Barack Obama is against school choice
June 17, 2008 by libertyisforme
Last night on World News Tonight, Barack Obama essentially said that school choice is a bad thing.
What is school choice?
A parent’s right to choose the best school for their kids, whether it be public or private.
Simple enough.
So, what’s his hang up?
Read the transcript below:
TAPPER: You talked about the need to change the status quo in education today.
OBAMA: Right.
TAPPER: But one of the ways that proponents of school choice say that the best way to change the status quo is to give parents, inner-city parents a choice. Why not?
OBAMA: Well, the problem is, is that, you know, although it might benefit some kids at the top, what you’re going to do is leave a lot of kids at the bottom. We don’t have enough slots for every child to go into a parochial school or a private school. And what you would see is a huge drain of resources out of the public schools.
Most school choice programs help kids who are economically disadvantaged and/or are in failing public schools. For example, 50 percent of the students in the Florida Opportunity Scholarship receive free or reduced lunch. It seems school choice is helping the most needy.
The Florida program has shown over time that more and more private schools enroll to participate in the program opening doors for more kids, creating more “slots.”
So what I’ve said is let’s foster competition within the public school system. Let’s make sure that charter schools are up and running. Let’s make sure that kids who are in failing schools, in local school districts, have an option to go to schools that are doing well.
Oh, how naive of the freshmen Senator.
If Timmy is in a failing public school, then most likely the rest of his district will look the same - failing schools all over. So, Timmy doesn’t have options, because he would transfer from one failing school to another.
Another scenario, Timmy could transfer out-of-district but how would Timmy get to school. A lot of times, school districts say, hey our doors are open for failing kids but we don’t have the money to provide transportation. So, Timmy doesn’t have options again!
But what I don’t want to do is to see a diminished commitment to the public schools to the point where all we have are the hardest-to-teach kids with the least involved parents with the most disabilities in the public schools. That’s going to make things worse, and we’re going to lose the commitment to public schools that I think have been so important to building this country.
How is keeping a monopoly “commitment” to improving public schools? The system doesn’t work and won’t improve if Senator Obama doesn’t advocate for radical changes. He should encourage states to explore more school choice options.
Also, why would a parent with a disabled child let their kid stay at a public school that doesn’t meet his educational needs? Parents would want an out, a better, safer school.
Senator Obama’s logic is flawed here.
TAPPER: So it would help some kids, but overall it would be bad for the system?
OBAMA: I think it would be overall bad for most kids.
Barack Obama is bad for education and for all kids.
Why does he think that we’re going to buy his statement that there aren’t “enough slots” for kids in private or religious schools? Education is not a zero-sum game. Introduce competition and you’ll have slots opening up the wazoo!