Yesterday's Leftovers For 9/29/10: Making The Teachers Angrier By The Day

In an interview of full disaster yesterday, this particular comment was most alarming:

President Obama reopened Monday what is often a sore subject in Washington, saying that his daughters could not obtain from D.C. public schools the academic experience they receive at the private Sidwell Friends School.

Obama made his comments on NBC's "Today" show in response to a woman who asked whether Malia and Sasha Obama "would get the same kind of education at a D.C. public school" that they would get at the D.C. private school that has educated generations of the city's elite.

"I'll be blunt with you: The answer is no, right now," Obama said. D.C. public schools "are struggling," he said, but they "have made some important strides over the last several years to move in the direction of reform. There are some terrific individual schools in the D.C. system."

It really is disheartening to see how hell bent Obama is at wanting to push his and Arne Duncan's ridiculous reform plan that benefits no one except affluent investors at the backs of public schools getting slapped again.

One of the few excellent things on the Washington Post website, the Valerie Strauss led "The Answer Sheet", explains why it isn't surprising Sidwell would be a better educational ground for the President's daughters:

At Sidwell, a Quaker school, teachers don’t spend days drilling kids to pass standardized tests, and they aren’t evaluated by student test scores. Sidwell has small classes, a wide range of curricular and extracurricular options, tremendous facilities on two big campuses, etc. etc.

The irony is that Obama’s own education policies give standardized testing a central place in public education, though he chose a school for his children that wouldn't see that as a sound way to run an academic program.

And that right there is a major aspect gone unnoticed by NBC's, Oprah's, John Legend's, and everyone else's ignorant rush to support Obama's "Race To The Flop" agenda.

More resources (along with more support for teachers), not more "reform", is the answer to improving our rapidly declining educational system. Yet, "union bashing" and "teacher accountability" just because it makes us feel better to be lazy and point out the first to blame is the preferred option.

This along with HAMP are certainly the blackmarks in Obama's domestic policy.