as important and the schools should secure their safety too. But the concern is not just about some general danger - it's the specific danger because of who their father is. Non-presidential kids are much less likely to be a target for kidnapping or violence by some crazy person who hates their father.

[stpintodalite]

How dare people suggest that Barack and Michelle Obama risk not only the safety of their children but of other children as well by sending them to public school?! This is not about school choice, vouchers, the quality of public schools, public vs private, etc. This is about their children's lives that are in danger for no other reason than they are Black and their father is the President-elect. There have been more threats against the Obamas than any other presidential family in history and the are actually people who believe that they should make a point with the safety of their children. There are some people here who need to do some serious soul searching. The far-Left is every bit as dangerous as the far-Right. Thank God we elected a moderate.

[sykadelic chic]

I hope he doesn't send them to public school (and I'm a highly passionate advocate of public over private schooling.) The children of high-profile parents need to go to schools better equiped to deal with the security demands, and that's the bottom line, the only argument that needs to be made! If the girls went to a public school they would have to be surrounded by Secret Service, and that is distracting for them AS WELL as the other students (which is frankly my bigger concern - it would be a circus.) Send them to a good private school where other high-profile students go that is secure and let them get an education in peace. Don't force them to a public school to prove a point; that does not serve their (or the other childrens') best interest.

[mandyrtaylor]

Yikes... I can see all the wealthy DC parents plotting now, offering their kids cash for making friends with the Obama girls so they can go to the White House for playdates, become buddy-buddy with the President and First Lady, and brag all around town about how important they are. Pathetic... Malia and Sasha will sadly have to learn very quickly who their real friends are.

[Megan46]

It is amusing what ill informed people think they know about African-Americans. The white-wash of history and inate racism of the marjority are just down right amusing if not scary on some level.
The Obama's have always lived on the SouthSide of Chicago. Which is about the land mass of NYC and give or take a couple of bouroughs. It has various sections and home to the" well to do" and the

"permanent underclass". It has a well intergrated neigborhoods and various well defined ethnic segregated neigborhoods of MiddleEasterns, Irish, Italians, Mexicans, Pacific Asians, African-Americans. The South Side is home to White Sox Park, World re-known Museum of Science and Industry, University of Chicago and the Lab private school (which the Obama girls were attending).

The open public schools are not what the Obama children need, it would be a security nightmare.
and you are right winnie47; If you read Obama 's policies on public education, he has a pretty much "whatever works" belief system. He is not against vouchers and he does support school choice. You gotta love the uninformed rhetoric!

P.S
Money is not the only reason many children will not be going to private schools with or without vouchers.

[winnie47]

For all you haters- the Obamas originally put their two girls in a private school in Chicago because it was just a few doors down from their house. It was a matter of convenience, and the girls could walk to and from school. Once they are in the White House, it has been widely recommended that they send the girls to a private school for security reasons. So quit your b**ching!

[rozgeorge]

Why would Obama let his girls go to a public school? There have been so much hatred going on since the election that it would be a little scary. Some of the staff at public schools can't control what goes with their students as it is. If you people would watch the news channels other than FOX NEWS then you know what i'm talking about.

[winnie47]

Exactly. It would be a security nightmare. It would be insane to send such high profile children to public school.

[freshnotbitter]

Obviously Obama's kids will go to Sidwell Friends.

[flyers]

starfire426 ,

Nobody is arguing whether they disagree with the Obama's sending their kids to private schools, what we are arguing is that they are against school vouchers, yet they have chosen to send their kids to private school, that is hypocritical. People like Obama and John Edwards campaigns are that the rich don't pay their fair share, and as Edwards said, "There are two Americas." Yet they continue that slogan, by sending their kids to private schools because they are part of those 'wealthy' they rail against, as the poor who can't afford private schools are stuck with only one option: Those public schools that those rich guys like Obama and Edwards never seem to send their kids too.

