DEVON GRANDY (New York, New York)
Welcome back, everybody! And yes, we know that we’re a week and change late on returning from our hiatus, but things were kind of busy. We hope you’ll forgive us, and, in compensation, would like to treat you to something of a “rant roundup”–that is, a series of crazy people saying crazy things in our Oreosphere (copyright pending).
Sandra Singh Loh, an embittered pro-Hillary public education advocate who is self-admittedly “unstable” and “[does her] research by erratically Googling from home,” has been deemed worthy of the New York Times’ webspace at their Education Watch blog. In her most recent entry, helpfully titled “The Rantings of a P.T.A. Mom,” Ms. Singh Loh, reportedly a liberal and a democrat, blasts Barack and Michelle Obama for sending their children to private school and not to a public school on Chicago’s south side. She then accuses all educated, middle class parents who send their kids to private school of “withdraw[ing], with nary a ripple, into their whispery private enclaves.”
Devon get preachy as hell over another hissy-fitting Hillary holdout, after the jump:
Perhaps most bizarre is this snippet of Ms. Singh Loh’s rant:
Let us not even touch the term “community organizer,” so buffeted about, by both sides, like a balloon at a rock concert. Let us just say that if Mr. and Mrs. Obama — a dynamic, Harvard-educated couple — had chosen public over private school, they could have lifted up not just their one local public school, but a family of schools. First, given the social pressure (or the social persuasion of wanting to belong to the cool club), more educated, affluent families would tip back into the public school fold. And second, the presence of educated type-A parents with too much time on their hands ensures that schools are held, daily, to high standards.
First–using the “keeping up with the Joneses” tactic to attract affluent, educated families to public schools is a terrible idea. A better one? Try actually making public schools better. After all, since those snobs of the educated middle-class are such money-grubbers, wouldn’t they jump at the chance to not have to pay for their children’s educations if public education were remotely on par with the quality of private schools?
Second–educated, type-A parents don’t force schools to higher standards because of their involvement. They force private schools to higher standards because, unlike public schools, the schools that these parents send their kids to actually rely upon making money to continue functioning.
What we haven’t addressed yet, of course, is Ms. Singh Loh’s accusation that the point of private school is not a better education, but rather segregating or “isolating [one's] children from the poor.” This is, of course, ridiculous. If public schools were functioning the way they are supposed to, there would be children from everywhere on the economic spectrum going to school with each other, which is the way it should be. However, considering how horrifically inadequate our public education system is in our country, particularly in the inner cities, anybody with the chance to send their kids to a private schools is trying to do so–do you really think that all those kids from inner Washington D.C. are trying to get vouchers to parochial schools because they want to learn about Jesus?
That Ms. Singh Loh would have Barack Obama jeopardize his children’s education in south Chicago’s public schools to make a political point is outlandishly inappropriate. That she would praise, of all people, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin for sending her kids to a “humble little public school” in Alaska only further demonstrates that, for Ms. Singh Loh, this article was more about the aftermath of the nomination than public education.
This half of Break Out The Oreos graduated from a private school in Hawaii, a state in which one in five children is enrolled in private education and forty-two percent of Department of Education employees send their kids to a private school. Devon’s school gives out hundred of scholarships every year for lower-income children to attend because of what is happening in Hawaii at large: an public education epidemic. Devon went to elementary school and middle school and junior high school and high school not only with the children of lawyers and doctors, but also with the children of bus drivers and postal workers, and out of all of those kids, nobody was upset that they weren’t at Roosevelt High School down the street.
This is not to say at all that public education is bad–Break Out The Oreos badly wants public education to succeed, and there are districts throughout the United States that are extremely successful in ensuring the quality of their public schooling. But you can’t criticize people for exercising their right to send their kids to private school–and with the current shape of our public education system, many of them are only doing what’s smart and right for their children. Public schools, especially urban public schools, are dying beneath the burdens of under-budgeting, a broken No Child Left Behind program, gang membership, and the threat of another school shooting. What can we do to help them?
We’ll leave you with the words of Aaron Sorkin, speaking through his character Sam Seaborn on the West Wing:
Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don’t need little changes. We need gigantic revolutionary changes. Schools should be palaces. Competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be getting six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge for its citizens, just like national defense. That is my position. I just haven’t figured out how to do it yet.
Ms. Singh Loh, stop talking now. You’re making a fool of yourself, and we’re all on the same side. Please stand with the party.
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4 comments so far...
And let us not forget that the redheaded half of BOTO attended public school herself. And look at her now.
I was so hoping that Sam Seaborn would make an appearance on this blog sooner or later. I was actually contemplating that line while I was reading this.
I say education, like every other opportunity, is what you make of it. As Matt said, the readheaded half of BOTO graduated from a public school. Nicole and many of her classmates did extremely well because they worked hard, availed themselves of as many extracurricular activities as they could fit in their schedules, and had involved, caring parents. Admittedly, the environment was better than that at a school in an impoverished, dysfunctional school district. There are no quick, easy answers, or public education in this country wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in.
I agree with Kathleen. The claim is not, of course, that children who attend public schools in dysfunctional school districts do not succeed simply because they do not try hard enough - as someone who moved to Westchester so that her children would not have to attend public junior high and high schools in New York City, Kathleen would not make such a reductionist, and untrue, argument.
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