United Liberty

In discussing education on The Today Show, President Barack Obama said the reason he sends his kids to a private school is because the government schools in the District of Columbia aren’t all that good:

President Obama said Monday that his daughters could not get the same level of education from D.C. public schools that they receive at the elite private school they attend.
[…]
“I’ll be blunt with you: The answer is no right now,” the president replied. The D.C. public schools, he said “are struggling.”

Obama added that the city’s schools “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.”

Because he is the president, Obama said, if he wanted to get his daughters into one of those public schools, “we could probably maneuver to do it.” But Obama said the “broader problem” is that parents without “a bunch of connections” don’t have such options.

Obama is exercising choice to send his kids to a better school. Good for him. The problem is he, while making the case for school choice, is denying those parents the ability to send their kids to a better school through the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which work and are popular, as he has supported the end expiration of these vouchers.