D.C. Mayor puts kids in public school and gets school choice at the same time

When D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty took over DCPS a couple of years ago he promised to move his two sons from private to public school.  Turns out he stuck to his word although it proved difficult for the press to obtain this information.  The reason?  Mr. Fenty did what all arrogant politicians do and put his children not in the neighborhood school, West Elementary, at 14th and Farragut Streets that has failed to make AYP for a couple of years, but instead enrolled them at a much better institution, Lafayette Elementary, which is located in Chevy Chase, and whose students score over 90 percent proficient or above in both reading and math.

Of course all parents want to do what's best for their children.  But what is driving me mad is that he and President Obama are so dead set against giving this chance to everyone else.  Mr. Fenty is silently watchings as Congress moves to kill the Opportunity Scholarship Program and he refused to stand up to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and the President when they pulled back from 216 kids their admission to private schools under the voucher plan. 

This country is beginning to look a lot like the old Soviet Union when regular citizens were starving on the streets but the dictators were living the lives of kings.  This attitude is reflected in the health care debate.  At the town hall meetings politicians have been repeatedly asked whether if there is a public option they will have to join the plan.  Their response, "Congress has its own insurance coverage."

You think I'm exaggerating?  Well today the editors of the Washington Post again call on the President to renew the Opportunity Scholarship Program, not only due to a recent study that concluded that  "the D.C. voucher program has proven to be the most effective education policy evaluated by the federal government's official education research arm so far," but because sending kids to public schools may result in their death. 

The editors quote a new study by the Heritage and Lexington Institutes which shows that for the 2007 - 2008 term in the 70 public schools that the 216 students who were denied scholarships are assigned to there were 2,379 crime related incidents, with 666 of these categorized as violent and one classified as a homicide.

In a situation like this a parent must do whenever they can to move their child from the neighborhood school.  But for Mr. Obama and Fenty what is good or them is not O.K. for everyone else.