WWOD? Now we know.
The Wall Street Journal’s Bill McGurn (and lots of others) wonders: What will Obama do on school choice? Now we know (via The Corner):
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.
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.
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.
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.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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June 17th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I am no fan of Obama, but what’s the counter argument to this? There are a lot of kids who have parents who simply don’t or can’t care about them. Kids who would benefit from a more productive learning environment (and no, I’m not advocating forced integration). So how will charter schools help this?
June 18th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
It seems to me that Senator Obama stated that he is in favor of choice for parents, as long as it takes place within the public school system. There are quite a few successful charter schools across the country as well as innovative public school programs that are seeing academic success. Why does choice have to involve students going to private and parochial schools? These schools do not always mean a strong learning environment and do not guarantee success for the student.