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PAGE: Side trip to shop schools

By Clarence Page | Saturday, November 15, 2008

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Parenting humbles any of us who try it -- even new residents of the White House.

Choosing a new puppy? Ha! The Obamas face a much tougher public relations dilemma: Are they willing to put their school-aged daughters where daddy's political promises have been?

The education world is waiting to see whether Sasha, 7, and Malia, 10, will be sent to private school while their father continues to oppose tax-supported programs that offer a similar choice to less-fortunate parents.

The question of vouchers as an alternative to public schools crosses color lines, but it is particularly appropriate for the nation's first African-American president.

Black students disproportionately find themselves in underperforming schools. In fact, opinion polls by think tanks like the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies have found black parents favor vouchers by larger majorities than white parents do.

Yet teachers unions lead opposition to such alternatives, even though studies like a 2004 Thomas B. Fordham Institute report find big city public school teachers to be more likely than the general population they serve to have their own children in private schools.

In Mr. Obama's hometown, Chicago, for example, 38.7 percent of public school teachers sent their children to private schools, the Fordham study found, compared to 22.6 percent of the general public.

In Washington, D.C., 26.8 percent of public school teachers sent their children to private schools, versus 19.8 percent of the public.

A voucher program Congress imposed on the District in 2004, which granted $7,500 a year for 1,903 students, emerged as an issue in Barack Obama's third televised debate with Sen. John McCain.