After all, he has opposed vouchers as a repudiation of public schools and vowed not to “walk away from them.” Well, now he has a chance to prove that commitment – by following the example of Jimmy Carter by enrolling his two children in public schools in the District of Columbia.
After all, Obama did specifically criticize John McCain for trying to expand a voucher program to allow more children to leave the city’s schools.

[Time] magazine asked: “Should parents be given vouchers to enable them to send their children to any school?” Obama answered: “No: I believe that public education in America should foster innovation and provide students with varied, high-quality learning opportunities.”

Those are his words just a couple of weeks ago – words that indicate his unwillingness to help the children of the District of Columbia escape chronically failing schools. How can he and Michelle Obama then turn around and “walk away from them” by enrolling their daughters in an elite private school? Doesn’t common decency require that he give the people of the District hope for change by enrolling his own daughters in the District’s public schools – thereby making the sort of sacrifice that his policies impose upon the poor and middle class families whose children populate those schools?

And if he is unwilling to do that much, why shouldn’t he support vouchers giving the families of the children in these failing schools the roughly $15,000 in taxpayer funds that are currently squandered on schools that see only 1/8 of the students performing at grade level? While that won’t allow these children to attend the same schools that the Obamas are considering for their children (which charge nearly twice that in tuition), it would let the rest of the district’s children enroll in most of the other private schools in the area.

And why not? Shouldn’t the children of Washington, DC have the same sort of options that the president’s children have? And if they don’t, doesn’t the choice to put the girls in private schools while leaving the rest of the District’s kids trapped in substandard schools speak volumes about what Barack Obama really stands for?