Or perhaps the answer is that public officials have to send their children to public school. A lot of problems might get fixed that way, in general. Including Iraq.

Hi Laura.

Say it, Ian….

Off topic WHY are there porn ads on the Firedoglake site

In Chicago they just pump up the school the School Board President’s kids attend.

Here in New York, both the mayor and the school board chief sent their kids to private schools. In that, they’re like most elected officials.

Is that true in smaller cities and suburbs as well?

I see a free tibet ad here.

Not by choice.

Everybody else always sees McCain ads or porn - all I see are progressive telcos and an occasional young girl in a t-shirt (if you think that’s porn, you have led a sheltered life)

Yeah, that’s what I would expect.

now i see journey to the center of the earth and health care

2/3 of our real estate taxes go to parks and schools
a friend once that given the quality of Chicago schools, at these tax rates we should all be living in friggin’ mansions

I know the one you’re talking about. I’ve reported it, not sure how long it takes to pull it out of the feed.

we were ‘fortunate’ to ahve our daughter accepted at a magnet school 6.2 miles from the house.
no bussing over 6 miles, so Mrs Mack drives 24 miles a day to ensure a decent education
our local alternative a couple blocks away is dismal and the nearest Catholic school is not substantially better - just $5-6k/year
We finally succeeded getting little Mack on a bust the second half of Second Grade - A bus that stops a block from our house whether they let our child on or not.
It only took 3 years, with 3 separate application in the last year and weekly calls to the school office.

Laura: you probably know this, but George Walden — a Tory — made the same argument about ‘educational apartheid’ in the UK. The people making education policy decisions don’t put their kids into that system, regardless of party affiliation. Now, they can say that they don’t want to have their kids play guinea pig in Bog Standard Comp, but it shouldn’t come to that sort of decision.

(Tony Blair took the very middle-class route of enlisting his kids in the nice grant-maintained Catholic school.)

Once again you are missing the point.

It’s not about rich vs. poor, urban vs. suburban, white vs. all other colors.

It’s about what happened in 1968 again. My generation came of political age then and almost, almost took over.

Those who won that battle, the likes of Nixon, Cheney, Atwater and the rest of the ‘conservative’ movement realized that teaching the children of America about history, about mathematics, about science, about philiosophy was a real bad idea from their perspective.

So they stopped.

I have yet to meet, let me repeat that, yet to meet a person in there 20s or 30s who values education as much and we reviled Boomers do. All they are concerned with is scrambling up that corporate shutes and ladders.

Philososphy, ethics thats for old, tired out gray haired folks.

Past time that the progressive movement realize that education in this country sucks for a reason.

And that reason is political.

Betsy - In most smaller cities in Upstate NY,the only private school is going to be the one run by the Catholic Diocese. In my county, there is also a Baptist academy and there used to be a very famous private alternative school(which has closed recently for lack of students - several other high schools locally have gone to IB programs, so they have been attracted there). I’m not familiar with Syracuse or Rochester, but I think the situation is pretty much the same.

Officials are not the only ones who don’t send their kids to public schools, , or , in Chicago, the public schools where they work, many teachers don’t either. We have the children of 3 different principals at our school.

ACitizen. I”m in my early 30s and yes, i don’t like philosophy but that’s just a personal thing. I agree it needs to be out there for those that DO want in among my age group. Or if i wanted the class as an elective if i decide to go back to school.

I value the classes highly, although in essence i’m a mythology nut. I just don’t have the time for them now, and if i did? I have a feeling i’d have issues with the system in general. I did last time i tried to go back to school a few years ago. It tends to deny the realities of students that aren’t 18 and immortal.

There are always exceptions. I /just/ hit 40, and I read philosophy for amusement at times, but I wouldn’t say my generation is into it big (you’re still in my generation, an Xer, not a Millenial).

OTOH, demographers tell me that Millenials are super keen students, though I suspect not very philosophical or intellectual. Very different things, that people get confused.

The urban poor are most affected. Detroit, for example, has suffered from a literacy rate approaching 40% — but their school system has been gutted by years of systemic problems and Republican raiding of the revenue cookie jar, reinforcing a downward spiral.

Add charter schools and it’s a recipe for disaster.

Here’s a couple of samples of the magnitude of the problem, one looking at the abandoned schools (literally, there’s no school), and the observations of persons who’ve been in the system, but cannot see that the siphoning of revenue by Republican shock doctrine has done over the last 15 years.

I see it as another side of the problem of people runnign systems they’ll never use.
You know, people running Social Security and Medicare who are going to be getting hefty retirement benefits from the government (possibly in addition to pensions from being business executives); people running transit systems who have cars provided for them, or, if they do use mass transit, never have to use the system they run; people running corporations who have their pensions and healthcare paid as part of their exit parachute, instead of having a 401k and whatever medical their employees get.

Also, i’ve heard stories about people trying to get their gifted-but-poor/minority kids into LA’s ‘magnet’ schools (intended to get those kid to stay in school), and having to jump through hoops just find out how to get applications, never mind actually getting the applications in before the date that they also aren’t being told. Funny thing, the kids of the wealthier white folks never seem to have as many of those problems.

The guys at the top are specially privileged, because they’re on top.