[4wehttam]

Why should they send their kids to public school if they don't have to? I would LOVE to send my son to private school but I can't afford it. Obviously they want public schools to have sufficient funds to be comparable to private schools and right now they don't. It is NOT hypocritcal to send your child to the best school YOU can afford while still trying to make sure public schools get to a sufficient level. I think you'd be doing your child a disservice to send them to a public school you know is NOT comparable when you CAN afford it. Not to mention security issues for the children of a UNITED STATES PRESIDENT, but people like you don't care about that as long as you get to rail that he's a hypocrite.

[meede]

They have no choice but to send them to private school. The public system does not have the ability to secure their safety from possible kidnapping and media. These two girls are not signed on for the President's job -- they just happen to be the kids of the person who is. They are too young to understand and be in a position to protect themselves from other students and adults that may gain access to the public school, which is too easy to do in the public system. They would be totally distruptive to the school.

People have to step outside the box in that if you were in the same position as the Obamas, you would do everything to keep your kids safe first.

Obama hypocritical about education. I must have listened to a different speech than you.

[flyers]

I went to public schools growing up in NJ, and the biggest myth from the left is that if you spend more on schools, then you will improve the schools. That is just false. For instance, Camden, NJ is one of the poorest cities in the nation, and they spend an average of $12,800 per student, yet it yields the lowest test scores in the state. Then you look at Haddonfield, NJ, which is among the wealthiest cities in the Southern NJ, they spend about $5,400 per student, yet they yield the best results in the Southern NJ area. The problem with public schools is not throwing more money at them, it all starts with the parents, and if the parents don't motivate their kids to excel in school, the teachers can only do so much. I knew kids who came from broken families, and you just knew they didn't care because their parents didn't care either, and public schools have to move them through the system, because they can't pick and choose their kids like Private schools can.

[nypoet22]

i also went to public school in NJ. as you said, it's not just the money in the schools, it's also the money and status of the parents, as well as infrastructure of the community. more money is not sufficient to help poorer neighborhoods succeed, but it is not one necessary component. More money for education is only one of many things needed to help downtrodden communities such as camden achieve some success.

[winnie47]

You are stereotyping poor parents and divorced parents by saying they don't care. A mother who dropped out of high school in the 10th grade because she had to help her parents pay the bills, and is now a parent herself, working 2 minimum wage jobs to try to keep food on the table and keep the power on doesn't have the energy OR ability to help her child with homework at the end of a 16 hour day. If poor people were paid a LIVING wage, they would have more time to spend "motivating" their kids. And if inner city schools got talented, qualified teachers, instead of fresh grads and rejects from better-paying districts, the kids might get a better education to begin with. You're right. It's not ALL about money. It's about how the money is spent.

[Indubio]

For a man who made an issue of the importance of public schools I'd find it a tad hypocritical but 100% expected that he'd put his children in an exclusive private school. Just keep one thing in mind: Leaders rarely come out of state colleges and children who go to exclusive private schools generally don't go to state colleges. There's a direct correlation between where children attend school, where they go to college, and where they wind up on the social/economic ladder. Obama is simply making sure he's children end up in his social and economic class and while I can;t fault him for it as I say it is a tad hypocritical.

[starfire426]

Why can't you people EVER stay abreast of what's going on??? President-elect Obama's children are CURRENTLY enrolled in private school in Chicago...so it isn't as if they're switching them from public school to private school (as the Clintons did with Chelsa) so there's NO HYPOCRISY involved, id iot!!! This is simply a lateral move. And btw...it's not YOUR choice!!

[KarenT]

I don't find it hypocritical at all. Obama has the desire to improve our education system but that does not mean he has to send his kids to public schools. First, his kids have already gone to private schools and they need to continue at a school that is used to dealing with security issues which would be one of the three schools in the area mentioned. There have been more threats on their lives post election than any other president in history. The safety of his kids needs to be a main concern when choosing the school.

