Why Do Politicians Blow Up When Asked Where They Send Their Own Kids to School?

Rahm Emanuel, the new Mayor of Chicago, walks out of an NBC interview when asked when asked what school he intends to enroll his children in. He intones: "My children are not an instrument of me being mayor." But everyone else's children are. Check out the video here and below.

If the report in the Washington Post's Answer Sheet is correct, he has chosen the Lab School, where Obama sent his own kids, where Duncan went to school himself, and where they will likely receive small classes, a well-rounded education and little high-stakes testing, the opposite of the regime he has chosen for Chicago's public schoolchildren.

See also NJ Gov. Chris Christie's similar response in a video below, when asked this question in conjunction with his decision to cut public school funding.

Perhaps their sensitivity relates to their fear that people will catch on to what Patrick Sullivan has called the "condescension" of the ruling class, who insist on one sort of education for their own kids and something entirely different for everyone else's children. See also this piece by Mike Winerip, or this one that I wrote on class bias and class size.

View more videos at: http://www.nbcchicago.com.