It’s funny but I recall that once, during the school bussing era, the Republican line was “neighborhood schools”. But then they had no problem sending their kids to private schools clear across the city when their own neighborhoods began to be desegregated.

One idea to compel more public officials to put their kids (and invest energy into fixing public schools) is to restrict or severely limit the number of kids who can go to PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES if they attend private and parochial high schools. This could be built into the current selection processes of public universities…allowing for a greater mix of urban and rural residents to attain higher education.

If you put kids whose parents have resources and energy and high-goals for their kids back into the public system THEY will demand better schools and programs at that level. They will work hard to increase public funding, obtain better teachers, and improve security and discipline on campuses. I would bet you’d start seeing a lot more volunteers getting extracurricular art, drama, and club programs going.

I lived in Davis California for some time…and there are no private schools in this University town. But the standards are so high that the complaint is just the opposite…what about kids who don’t want to go to college…where are the programs for THEM.

Hmm, well we know that John Edwards sends his children to public schools and graduated from a state university himself.

why didn’t people note these differences sooner? Don’t know about the Obama kids but it will sure enough be a talkin’ point for the Repubs if they’ve been in private school.

There’s a lot of truth to what you say, in course content from kindergarten to postsecondary. We had huge public battles over our state’s history curriculum, what was in, what was out. Much more Reagan was in, indigenous history out for those where were believing in that change. They lost but we lost ground, too.

So what about Obama’s ed plan?

Heather Higginbottom, who runs Obama’s policy office at the campaign’s Chicago headquarters, cited education as one area in which Obama offers ideas that are not traditionally Democratic, arguing that the problem is not all about schools or funding, but about parents who let their children watch too much television.

Meanwhile, what the heck’s up with this? Shouldn’t Democrats be deciding their own platform? Honestly, its not transformational to simply declare a one party system. Real creative there, guys. And do other folks get to have their “platform flyers” at these things or are they love-ins for Obama? Something tells me that platform committee’s going to need a lot of attention.

“Barack Obama believes that every American should be able to contribute to the Democratic platform, just as record numbers have participated in this campaign,” deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand said.

Do Barack Obama’s children attend public school?
In: Political Office Holders [Edit]

No
the Chicago Tribune sums up some of their answers:

“My kids have gone to the University of Chicago Lab School, a private school, because I taught there,” Obama responded. “It was five minutes from our house. So it was the best option for our kids.”

Edwards said his children have all attended public schools. Clinton said her daughter, Chelsea, went to public school through 8th grade, when the family’s move to Washington required sending her to a private school because it offered more protection from the media.

I grew up in the DC suburbs and the children of many Senators and Congressmen went to my public school (back in the 70-80s). I don’t think you can underestimate the Amy Carter effect on attitudes towards public versus private school choice among politicians. The press hounded her - teachers and fellow students gave interviews - and there was nothing that could be done. A private school can enforce confidentiality rules, a public school cannot. Chelsea Clinton went private and you didn’t hear a peep about her. I can’t imagine WANTING a politician’s kid in your class. A friend’s dad was on the school board. It sucked for him.

My sister teaches at one of our old schools, and she says that you don’t see the politician’s kids so much anymore. Apparently the drop-off was when strict mandatory attendance rules came in. “We’re going back to the district for a week or two, can you give us junior’s homework” didn’t cut it anymore. So kids went to private schools, where it did.

From my current suburban (childless) viewpoint, the public versus private choice seems to be as much about lifestyle as educational quality. Acting up in a high end private school doesn’t get you a police record. In a public school it just might.

Having grown up in the suburbs of Detroit and lived in the city proper for a few years in the early 80s, I can testify that the systemic problems existed under Democratic and Republican administrations.
The city had a decent Mayor in Dennis Archer, but years of abuse have gutted the infrastructure and city services. It will be a long climb back, Essentially (from my now distant vantage point) the city of Detroit is now named Southfield. The old city is a corrupt suburb.

As for the Obama kids, if I had the opportunity to send my kids to the U of C Lab School, I would jump on it.
I take that as a sign of intelligence.
IMO, Obama learned early to pick his battles, a trait which leaves me disagreeing with him on issues where he is soft (FISA) but respecting his effectiveness in bringing change where he can.
Talking with a 20 something at work today who is a big suppporter, she told me her best friend “thinks Obama walks on water”. I replied that I hope she is not disillusioned when she realizes he is less than perfect, because he is the best I have seen in some time. But she (and others) are bound to be disappointed sooner or later.
Anyways, the Lab School is a remarkable entity, not a run-of-the-mill parochial school.

Mack, don’t know if you’ll be back…but you left Detroit before the Engler years really savaged the revenues. There may have been mismanagement, but now there is absolute chaos and devastation — and that’s become increasingly the norm across big swaths of Michigan.

Engler. Bah. His name is a curse.

Ms. Flanders, I urge you to contact a group called Critical Exposure. They take kids in the Baltimore public schools, give them cameras, let them photograph the conditions in their schools, and then arrange showings. Last year their exhibit at the statehouse in Annapolis prompted a large increase in the schools’ budget.

I can’t seem to imbed the link. It’s criticalexposure.org.

I have yet to meet, let me repeat that, yet to meet a person in there 20s or 30s who values education as much and we reviled Boomers do.

I’m not a Boomer, but I value education enough to know it should be “their” in your quote above.