[winnie47]

I think you need to pay better attention to where Obama came from. Was he born with a silver spoon in his mouth? Did he get into Harvard as a legacy? I think not. He is the epitome of the American dream.Plus, with his work ethic, and their family values, those two girls will succeed no matter WHAT school they go to.

[benedict15]

Legacies are admitted preferentially to private colleges, like Columbia, It is a kind of affirmative action for the rich. An Alumnus of Columbia, or Princeton, or Harvard is constantly bombarded with demands for contributions to annual giving or for endowments on death. It is probably the case that graduate school attendance or degrees don't count very much, but both my brother and I and my brother's daughter were admitted to Princeton, and my father earned an M.A. from Princeton. All college applications demand the details of parents' education. Obama senior earned an M.A. in economics from Harvard. Technically, both Obama and we were legacies. I don't think the legacy made one nanogram of difference in any of these cases. None of us have given a penny, rather ungratefully (I don't know about Obama senior), despite the scholarships lavished on all of us. On the other hand, if an alumnus pays through the nose for years after attending and his kids aren't admitted, many of them raise pluperfect and everlasting hell. Read the correspondence in alumni magazines. Much of the anger is directed, at least indirectly at students of color, mostly affirmative action beneficiaries. It is, I think, understandable, and perhaps just, that admissions directors bend over backward to avoid annoying the alumni who provide the loot that pays for the greater costs of elite institutions. Of course, I got in.

[wearyvoter]

Secret Service will probably have a big say in which school the girls will attend. It's a lot harder to secure a public school than a private school.

[starfire426]

I don't think the choice of schools for Malia and Sasha will be left up to such outside sources as the SS. Their job is to protect those two young ladies no matter what selection of school their parents make...public or private. The mechanics of how to go about protecting them is soley the enterprise of the SS.

[ConservativeAcademic]

Studies have shown that public school teachers enroll their own children in private schools at twice the rate of the general population. In some areas (such as Chicago), it's even higher. What do these public school teachers know that the Washington bureaucracy and teachers' unions are missing, ignoring or fear?

I don't have any issues with the Obamas enrolling their own children in a private school, but it seems rather disingenuous for the Obamas and the DNC to oppose vouchers (or some other means of introducing competition into the public education system). We have wasted billions of tax payer dollars on a failed education system. It's time to try something new.

[SamiSam]

Obama doesn't oppose vouchers. I'm a teacher and I don't either. Many people don't realize that for the most part the teacher's hands are tied as it relates to what the children are to be taught. I know that I am often frustrated that the curriculum in many NYC schools are limiting. Because of all this assessment, we are forced to teach to the test instead of just teach. Do you know that cursive writing is not explicitly taught and grammar is not a separate subject (it is intertwined in a literacy block which amounts to about 10 min a day). If we don't adhere to procedures our jobs can be in danger. But we are the first to be blamed. If I had kids mine would go to private school as well. The system is screwed up.

[Indubio]

I'm not a public school teacher, set two of my children to private schools and paying for my grandson's private school, and, I oppose vouchers unequivocally and without exception. I'd rather see the money used to improve public schools. You won;t see cursive and grammar taught in public schools as long as most states keep them on life support so sure lets cut funding ,pre that'll really improve them!

[nypoet22]

here's another theory for why we teachers send our children to private schools: we don't get paid enough to get houses in neighborhoods with good public schools, so we save up for the next-best thing.

[flyers]

I always love these politicans, especially democrats, who don't support school choice and are funded by the public school teachers union, yet they don't send their kids to public schools when they come to Washington. You gotta love the hypocrisy!!!!

[winnie47]

If you read Obama 's policies on public education, he has a pretty much "whatever works" belief system. He is not against vouchers and he does support school choice. You gotta love the uninformed rhetoric!

[meede]

Don't you just shake your head wondering "Did I hear a different speech than they did?"

[Egalitare]

Any of the schools on this reported short list will work, but I was impressed by this article I saw a few weeks ago regarding Sidwell:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/10/green_schools.html