Every honest person knows how truly inferior most urban public schools are. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel knows this as well as anyone, which is why he decided to send his kids to a private school this fall. Not just any private school—the most prestigious, expensive school he could find—the University of Chicago Lab Schools.
He is in good company. When the Obamas lived in Chicago, they too sent their children to the same elitist school. Chicago’s previous mayor, Richard Daley, also refused to expose his children to the public schools. Nor were public schools good enough for Rev. Jesse Jackson’s kids.
Who can blame them? Fully 40 percent of Chicago’s public school teachers elect to send their own children to private schools.
None of this would matter if these same rich people who think the public schools are inferior to private ones would support school vouchers for the poor. But they don’t.
Emanuel said that if he sent his kids to a public school, his “unbelievably smart” kids would figure it out. “They know if they become instruments or second priorities,” he said. Newsflash: even kids not as “unbelievably smart” as his know when they are not a top priority, and none know it better than those forced to go to schools shunned by the rich.
This begs the question: if urban public schools aren’t good enough for rich kids, whose kids are they fit for?
