The fact that Democrat lawmakers hold double standards in terms of their own behavior vs. their political stands is not new. (I should note here that Republicans have their own issues in this regard, including their failure to hold down spending during the recent Bush administration and certain legislators (e.g., Senator Vitter) whom have run on family values have gotten caught in sex scandals.) What's particularly notable here is McGurn's quoting Obama himself, expressing his frustration as a community organizer trying to reform Chicago schools:
The biggest source of resistance [to reform] was rarely talked about...namely, the uncomfortable fact that every one of our churches was filled with teachers, principals, and district superintendents. Few of these educators sent their own children to public schools; they knew too much for that. But they would defend the status quo with the same skill and vigor as their white counterparts of two decades before.
So, Mr. President, if it is hypocritical for a black city teacher to send her kids to a private school, why isn't it all the more so for a politician supporting public school monopolies to do so? And given Obama's focus on positive rights to empower people to pursue happiness, how can he consistently argue for health care access but not access to quality education?
To every failing public school, to every school with a 50% graduation attrition rate, schools graduating students whom are functionally illiterate, there are school teachers, administrators, and school boards, willing to place the blame on everyone else than themselves--name the excuse: irresponsible parents, inadequate school funding, stunted social spending, etc. Competition is seen as a zero-sum game as liberals attempt to deprive poor and middle-class parents the same opportunity as Barack Obama and others (including, as Barack noted above, the very same vested interests whom don't want to eat their own cooking).
Every once in a while Obama flirts with reformist ideas, such as charter schools as public school competition, merit pay, higher standards, and rooting out bad teachers. Given the fact that his own Illinois senior senator, Dick Durbin, is leading the charge to kill the school voucher program the Parkers are using, his rhetoric is empty.
What does it profit a man, Mr. Obama, if you gain the Presidency, but lose your soul? Isn't it time for you to show some moral toughness and take on the teacher unions whom fight reform tooth-and-nail? Haven't Democrats over the past 4 decades thrown more and more money at failing schools, throwing good money after bad, turning down almost every attempt to provide less financially able parents the same opportunity to enroll their children in quality private schools, as it were, holding the children's future hostage to idiosyncratic union demands, putting their own interests first? These people are more interested in protecting the rights of unsatisfactory teachers than ensuring Johnny knows how to read or has the preparation needed to succeed in college. I'm not interested in your paying mere lip service; these vested interests will simply ignore your good wishes and steamroll proponents of educational choice, leaving poor parents with no realistic alternative for their children's future? That's a disgrace. I'm not speaking as someone with kids in school or with investments in educational alternaives. I really do care about what happens to those families being sacrificed at the expense of the Senator Durbins in the world, willing to pay down a debt for past and future support for their own political future. Mr. President, it's time to fish or cut bait.
