The liberal ruling class are the ultimate hypocrites. They doom shoolchildren to failed government-run schools but send their own kids to private ones. They force the rest of us to be in government-run healthcare in Obamacare but exempt themselves from that requirement. And when called on their ruling class hypocrisy, they throw a hissy fit and walk out. Case in point, Rahm "dead fish" Emanuel:
When Rahm's Temper Made a Comeback. Like the good Chicago liberal that he is, he is content to leave shoolchildren in filed schools and fights against vouchers that would give them access to a better education. His own kids attend private schools wouldn't you know. Whne that's pointed out, watch as he takes his ball and goes home:
...During a sit down, one-on-one interview, I asked where Emanuel's three children will attend school upon their return to Chicago.
The interview was supposed to focus on a new Emanuel initiative – the creation of an Office for New Americans – but I crammed in questions on labor, Mayor Daley’s union negotiations, and more. But when his press secretary Tarrah Cooper said time was up just 10 minutes into what was scheduled as a 20 minute interview, I tossed him the school question.
Similar to his former boss, Emanuel said it's a private decision.
A decision Emanuel doesn't want you and I to be able to get by the way.
While I appreciate the desire for privacy, I tried to explain that the Mayor’s family is now in the public eye as Chicago's First Family, and that the public would want to know whether Emanuel is confident enough in the public school system to send his own children there. But Emanuel broke in.
But here's what happened after the camera was turned off:
As I tried to explain further, Emanuel doubled back. He looked directly at my two college interns, and said, "You are my witnesses."
Then, the Mayor of Chicago positioned himself inches from my face and pointed his finger directly at my head. He raised his voice and admonished me. How dare I ask where his children would go to school!
...This was the Emanuel we had heard about, and it was one of the oddest moments in my 29 years of reporting.
My two interns followed out of City Hall and back to the station.
Several hours later I called the mayor directly since I happened on his cell number and saved it. I thought it might be best to clear the air. But no air was cleared.
“My children are private and you will not do this," he said into the receiver.
He said other children of public figures - Chelsea Clinton and the Obama girls - have been kept out of the public eye, despite media attention on the admission to the Sidwell Friends Academy in Washington D.C.
No mention of Sarah Palin's kids that were dragged through the mud by liberals. Chicago must be so proud - it has a Mayor that it deserves. Related to the above discussion:
Video: Minorities Rally for School Choice in Chicago.
Chicago parents are fed up with the shoddy education many of their kids are receiving in Chicago Public Schools and they’re no longer being silent. As a part of the DoneWaiting.org coalition – a collection of hundreds of organizations that joined together after the release of the unflinching documentary film “Waiting for ‘Superman,’” parents protested outside the school board meeting last week.
Roll the tape:
Failure is a feature, not a bug, of public schools. Keep the public dumb. Needy. Wanting more government that Democrats are only all too willing to provide. Voucher systems have been successful wherever they have been honestly tried. Which is why the Democrats have killed such programs. What the MSM has done its best to do is to lose this down the memory hole, as it is an utterly shameful act by Obama and Congressional Democrats in deep-sixing the successful voucher program in D.C., dooming 1,800 low-income mostly black students to one
of the worst educational systems in the country (the worst is DPS -Detroit Public Schools, which I have bogged about
ad infinitum here):
Education secretary Arne Duncan referred to DC public schools as a district with “
more money than God.” More than $28,000 per student. Failing miserably. The only success in that district was a voucher program that
Obama attacked, even though vouchers cost
a quarter (that's right - 25%) of the $28,000 number and helped the students. Should Obama get his head screwed on straight (
good luck with that one), he will announce today to all students that since vouchers have been a smashing success in D.C., proved by concrete educational data, they should be a smashing success elsewhere. I mean -wouldn't that be a move to "
restore scientific integrity in governmental decision making?" Especially since vouchers are proven to help students and drive down costs?
But that is not what anyone will hear. That's because Obama and his administration hid data indicating the program's successful educational results as they pushed Congressional Democrats to scrap the program. After all, they have the teachers unions to protect.
The WSJ published an article a while back about the shenanigans:
It's bad enough that Democrats are killing a program that parents love and is closing the achievement gap between poor minorities and whites. But as scandalous is that the Education Department almost certainly knew the results of this evaluation for months.
Voucher recipients were tested last spring. The scores were analyzed in the late summer and early fall, and in November preliminary results were presented to a team of advisers who work with the Education Department to produce the annual evaluation. Since Education officials are intimately involved in this process, they had to know what was in this evaluation even as Democrats passed (and Mr. Obama signed) language that ends the program after next year.
Opponents of school choice for poor children have long claimed they'd support vouchers if there was evidence that they work. While running for President last year, Mr. Obama told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that if he saw more proof that they were successful, he would "not allow my predisposition to stand in the way of making sure that our kids can learn . . . You do what works for the kids." Except, apparently, when what works is opposed by unions.
Mr. Duncan's office spurned our repeated calls and emails asking what and when he and his aides knew about these results. We do know the Administration prohibited anyone involved with the evaluation from discussing it publicly. You'd think we were talking about nuclear secrets, not about a taxpayer-funded pilot program. A reasonable conclusion is that Mr. Duncan's department didn't want proof of voucher success to interfere with Senator Dick Durbin's campaign to kill vouchers at the behest of the teachers unions.
The decision to let 1,700 poor kids get tossed from private schools is a moral disgrace. It also exposes the ugly politics that lies beneath union and liberal efforts across the country to undermine mayoral control, charter schools, vouchers or any reform that threatens their monopoly over public education dollars and jobs. The Sheldon Silver-Dick Durbin Democrats aren't worried that school choice doesn't work. They're worried that it does, and if Messrs. Obama and Duncan want to succeed as reformers they need to say so consistently.
Ouch. Read the whole thing as it is a very worthy read. There's more and it is equally devastating. There is not enough shame to be heaped on the heads of Democrats for this obscenity of a decision. In Arizona, the school choice program there has been targeted for termination as well:
Video: Arizona School Choice Fight Goes to U.S. Supreme CourtIt took Hurricane Katrina to
change things for New Orleans Schools:
What is Detroit to do - hope for a meteor strike?
